BUSINESS PHONE NEWS

Where's the Love? New AT&T Small Business Phone System Panned by 10 out of 10 Online Reviewers

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Has AT&T created an "Edsel" with its new small business phone system dubbed MS2085?

You'd think so by reading the one star (out of five) reviews the new 4-line system is getting on multiple online review websites including Amazon, BestBuy, Staples and Office Depot. 

We're not trying to create or jump on an anti-AT&T business phone system bandwagon. In fact there are some AT&T phone systems we like such as their SynJ^® SB67138 line that we did a mini-review of on this post. 

If you watch the AT&T promotional video we've shared below, the MS2085 would seem to be an easy answer for small branch offices that can get by with four phone lines or less.  

But as you can see from some of the review quotes below (we found 10 bad reviews out of 10 on 4/23/13) small business owners that purchased the system trying to save money did not save money and only earned a headache for their trouble in addition to the frustration of having to return the phones.

 

Sample Quotes from Online Reviews

"I never write reviews, but couldn't go past this one. Very disappointed to return this phone. I've searched for a new phones for my business for such a long time, and now I am still stuck in a middle of nowhere. Well..."

"This phone might seem good at first but once it's in use you will soon realize that it is about as useful as a paper holder. We are always loosing calls from our customers. We will go to answer the phone and it will hang up on them. Some customers will try and call 4 times before they will finally get through."

"This phone is a pile of discounted garbage. You can't get a clear line on it, hold a 3 way conversation, pull phone numbers and redial easily. You have degraded a great phone line. This was our 7th AT&T Phone. Now, we have to start shopping other lines. We are returning it. Each day becomes another issue. Tech support is a joke. Your manual is confusing and online support doesn't exist."

I could post more reviews but reading them proved too painful for someone like me that consults and sells business phone systems for a living.

 

How Do You Find a Phone System You'll Love?  Call Us!

We're not against buying cheap business phone systems from a big box warehouse distributor as evidenced on this post. We've helped hundreds of business customers of every size choose the right system for their budget and their unique requirements. 

You don't need to buy the most expensive system to get good quality. You don't even need to buy a new system as there are plenty of great deals to be had from buying a used phone system.

Give us a call. In just a couple minutes on the phone we can let you know if the phone system you're looking at is the right deal at the right price or a headache waiting to happen.

 

Overview Video of the AT&T MS2085 Phone System for Small Businesses

  

Feeling Lucky Installing a Do-it-Yourself Phone System? How about one that requires no installation (or luck)?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Just because Leprechaun season is fast approaching doesn't mean tiny men with golden promises should be put in charge of choosing your next business phone system.

But I know it's tempting...

If you check out the video below you might be left with the impression that the most difficult part of installing a business phone system is getting the phone system's key service unit out of all the bubble wrap it's shipped in.

While bubble wrap can certainly be a problem, the bigger problem for small business owners is thinking that their next phone system is not more complicated to choose then their last phone system was to choose.

 

Does Your Current Cell Phone Look Like the One You Owned Five Years Ago?

The cell phone you owned five years ago made phone calls and had all your contacts on speed dial. The "smart phone" in your pocket now has all your business contact phone numbers AND access to all your business software applications that you can't possibly live without.

If you couldn't conduct business with the cell phone you had five years ago, why do you think you can do business with the same office phone system technology that you purchased for your office ten years ago?  You can't. You'd be better off only doing business with your smart phone then trying to conduct any sort of office business on an "old-school" phone system.

 

How Do You Find an Office Phone System That Works as Well as Your Smart Phone?

Step one is to seriously consider an office phone system that has all it's "smarts" in the cloud - just like your smart phone.

The small business phone system in the video below is "old-school" because it requires a key service unit or KSU be mounted somewhere on your business property and then connected to all your desk phones and dial-tone. The only problem for this design is that all your employees are now required to be in your office for this to work

What if you have more than one office?  What if your employees are always on the move? What if, like your smart phone, you need your office phone to interact with other business applications like GPS or voice recognition?  

 

You Can Afford a "Smart" Phone System IF The "Smarts" are IN THE CLOUD

You don't own the GPS technology in your smart phone that helps navigate your from one business appointment to another - you just rent it on a monthly basis as part of your cell phone bill.  It's a good thing that you don't own it because you likely couldn't afford it and you don't have the room for the computer that makes it work.

It's OK to rent the "business smarts" that your company needs to stay connected.

In today's ever evolving business environment it's difficult to be able to predict how many employees you'll need in one office or another or if the people you'll need will even be working out of an office.

 

Call Us to Explore the Modern Hosted Cloud Phone System Solutions

Just as do-it-yourself old-fashioned "box" phone systems come in hundreds of sizes and styles, so do the more modern "cloud hosted" phone systems. 

Some are based on proprietary Broadsoft technology and others are based on Metaswitch. Still others are designed on "open" Asterisk software and are reported to be cheaper but less secure to hacking. Which is a safe option for your business?

Call us and let us know what's important about the way your business will be doing business over the next couple years. As independent business technology sales partners we're experts at matching you with the vendor or combination of vendors best suited to your business vision AND your budget.

 

This Might Be the Best Business Phone System Solution For You if ...

In all fairness to the fellow in this video, this is a perfectly reasonable business phone system solution for single location businesses that have just a few employees and the way they "do business" is very old-school (and they do not expect that to ever change).

 

 

Here's Your 5-Point 2013 Office Communications Technology Checklist (to Not Get Fired)

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Sure, the economy seems to be picking up a bit but 2013 would still be a rotten year to get fired by your boss (or your customers).  

To help you keep your job (or make more money), following is a short, 5-point checklist of what you need to be looking at in the area of "office communications technology".

Please run through this checklist as soon as you can because "unified communications" is getting cheaper and sticking with outdated technology is getting more expensive.

1. Connect Your Offices Better - The same connections that connect your computers together in your office are now inexpensively available to connect your offices together in a secure environment.

Ethernet & MPLS are two technologies that allow any business owner to use to connect the local area network (LAN) of each separate office over a single wide area network (WAN) to eliminate the perceived communications barrier of distance.

 

2. Bond Better Bandwidth - If the contracts for the bandwidth you're using to connect your offices together or to connect to the internet are more than twelve months old then you're either paying too much or you're missing out on needed diversity.

Most MPLS WANs that have been around for a while are creeping along at T-1 speeds of 1.54 megs at very high prices. If you're got a T-1 based MPLS, make sure you're getting the best price and check out how cheaply you can "bond" more and better bandwidth to or around your current WAN connections.

What constitutes "better"? Cheaper and faster. While an MPLS network is still viewed by many as the most secure way to communicate critical data between locations, not all of your business traffic needs to traverse over a gold-plated WAN. Take all your business "junk" data traffic off your MPLS and route it over low-cost data connections like cable, DSL or satellite using either equipment or software that shapes and prioritizes your business data traffic.

 

3. Unify Your Phone System in the Cloud - Seriously, why is your phone system still in your broom closet, server room or basement? While a reasonable argument can still be made that owning a phone system might be cheaper in the long run than "renting" one via many current "hosted VoIP" or "unified communications" business phone system solutions, even businesses that own their own phone systems are moving them to "the cloud".

If you're a business owner with multiple locations you already know how important it is to have your multiple locations all function as one. Just as you can connect your multiple local area network computers over a single wide area network you can now connect the desk and mobile phones of all your offices and remote employees over a single phone system.

If you own more than one phone system or callers to your main phone number can't be routed to any employee or any office then 2013 should be the year that you change that. The technology to accomplish this has been real world tested for over a decade and it's finally affordable.

 

4. Become Indestructible - How many single points of failure do you have engineered into your multi-location business critical voice and date systems? What happens if your basement floods? What happens if your main telecom carrier goes down? What happens if your employees can not physically be present in one or more of your offices for a week?

If you've already implemented the first three points on this list then you're already half-prepared to become an indestructible, fully-redundant, self-healing business. To become a fully indestructible business simply go through your wide area network diagram and start "breaking connections" and blowing up servers.

If one communication path is blocked, where's the re-route? If one application or data set is destroyed, where is the backup and how quickly is it moved from secondary to primary? You'll soon see that having multiple network service connections from multiple vendors that can also provide "managed services" like remote data backup and remote hosted applications can easily make you completely indestructible without your having to buy more in-house equipment or software.

 

5. Eliminate all Desk Chairs - By completing the first four items on this list you'll have prepared all your non-human business assets for increased profitability. To properly prepare your employees to take advantage of your office communication technology upgrades, eliminate all desk chairs.

Think about it. Can your employees shake hands with new prospects or current customers while sitting at their desk? Why are they sitting at their desks anyway? Probably because there's a chair there.

If your best employees insist that there are profit increasing activities that they can only engage in while parked at their desk, make a list of all those activities so you can find, migrate or create an office software application that can allow that activity to be completed using a smartphone or tablet computer while your best employees are visiting with customers or prospects or traveling between costumers and prospects.

 

Who Can Help You With These Checklist Items? Call Us!

Office communications technology is blurring the lines between phones, computers and "the cloud". It's also getting cheaper and more complicated every day.

To help you decide whether the business communication technology advances of 2012 mandate that you spend or move money around differently in 2013 talk to a business communication technology expert. Click here to find one near you.

 

Keywords: office communication technology, application, redundant, self-healing, business phone system, cloud, hosted voip, unified communications, MPLS, wan, cable, dsl, satellite, t-1, bandwidth, ethernet, lan, local area network, wide area network, checklist. Image: iStock

The Two Biggest Business Communication Technology Stories from 2012

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Trying to get your best people out of their desks and in front of your customers and prospects?

If so, 2012's top two business communication technology stories helped make that easier.

1. Microsoft Rolls Out Their New Operating System - This is a big deal for business owners that are still running their shops on an older Microsoft operating system like XP or older thinking that they'll upgrade after they get a chance to look at Microsoft's new OS.  

Well it's time to look and decide whether you want to keep the old OS another year or whether the time is finally right to get into "unified communications & collaboration" or simply "UCC".

Microsoft has designed Windows 8 to pull all their shared computing and communications solutions together including Windows Phone, Lync and Office 365. If your business runs on Microsoft software, 2012 is the year that Microsoft removed all your "we're-not-ready-for-unified-communications" excuses.

If you want to know the "presence" of all your employees all the time and then be able to instantly communicate with them via instant message (IM), voice, video or conference using almost any end-point (phone, tablet, PC, etc.) then Microsoft has a solution for you that works.

 

2. Microsoft, Google and Apple All Target Your Tablet - While Apple re-invented the tablet by bringing out the iPad a couple years ago, most business owners could be forgiven for not buying one for each employee. In 2012 though business owners started wondering if tablet-powered employees might be the secret to increased productivity. Thoughts like these tend to proliferate when you see the three biggest tech companies all battling it out in the 2012 "tablet wars".

While business owners and their IT managers used to be devising ways to keep employees blocked out of time-wasting tablet apps, now they're thinking how do we migrate our own critical business applications onto these tablet devices and then get our employees in front of more customers?

 

How Do You Capitalize on Business Communication Technology Advances? Call Us!

Unified communications is blurring the lines between phones, computers and "the cloud". To help you decide whether the business communication technology advances of 2012 mandate that you spend or move money around differently in 2013 talk to a business communication technology expert. Click here to find one near you.

 

Keywords: Microsoft, Google, Apple, Tablet, business communication, technology, windows 8, lync, 360, presence, instantly communicate, instant message, IM, voice, video conference

How to Access Avaya, Adtran or Samsung Business Phone Solutions Through the Tech Vendor of Your Choice

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Can separate technology equipment vendors really work together successfully to provide business end users with critical productivity applications that require integrated telecommunications solutions?

Not usually (or not cheaply).

Over the past decade a serious problem has occurred to the "interconnect" businesses across the US that have always been available to help small businesses keep their PBX phones running. The problem is many of them have gone out of business and the ones that are left have little interest or time for multi-vendor integration projects that don't have very fat margins.

 

If Your Phone Guy Won't Sell You IT, Get Your IT Guy to Sell You Phones

Right after "We want it to cost less", the number two request of most business owners of any communication technology integration project is, "I want just one throat to choke!"  For many businesses, this second request is really the first such that they'd actually pay more for a solution if they can get a single vendor to "own" the whole solution.

Enter the ICP or "integrated communications provider".

ICP's can be phone guys that now help their customers with their IT networks or IT guys that now install phones. This ability to "single source" integrated communication solutions that mix phones, computers and smartphones makes business customers more competitive (and their ICP vendor more profitable).

 

How Hard is Selling & Installing Business Phone Systems?

Not that hard if it's done through NTS Direct.  Despite their name, NTS does not sell Avaya, Samsung or Adtran phone systems directly to business end-users, but they do help design, sell and support these business phone system installations through almost any sort of technology company that may have customers asking for single source solutions that will include one of these three phone systems.

As phone systems become just "one more application" on a businesses integrated voice and data network, business customers that like the Avaya, Adtran or Samsung phone system equipment solutions can stick with these phone systems AND get them installed and serviced through the tech vendor of their choice - through NTS Direct.

Click here to download a whitepaper interview with Scott Davis, President of NTS Direct and read how their Avaya, Samsung and Adtran affiliate program works to help business customers single source integrated communications solutions through the tech or IT vendor of their choice.

 

The Best of Both Worlds? Yes!

Multi-location businesses in the US have significant existing investments in Avaya, Adtran and Samsung business phone system equipment equipment. For one reason or another though many no longer have a relationship with the business phone system interconnect company that initially sold them their phone system.

Now, through NTS Direct, any business that has Avaya, Adtran or Samsung phone equipment (or wants it) can access it through the local tech or IT vendor of their choice so that the customer can have the "single source solution" that they want for their converged voice and data telecom solution.

If you don't yet have a preferred ICP or "integrated communications professional" to be your single source solution, click here to find a recommended Telecom Association solutions partner in your local metro area to help you. You can also contact me for a customized referral.

Did You Buy a Super Cheap Asterisk IP-PBX Business VoIP Phone System? Better watch your phone bill ...

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

In today's tough economy, business owners understandably want to conserve cash wherever possible so when they learn how they can save $10,000 or more on a new VoIP business phone system, many are seduced into giving it a try.

How can a working phone system be so cheap? Today's IP-PBX phone systems are really just PBX software that reside on any computer.  Click here to download free PBX software.  Click here for info on a cheap wall mounted device designed for the free PBX software.

Connect your "cheap PBX" into your network and then follow the setup software instructions and then all your employees can make calls using your phone system no matter where they are. All they need to do a plug any cheap IP phone into the Internet and they're making calls on your system (and your dime).

But who else can also make phone calls on your system that way? Click the video below for instructions on how to hack an Asterisk phone systems to make free calls.

 

 

How Do You Fight Phone Bill Fraud?

Please don't think that we've got anything against open-source phone systems. Any IP-PBX system is vulnerable to a hacking attack. The main challenge that business owners have with a "cheap phone system" is they do not come with easy to understand security features. There's no set-up step that says "click this box to prevent phone fraud".

The only defense against phone fraud is a good offense.  As a business owner you need to assume that there are people on the planet that will take advantage of you and your phone system if they can find out that you installed your own cheap solution (or had an "expert" do it for you).

With regards to buying a cheap PBX phone system from a phone vendor, do some research on the PBX software they are using. What are the security vulnerabilities of the software and is the phone vendor certified do secure the system?  Click here to read a news article about one phone vendor that had three of his Asterisk PBX customers suffer from fraud attacks.

Click here to download a PDF copy of our 2013 Phone Bill Fraud Prevention Checklist.

Our checklist is published for business owners and managers to help them understand what kind of phone bill fraud their business is exposed to as well as specific actions they can take so they can minimize their risk of loss.

If you need a referral to a TA partner or vendor that has been recently reviewed and recommended by their customers for expertise in this area, the checklist has a section that lists specific partners and vendors that you may wish to call on for consulting, solution design or a competitive quote.

TA members and vendors are invited submit content to be included in our buyers guides and checklists.

TA members and vendors that have been recently selected by and end-user and and positively reviewed by them for buyers guide or checklist expertise are eligible to be listed in the "Recommended TA Partners & Vendors" section of the buyers guide or checklist.

Before contacting us about getting listed, have your customers complete a TA review form regarding your specific category expertise as you will need to submit that to us before we will consider listing you.

Questions? Contact Dan Baldwin at 951-251-5155 or [email protected]. 

photo credit 12261715

Nationwide, Mid-Sized Businesses Look Past Owning Multiple PBXs in Favor of Hosted Unified Communications

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

"The cloud is for telephones too!"

When I run into an IT professional at almost any business cocktail party we inevitably seem to fall into a conversation the nationwide cloud strategy they've designed and how they're virtualizing all their desktops or moving their business critical apps into their own private cloud.

At some point in the conversation I'll ask, "What about your phones?" and if they start telling me about all the problems they're having with all their PBX vendors I try to gently suggest,

"The cloud is for telephones too!"

I was reminded about this cocktail conversation this week when I received notice that Telesphere, one of the many telecommunication and broadband network service providers I represent recently hired two new mangers Josh Redick and Rob McCarthy out of New York City and San Francisco respectively.

I was glad to learn about this because it's these sorts of professionals that help telecom consultants like me explain to mid-sized businesses how "the cloud" can deliver all the same benefits to their unified communications or "UC" strategy as they're receiving by pushing their data applications into the cloud.

 

What Do These Industry Hires Signal About Changes in the Telecom Marketplace?

I've spoken with many of my peers over the past several months and we all seem to be thinking along the same lines when it comes to deciding which telecom carriers, equipment vendors or unified communications providers we're going to bring into one customer project or another.

Following are my thoughts. 

1. Telesphere should be considered for mid-market UC deals.

Over the past year, whenever I've spoken to mid-market and multi-location agent partner peers about which carriers they pitch in larger UC deals when they're up against PBX box vendors like Avaya or NEC, many like Smoothstone/West IP if it's a large "rip & replace" deal or Vocal IP if the deal requires a customized voice integration with existing systems and equipment.

Telesphere has always branded itself as a "unified communications" company just as Smoothstone always has but because Telesphere rolled itself out city-by-city (much in the same way Cbeyond did) many agents have always seen Telesphere as a regional powerhouse in especially in the Southwest and Mountain states.

Telesphere's biggest agent over the past 8 years, Concierge Communications, is also based in Arizona.  But just as Concierge is seen by many in the industry as an integrated solution provider that can service mid-sized, nationwide clients, so too is Telesphere beginning to be seen as a nationwide UC provider.

For the longest time the best mid-market and enterprise UC customers have been locked up by the PBX box vendors combined with AT&T, Verizon or Level3 networks.  As credible UC/cloud integrators like Concierge bring Telesphere into bigger deals, mid-market PBX VARs are seeing they will either need to bring the likes of Telesphere and other hosted UC providers into their proposals or find themselves competing against the likes of Clark Atwood.

 

2. Telesphere should be considered for nationwide Broadsoft deals.

I've spent quite some time over the past couple years trying to divine the differences among all the hosted VoIP and "unified communications" service providers in the marketplace. The best way I've found to separate one from another seems to be by these four categories: underlying platform, network coverage, integrated applications and pricing.

Regarding underlying platform, Telesphere is in the Broadsoft camp which means all their "communications magic" comes out of a proprietary Broadsoft platform. (Broadsoft also powers Vocal IP, MegaPath, Alteva, SimpleSignal and other providers wanting to claim credibility in mid-market deals.) In my humble opinion, Broadsoft has established itself as the "carrier grade" universal standard against which all others VoIP switch manufacturers are measured.

By contrast, Smoothstone/WestIP and Broadview Networks, two other well known solution providers are "non-Broadsoft".  The only real knock that I've heard repeated about non-Broadsoft switch technology is that "it doesn't scale past 10,000 seats" or "what happens if their programmers quit?"  The top argument for non-Broadsoft switches are the fact that the code is highly customizable for mid-market customers that need specialized code written to integrate critical business applications.

Without trying to end the "Broadsoft vs. non-Broadsoft" argument, suffice it to say that Telesphere is in the Broadsoft camp and many mid-market customers and their telephony consultants will only consider Broadsoft solutions.

The second major UC/hosted VoIP differentiation category is network coverage and in this category Telesphere appears to be as big as they come in the Broadsoft category meaning "nationwide for all practical purposes".

In the old TDM/Class 5 "hard switch" days, phone carriers bragged about all their 5ESS or DMS500 switches like Jay Leno brags about all his cars. In today's "soft switch" world where carrier switches are defined by software, measuring "who's the biggest" is a bit more difficult. I've been told that Broadsoft switches actually come in "pairs" such that one switch can cover two separate cities.

For regional businesses this only matters if you're considering doing business with a company that appears to have their switches in a distant land. For instance, TelePacific is a classic business phone company in California that totally dominates the California marketplace. When they roll out a hosted VoIP solution later this year they will put a serious hurt on non-California based hosted VoIP carriers trying to compete in California.

But as great as Telepacific is in California, few businesses in New York would think to ask TelePacific for a phone system quote (but they would ask for one from Broadview Networks, a classic business phone company based in New York that has since rolled out a nationwide hosted VoIP phone solution.)

But what's a true nationwide multi-location business to do for nationwide business phone service? If most of your locations are in New York you'd start with Broadview and if most of your locations are in California you'd start with TelePacific. But if your locations are evenly spread over the whole country you need to call on a unified communications provider that can do the whole country.  Telesphere is positioning itself for credible consideration in this category.

The other "nationwide voice carriers" are XO, PAETEC/Windstream, CenturyLink, Level3, AT&T and Verizon but they are not known for their expertise in integrating voice applications which is the foundation of "unified communications".  This is where the big PBX box vendors dominate. They tell customers, "Buy lots of our voice boxes and then put them on your nationwide data network and you're done." 

But what if a nationwide customer wants a single-vendor unified communications solution without having to buy dozens or hundreds of PBXs?"  That's when I bring in Telesphere and Telesphere's mid-market "hosted UC" competitors.

How does Telesphere fair on the third and fourth differentiators of integrated applications and price? I'm not totally sure yet, one peer I talked to really liked Telesphere's CRM (customer relationship management - e.g. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics) and collaboration (chat, IM, conferencing) integrations but readily admitted he did not have a rich frame of reference with regard to Telesphere's competitors.

As Telesphere is Broadsoft based, it's reasonably safe to assume that their application integrations are bullet-proof (Broadsoft dosn't roll stuff out that doesn't work) and probably feel alot like what other Broadsoft based providers offer.

Regarding price, when carriers get into the mid-market they're going to price any deal based on both their hard and soft costs to get the deal. Broadsoft based providers are generally higher priced than non-Broadsoft providers due to the extra Broadsoft licensing they have to pay for. But since the dominant hosted UC player in the industry (Smoothstone/WestIP) is known for their high prices even though they're  non-Broadsoft based, I'd look to Telesphere to be trading some margin for market share especially as they try to pick up deals in New York City and the California Bay Area.

 

Should You Trade in Your PBXs Today for Hosted Unified Communications?

It depends. My last PBX consulting client was a CPA firm who really wanted to integrate their billing and CRM applications into their next phone system but when it was decision time they opted to stick with a new PBX even after I explained all the unified communications options. They decided to do without the integrated applications after adding up all the extra costs. 

But larger multi-location businesses have different cost models. I've talked to peers who've had mid-market customers who've spent $100,000 integrating complex applications into both hosted and PBX-based UC phone system solutions. They were abel to justify it because the $100,000 development cost was retired in less than two years by improved productivity of their employees.

Click here to download our 2013 "Should You Buy or Rent a Phone System?" Checklist.  It's specifically designed to help end-users sort our the pros and cons of hosted VoIP for their particular business.

The best way to know is to give us a call and let us screen your unified communications needs.

 

We're Writing the "Business Phone Buyers Guide for CPAs" Book and Your Comments are Invited

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email  

Every week I work with all kinds of business owners, CIOs and IT directors to help them solve some business communications problem that touches their business phone system.

While all my clients want to either lower their phone and data bills, get more productivity out of their employees or beat their competitors in the marketplace, none of them want to buy a new phone system to solve their communications problems. And who can blame them? For many of my clients, the phone system they have now has lasted 10 or more years and they'd keep it except they can't get replacement parts for it anymore.

Sooner or later all of our clients will need to buy a new phone system and to help them do it we are currently writing a "Business Phone Buyers Guide for CPAs".

(It's for CPAs because I currently have a CPA client that's paying me to help them choose between several IP-PBX hardware solutions and hosted VoIP solutions for their new phone system. After the first buyers guide is written we'll rewrite it for the unique needs of other business types.)

 

Your "Here's What Happened to Us" Comments are Invited for the Book!

Every good "How To Buy" book of any flavor needs customer anecdotes and lessons learned. If you've purchased a new business phone system for your business over the past several years and have some "lessons learned" that you'd like to contribute to the book we'd love to hear and print them. Please email them to [email protected]. 

If you've not purchased a phone system recently but think you will need to in the next year please also contact us and we'll share a copy of the book with you in e-book format. The book will be published by the end of July 2012.

How Do You Know Which of Your Employees Can Talk to Your Most Important Prospect Right Now?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

 Remember the old days when every credible business had a receptionist that had a huge receptionist phone covered with "busy lamp fields" (BLF) that showed which employees were on or off the phone?

She was indeed the "gatekeeper" because she always knew from looking at her BLF who within the local office could or could not take a call.

Moreover, even if someone (like her boss) could take a call, she know which calls to put through and which calls to put into "the trash" (a voicemail box where all messages were deleted without being listened to).

Well for good or bad, few businesses have receptionists anymore. But without a receptionist, how do people within a company know which other people in a company can take an important customer prospect call?

 

Say Goodby to "Receptionists" and Say Hello to "Presence"

What's "presence"?  Wikipedia defines presence as "a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner to communicate". Think "red light, yellow light, green light." 

As companies try to be more productive with fewer employees, it becomes critical to enable the sort of instant collaboration that minimizes voicemail and email "tag".

Always knowing "who can help" solve a problem "right now" and then taking advantage of that via instant collaboration via instant message or a phone call that doesn't go to voicemail is exactly how small nimble competitors often beat our their larger, slower competitors.

 

Buy Presence First - It's the Foundation for all of Your Unified Communications

At a unified communications conference I recently attended it was remarked that "every vendor wants to sell you presence" because once a vendor owned your presence system they basically became your key vendor and all other communication vendor solutions were subservient.

So if a receptionist with her "busy lamp field" phone represented "Presence 1.0" and digital business phone systems where everyone had a "do not disturb" button on their official desk phone represented "Presence 2.0", what solution represents "Presence 3.0" where every company employee knows the presence of every other company employee no matter how close or far away they are from their official "desk phone" - and which vendor should you buy your Presence 3.0 system from?

Who indeed. That's the current $64,000 question for business owners trying to stay one step ahead of their nearest competitor.

Computer Vendor, Phone Vendor, Cloud Vendor or Other? Who does presence best?

If Your Employees Have a SmartPhone and a Tablet Computer Do They Need a Phone and Computer in Your Office?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

At a recently attended unified communications (UC) conference in San Diego, I made five observations that convinced me that office computers and office phones as we've always known them will be all but extinct within the next ten years (if not much sooner).

Observation #1: At a UC conference where the majority of attendees were business phone system equipment manufacturers and distributors, most every speaker talked not about the importance of desk phones integrating with office computers, they talked about the importance of "critical business applications" working equally well on any "end point" whether that was a desktop computer, smartphone (iPhone or Android) or a tablet computer like an iPad. The main references made to office equipment was the necessity to source good office "docking stations" that employees could drop their tablets and smartphones into when they were actually working in the office.

Observation #2: Through one conference presentation after another, when I looked at the 100+ business executives in the conference audience, at any one time, at least two-thirds were quite busy conducting their normal daily business tapping away on the face of their smartphones and iPads.  They would politely look up at the speaker now and then to acknowledge an important speaking point - but then they'd go right back to tapping and swiping their keyless glass tablets and smartphones.

Observation #3: The conference attendees in the audience were all collaborating on work projects with employees back at their offices without talking on the phone. In two and a half days of conference presentations I think I only saw two people ever stop swiping and tapping their phones and tablets because they actually had to step out of the seminar room to speak with someone the old-fashioned way - with their voice.