January 19th, 2010
Cisco 504G now Available
Vocalocity is pleased to announce that we now carry a new phone in our line-up of high quality business IP phones. The Cisco 504G is a superb desk phone with excellent sound quality, 4 line appearances, power over Ethernet, and more. Cisco is a worldwide leader in VoIP technology, providing high quality business technology at a reasonable price. The new Cisco 504G is available from Vocalocity for only 129.99, and is an excellent choice for your small business. To read more about the 504G and other phone features please click here.
January 5th, 2010
Voicemail Transcription is a new favorite at Vocalocity
I was pretty skeptical about how useful adding a Voicemail Transcription feature to Vocalocity service would be for our customers prior to using it, but I have to admit after two months of having it enabled that it is now probably my favorite Vocalocity feature.
Between meetings, putting out fires and trying to help new customers come on board with Vocalocity, I barely have time to call into my extension or run to my desk to check my voicemails. My Blackberry is the only thing that keep me in touch with everybody, so I used to just use it to listen to my messages as MP3’s utilizing voicemail-to-email. The problem was that I would be in a meeting and see I had a voicemail, but I had no way of knowing whether the message was urgent or not without rudely playing the message out loud or holding my phone to my face. Sometimes I would excuse myself to listen to the message, but more often than not it was just a sales rep from another company trying to sell me something. I know, I should be sympathetic to hard working sales people, but it still wasn’t a good reason to step away from what I was busy with in the first place.
What Voicemail Transcription enables me to do is quickly scan the text in my voicemail-to-email alerts and determine whether or not this message needs immediate attention. Sure, sometimes the text doesn’t capture every word exactly, but it’s close enough to let me know who is calling and what they are calling about. It also helps us screen messages and get them in right hands quickly. If I read that a voicemail is better addressed by somebody else, I can shoot it their way as easily as forwarding an email without having to listen to it at all.
If you’re a Blackberry junky like me that relies on their smart phone to keep in touch, you’ll fall in love with the ability to read your voicemails instantly without going through the process of listening to them. Don’t take my word for it though. You’ve got a 30 day free trial to see for yourself.
Brian Koles
Sales Manager, Vocalocity
November 10th, 2009
What’s the Best IP PBX?
Virtual PBX vs. Hosted PBX
The terms “Virtual” and “Hosted” get tossed around pretty loosely when people are talking about IP PBX’s (short for Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange). This can be confusing and misleading for people researching a new phone system. Both are PBX’s, in that they offer the functionality of a private branch exchange for inbound calls, but they are very different in terms of the comprehensiveness of their service.
No Outbound Calling with Virtual
The most significant difference between hosted and virtual is that a virtual PBX is a one-way street. Think of a virtual PBX as call forwarding on steroids. A true Hosted PBX is a total business VoIP phone solution that provides inbound call routing and outbound phone service. Many virtual PBX’s tend to highlight their inexpensive cost, but gloss over the fact that you’ll need to pay a separate company for a separate phone service in order to make outbound calls. This is why in a side by side matchup virtual PBX’s look like a more attractive cost solution: because it’s not an apples to apples comparison.
Equipment-Wise, Things are Simpler
On the surface both PBX’s look very similar because they are services that you subscribe to instead of physical units that you purchase. Thus maintenance is much easier; extensions are easily added or removed, and voicemail and auto-attendants are standard features. But why split the inbound and outbound functionality for your business VoIP phone system between 2 different companies and 2 different services? Isn’t the point of an advanced phone system to simplify and streamline your communications? The truth is that cobbling together unassociated services does not make things more reliable, more efficient, or less expensive.
One Thing at a Time
A Hosted PBX, which is synonymous with Hosted VoIP, provides an all encompassing phone solution. Unlimited outbound calling, toll free numbers, extensions, auto-attendants and much more are all covered for a flat rate. The predictability of billing through a hosted PBX, not to mention the single bill to pay, is much more reliable and convenient for a small business than a virtual PBX. When you evaluate the real cost of a Hosted PBX and compare it with a Virtual PBX adjusted for the additional cost of outbound phone lines and toll free numbers through another service, a Hosted PBX is clearly the more cost efficient solution.
October 15th, 2009
5 Tips to Maximize Your Vocalocity Auto Attendant
The auto attendant is a powerful part of Vocalocity’s service. Here are 5 examples of how our customers have taken advantage of the feature.
- Direct calls to different parts of your company, even if they are in different parts of the country. The auto attendant can bring different offices together under the same phone tree, giving a professional and unified appearance to callers.
- Give directions and notify callers of hours of operation. The autoattendant recording is fully customizable and can play answers to the most commonly asked questions for your business.
- Take reservations in off hours. By instructing callers what message to leave, the autoattendant is the perfect maitre d’. Order placements can also be easily routed to the correct Voicemail box by using the auto attendant.
- Play marketing messages while calls are transferred. On hold music in the auto attendant can easily be replaced with recordings announcing different deals or services to bring an added level of marketing to inbound calls.
- Give a bigger company appearance. With the auto attendant you can give the impression of a multi-department company, even if you only have a couple of employees, or are a sole proprietor. Having different extensions gives a company a more professional customer facing presence. The streamlined functionality of a hosted PBX allows you to manage calls efficiently and improves your overall company image.
October 8th, 2009
Earn Referral Credits from Vocalocity
Vocalocity is always looking for new benefits to bring to our customers. Now your employees can also benefit from our referral program. We are offering referral credits, not only to our account owners but for employees as well. If you have a business to refer you can earn $200 cash, and a $100 credit to your account. Just go to referrals.vocalocity.com if you have a business to refer and start saving even more on your phone service!
October 7th, 2009
Welcome
Welcome to the Vocalocity Blog! The blog is a new feature of our brand new website, and it’s the place for news and announcements about services and features. We’ll bring you the latest developments, industry news, as well as updates from different members of our company with insights on operations and best practices. Here are some of the announcements you can expect to find here:
• New Features
• Special Pricing
• Industry News
• Customer Success Stories
• Best Practices
• And more!
We’ll feature our customers here, and bring you case studies into how different small business owners are benefitting from our service. Please check back soon for more news!