which do you need

Toll Free or Local Number: Which One Does Your Business Need?

Something as simple as a phone number isn’t often on the minds of entrepreneurs starting a business for the first time. With most business tools found in the cloud or on your computer, you probably won’t need to worry about your phones until you have at least a few customers. As your company grows and evolves, the number of phone calls you have to handle will increase, and having a professional business number provided by a reliable virtual phone number service will prove to be invaluable. This leaves you with an important choice to make: should you go with a local or toll-free phone number? These different types of phone numbers provide a similar user experience, but offer a diverse range of opportunities along the way, making it critical that you consider them carefully. What Are They? When setting up a business phone system, you’ll need to choose the right …

StephanieToll Free or Local Number: Which One Does Your Business Need?

How You Should React to Missed or Lost Business Calls

Although you can take measures to ensure that you just about never miss a call, ever, it’s inevitable that it will happen from time to time when a caller slips through the cracks for some reason. A proper phone system and call log can almost completely eliminate the possibility of missed or lost calls, but you should nonetheless have procedures and standards in place for those times when it does happen. Customers who are calling you expect to be taken care of, and quickly, which is why the tips in this post are helpful to you as a business owner. Make Sure a Record of All Calls is Saved When you miss a call, there’s going to be a record of it in your system’s log or in the actual device where it came in, but that’s not always the case. When a call is missed and you don’t have …

StephanieHow You Should React to Missed or Lost Business Calls

Does Your Phone System Need a Call Menu? Here’s How to Tell

  As a small business, especially a new one, one of the best features you can add to your phone system is the same one that you probably don’t even consider. That’s the call menu. A call menu is simultaneously one of the most useful and underrated features that you can have for your business phone system. Here, we’re going to go over all the ways that a call menu can benefit your business and whether or not it will be helpful for you.   Do You Have Persistent Issues When People Call You?   There are a lot of signs that you might be in need of this feature. Do people complain when they call you, of having trouble getting through to you, or being connected to the wrong person? Do your callers tell you that your business doesn’t seem like it’s very professional? If you routinely receive complaints …

StephanieDoes Your Phone System Need a Call Menu? Here’s How to Tell
Text Messaging Small Business

Text Messaging & Small Business: Why Text is So Important

We live in a much different world today, and small business can be said to be at the forefront of changing times because commerce usually leads the push into the future. That’s a much larger conversation, of course, but one of the things that serves as a perfect example of this change is text messaging in business. Not only do you probably communicate a great deal with your colleagues and employees through text, but the need for text with your customers has most likely been developing for a few years now. If you’re like most small businesses, customers are increasingly contacting you with a text message, rather than a phone call. As is always the case with advancing technology in business, you are forced to either get on board or be left behind. This is why text messaging is so important. We All Prefer Text, and Customers are No Exception …

StephanieText Messaging & Small Business: Why Text is So Important
keys to find perfect number

5 Keys to Help You Find the Perfect Business Phone Number

Choosing a new phone number for your business can drive you crazy, as there are so many options and factors to consider when you want it to be just right. There are a few guidelines, however, that you can use to save yourself time and frustration while looking at options for your new business number. First off, if you already have a number that you’ve been using for your business, then there’s no reason you should have to trash it and get a new one. Many new business owners feel that they need a separate number for the business because they’ve been using a cell phone or landline number up until now. That’s not a great idea if any of your customers already have the original number, and even if you don’t like it, an established number is better than a brand-new number that people will have to relearn. If …

Stephanie5 Keys to Help You Find the Perfect Business Phone Number

Why You Need More than a Cell Phone to Run Your Business

There inevitably comes a time when your business outgrows your cell phone, at which time you’re going to need some kind of a system. Running your business from a cell phone works great at first; however, when a ton of orders start to come in, call volume increases dramatically, and you begin to hire employees, the capacity of your single cell phone will hit its limit. If you’re still relying solely on your cell, then these are issues that you’re likely already becoming concerned with. What follows are the key issues that you can easily address by adding a virtual phone system to your cell phone to manage every aspect of your business professionally. Professional-Grade Voicemail Voicemail is one of the first things that will require your attention. A standard, personal voice mailbox that comes with your phone just isn’t equipped to handle all of the messages for your business. …

StephanieWhy You Need More than a Cell Phone to Run Your Business

10 Phone System Terms You Probably Misunderstood

  As users of phone systems, people generally assume that they understand most things about them and what all the words mean because after all, we’ve all used phones for our whole lives. The only problem with that is, phone systems have changed quite a bit over the past few decades, and the words have changed, too. In the first place, you may have misunderstood some terms the whole time, anyway. In this post, you’ll see 10 phone system terms that you may or may not be familiar with, and the explanations for each.   1. Port   The term, “port” is not exactly common knowledge; however, just about every adult alive today has ported a phone number, whether they realize it or not. A port is simply the transfer of service for a phone number, from one service provider to another. So, if you have ever switched cell phone …

Stephanie10 Phone System Terms You Probably Misunderstood

5 Things You Shouldn’t Tell a Customer On the Phone

Phone calls with customers are peculiar situations because, first of all, they’re still a pretty essential method of serving customers, even in the age of the Internet. Also, a representative of your business needs to conduct themselves a little differently than they would if they were speaking to someone in person. We obviously have to be courteous, polite, and helpful as always, in the same way that we would be in an in-person meeting, but customers almost expect an even higher standard of service and bedside manner, as it were, when they’re on the phone with you. Most of the time, we intuitively know what kinds of things we should and should not say to a caller; however, there are a few things that we either let slip from time to time, or don’t realize at the time that it was a mistake. What follows here are 5 things that …

Stephanie5 Things You Shouldn’t Tell a Customer On the Phone

Why VoIP Phone Service is More Trouble than It’s Worth

There are many different types of phone service. With our technology today, you can literally have your pick of a variety of service providers that will fit your particular business the best. Given that advanced technology, however, VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) systems are beginning to trail behind because the virtual phone systems available now have everything you get with VoIP, but better and more versatile. There are still applications where VoIP has value, for sure. The only problem with them, though, is that you can get more while investing less with a virtual phone system. If you’re in the market for a VoIP service provider, here’s why you may want to reconsider that. There May Be More Cost than You Bargained For Where a virtual service usually just needs you to sign up, and be up and running in an hour at most, a VoIP service isn’t that simple. …

StephanieWhy VoIP Phone Service is More Trouble than It’s Worth

7 Ways to Improve Your Phone System with Automation

Automation for phone systems was one of the most important things that was ever created for businesses. It’s honestly kind of crazy not to take advantage of automation for managing your business calls because it does nothing but add value for you, across the board. It saves time, saves labor, gives the caller a better experience, and prevents you from losing sales due to confused or frustrated callers. There are a variety of ways that automation can enable your phone system to function better, and here are a few of those benefits. 1. Create a Company Directory Even if you only have a small number of employees, adding a company directory allows you to professionally direct callers to the right person, right away. With a directory, there is no need for them to speak to a representative before they can be transferred to the right person because you can eliminate …

Stephanie7 Ways to Improve Your Phone System with Automation