They say first impressions are last impressions. This definitely stands true for long-distance connections that you won’t be meeting very often (or at all) but only converse with via calls. 

How you communicate during the first call with a client or an important stakeholder will set the tone for the rest of your conversation.   

So, before you get dialing via your hosted phone system to build these relationships, there are some important phone etiquettes that you should bear in mind while communicating with clients overseas. 

This blog will run you through some pointers that can help you have an engaging conversation, not just the first time but every single time. These tips aren’t limited to just one region or country but cover several geographical areas your clients are most likely to be in. 

And by the time you’re done reading this… awkward conversation what?

The USA

When dealing with a client in the USA, business calls are direct and to the point––decisions are made quickly often without a face-to-face meeting. You needn’t make too much small talk and must get to the point fast. Time is money, after all. This means you have a good chance of getting a sale if you have the best price and service. 

Punctuality is extremely important as Americans are often in a hurry, so do not be late for your call. If you are running late, you must send a note explaining why and reschedule the call for another time, if need be.

Do keep in mind that the USA covers four time zones, so schedule calls accordingly. Do not reach out to someone too late in the night or too early in the morning. Should a client miss your call, it’s normal to leave a voicemail. Speak slowly and clearly, and do not include too much information. Simply leave your name, number, and reason for calling.

At the end of every call, it is standard to ask if there is anything else that you can do for them. So, make sure to include a “Is there anything else that I can help you with today?” or “Would you like to know anything else?”

Australia

Australian business culture is accepting of new perspectives, so when calling Australia, the key is to be relaxed. Business calls are more casual and being too formal can be off-putting. Ensure that your tone is light and easygoing and get your point across without using too much business jargon.

A big no-no for business calls in Australia is scheduling a call during off-hours. Australians value work-life balance and will not be pleased with receiving a call post work. So, make sure to check the time difference and call before their work ends.

Italy

Italians are all about speed and getting to the point quickly––they might even answer the call with “pronto” which essentially means quickly. If you’re prone to rambling, make sure you write down a clear agenda you want to cover in the call and give them the information they need in a quick and concise manner.

If you’re leaving a voicemail, do not leave one longer than 30 seconds. A simple note to say you will call back soon is perfectly acceptable, but rambling on is not. Don’t be surprised if someone on the other end politely reminds you to hurry up.

Spain

If you are calling up a Spanish client, be prepared to be on the phone for a while. Spanish business calls are often filled with talking––both about business and personal matters, so be prepared to chat. Agendas don’t necessarily work when doing business with a company in Spain either.

You must also be prepared for arguments––this is common and should not be taken as a sign that the person receiving the call is angry with you. In Spain, it is considered completely normal to debate and is not a cause for concern. 

When it comes to the don’ts, remember to not start the phone call with “hola” as it is considered disrespectful. Instead, start your conversation with “Buenos Dias” or good morning, “Buenas Tardes” which means good afternoon, or “Buenas Noches” which means good evening. 

Japan

If your client is a Japanese business, cut the small talk. People from the Land of the Rising Sun like their conversations as clear and concise as possible. They may, however, say “yes” even when they mean maybe or even no, out of politeness. So, gain clarity on what is it that they mean––whether they’re interested in your services or not.

When it comes to don’ts, Japanese clients do not accept calls outside of office hours. So, when you schedule that call, time as per their work hours. Once you’ve set a suitable time, do keep the conversation concise. And if you’re expecting a call from them, make sure to receive it as soon as you can.

If it rings more than thrice before you’re able to answer, you should apologise for making them wait.  

Another big no while doing business with Japanese clients is to call them when you’re in a noisy public place (such as a restaurant or a market). They aren’t huge fans of commotion, so make it a point to be in a quiet place when you call them up. 

China

In China, it is acceptable to answer your phone wherever you are, be it in business meetings or any other time. This means that Chinese clients will expect you to do the same and so you must always answer the call. 

It is better to be available and not have all the answers than to be unavailable and miss out on business. Ultimately, this will help you build longer relationships with your Chinese clients.

An important part of doing business with China is patience. Business relationships are formed over time and must be nurtured––so don’t rush through calls or push people for decisions. Invest time in your conversations, and subsequently relationships, and you will see results.

What you must keep in mind––do not answer the phone with “nǐ hǎo”. The standard Chinese greeting is wèi.

Russia

Many Russians still treat the phone system as suspicious, and quite often, calls might go unanswered. Many don’t trust the spoken word either, hence if you do call a Russian client, be prepared to follow up with a written email to confirm what you discussed.

Russian business is often slow and making a deal requires patience. Don’t be too pushy with your sales and take time to nurture relationships, ensuring that you communicate in a way that they’re comfortable with. 

You may also be met with silence or a curt “who is it”. This is not to be considered rude at all. If you don’t let this phase you at the beginning of your call, you will be able to do great business with your Russian clients.

UAE

When dealing with Emirians, it is a must to allow silences. This may feel strange but deals are done after much consideration and it is vital to allow the decision-maker time to think. Again, a “yes” may mean maybe so getting clarification is important.

Listen closely when your client is speaking to you, and make it a point to speak slowly and clearly so that you’re understood. And while asking after your client and making small talk is considered polite, make sure to remain professional throughout the conversation. 

Other Middle Eastern countries

In Arabic speaking countries, it is customary to make small talk and exchange greetings and pleasantries for at least five minutes at the start of a call. This means, when you connect with a client in one of these countries, you must ensure you have extra time at hand to have a talk.

While you may want to stick to only talk shops, you will be considered rude if you don’t indulge in the requisite confab. This may, as a consequence, discourage the Middle Eastern business from working with you. 

Wondering which topics work? You can start by asking them how they are, how their business is faring, ask after their family, and so forth.  

It doesn’t end there––how you end the call is equally important. A simple goodbye won’t suffice––ask your client if they need anything else. And expect them to do the same for you as it is deemed as polite to end the conversation on this note.

International calls with your hosted phone system

With hosted phone systems, international calls are cost-effective and simple to make, opening up your business to new audiences worldwide. You can easily build relationships with overseas clients, and ensure that your outbound agents know all they need to communicate pleasantly yet professionally.

The online portal is a great place to store these communication guidelines so that etiquette is always followed and you avoid any unwarranted offence. 

For countries where small talk is considered polite, you can save details or preferred topics to follow up on later. This way, there’s no need to commit all of these topics to memory. The possibilities are endless with a hosted phone system.

To combat any suspicion from international calls, you can set up local numbers on your hosted phone system. The call will appear as a local number even to your international clients. 

In taking these simple steps to improve your phone etiquette and please your clients abroad, you can significantly increase your profits and raise your brand’s image globally

To find out more about hosted phone systems and international calling, call us today on 1888-859-0450  for a consultation.

When it comes to running successful marketing campaigns, everything boils down to thinking outside the box. You need to focus on creating an impact so that you can enjoy high ROI without spending a fortune.

This is possible only with creative ideas and unique tools instead of run-of-the-mill strategies. A missed call number scores on both fronts as it is a creative idea as well as a unique tool, making it a complete marketing strategy in itself.

It comes as no surprise, then, that missed call marketing is fast emerging as a top choice for businesses that want to go the extra mile with customer outreach. It empowers your business to connect and communicate with customers and engage them for the long haul. The best part––it works for both budding startups and established brands as it fulfils expectations without burning a hole in your pocket.

Missed call marketing campaigns are loved by customers and businesses alike because of their sheer simplicity.

Companies advertise a phone number as part of the campaign promotion and interested customers leave a missed call. The business may then send an IVR call or automated SMS to the caller, sharing updates, promotions, or brand messages. This process boosts brand awareness and generates data for the business.

While everything sounds straightforward, there’s a lot that lies behind a typical missed call campaign. It makes sense to dig deeper before you invest in one. Let us understand the missed call number campaign in detail––its workings, benefits, value, implementation, and more.

The workings of missed call number campaigns

Before planning a marketing campaign with a missed call number, you need to understand how it works. Let us explore the steps in detail.

• Choose a virtual number: The first step is to choose the right provider and get a virtual number to run your marketing campaign. Once you set up the number, you can promote it across online and offline channels, such as company websites, social media platforms, billboards, print ads, etc.
• Get incoming leads: Merely promoting your number across outreach channels wouldn’t work. You must also have attractive offers to engage customers and generate leads. For example, you may offer a special discount to callers. Since missed calls are free and convenient for customers, the solution is bound to drive traffic.
• Fetch customer data in a dashboard: The next step is to collate caller data in a smart dashboard. When consumers start calling on the campaign number, details such as their phone number, region, and operator automatically get stored in the dashboard. Integrating the solution with CRM software offers rich insights into consumer behaviour and demographics.
• Remarketing: A successful missed call campaign brings valuable data that a brand can use for remarketing activities, such as sending updates about new products, discounts, or upcoming events. Furthermore, tools like bulk SMS service and voice calls can be used to communicate the same.

Benefits of missed call marketing

Now that you understand the set-up and implementation of these campaigns, let us discuss the benefits of the investment.

• Boosts operational efficiency: If you want to go the extra mile with operational efficiency, missed call numbers integrated with an IVR can do the trick. The integration enables you to reduce wait time and provide instant gratification to callers.
• Enhances customer service: Better operational efficiency translates into a superior customer experience. Tools like automated SMSs or IVR calls address queries in a quick fashion and are bound to increase customer happiness.
• Lowers marketing costs: Compared to other marketing measures, missed call campaigns cost only a fraction. The call cost of toll-free numbers is borne by your company and you need to pay even for their hold time, which isn’t the case with this alternative.
• Brings quality leads: Missed call solution gets you quality leads, translating into higher conversion rates. Additionally, the campaign generates interest without being intrusive.
• Integrates seamlessly with CRMs: Missed call numbers integrate seamlessly with CRM systems, so you get complete information through easy-to-use dashboards. Agents get access to caller details and history even before connecting and, as a result, can offer better and more personalized experiences.
• Boosts agent productivity: Getting the best out of your support team becomes a tad easier by having this solution in place. There isn’t any usage limit for missed call alerts, so your agents will never miss out on any caller.

Apart from the aforementioned benefits, you can derive much more value from the investment. Since it is free for customers, they wouldn’t hesitate while responding and connecting with your team.

You also get real-time data, which ensures maximum conversions while staying compliant with regulations. Furthermore, missed call numbers are compatible with all devices, so you never miss out on customers and opportunities.

Creative ways to leverage a missed call service for campaigns

While the missed call solution has the potential to serve as an effective marketing tool, you need to use it optimally to avail the best outcomes for your business.

Getting started with a missed call campaign 

Needless to say, missed call services can empower your marketing campaigns without burdening your budget. It connects your business with customers for broader outreach and higher engagement.

However, finding a reliable service provider to get top-rated services is highly crucial.

Fortunately, you need not search a lot because you can rely on Acefone as your trusted partner. We offer high-end services with the assurance of quality, efficiency, and reliability. Just pick a missed call number for your campaign and avail an array of add-on features such as an IVR, SMS services, CRM integrations, and much more.

Did you know there is a hacking attempt on computers with Internet access every 39 seconds? 

To mitigate such a risk, various businesses, law firms, and organisations are migrating towards cloud-based software.

In today’s world, when companies are making an enormous shift to the cloud, they majorly focus on cost savings, improved agility as well as higher scalability. But in this eagerness to enjoy instant cloud migration precedence, almost 85% of organisations worldwide experience spear-phishing attempts and data breaches. 

Securing your data on the cloud is incredibly important because companies big and small are falling prey to common misconfiguration and misperceptions. On top of this, the side effects of a global pandemic have ramped up remote workforces, making trespasses for cyber attacks.

In such a scenario, would you be willing to compromise your company’s data and incur massive costs for regaining it? In reality, Cloud security is a whole different ball game that includes a completely new set of risks. If a company wishes to keep its data safe and secure, then its IT teams must perform two actions:

1. They must make sure that the cloud solutions have the right security capabilities.
2. They must ensure that the cloud solutions are compatible with security measures deployed across the distributed network.

The company should also understand the shared responsibility model. This model states that while cloud providers ensure the security of the company’s infrastructure, the company’s security team is responsible for data security assurances. 

You can’t totally rely on the cloud provider for data security, because with evolving technology comes evolving hackers. Your best defence is to stay vigilant and implement these cloud security controls.

What are cloud security controls?

Cloud security control refers to a set of security controls that keeps the cloud environments secure against cyberattacks and also reduces the effects of data breaches. 

These security controls not only protect the cloud environment against vulnerabilities but also include measures to eliminate various types of malicious risks to safeguard the data and applications stored on the cloud. 

The recovery of business continuity plans, controlling access to the cloud, and encrypting data are all security controls.

 Cloud consulting services offer companies a wide range of cloud security tools and services to address, evaluate and secure a company’s sensitive data. It’s critical that the administrators of a company understand these services and ensure the implementation of the necessary cloud security controls. 

Misconfiguration of cloud security controls can offer cybercriminals the opportunity to steal confidential data from a company. 

In fact, Gartner estimated that through 2025, 99% of the cloud security failures would be the customer’s fault just because of the device misconfiguration.

Let’s put it down simply. A cyberattack doesn’t just put data at risk, but can also damage the company’s reputation and cost them compliance penalties. 

Therefore, it becomes essential for organisations to use cloud security controls to protect their business and customers from the unforeseen damage the hackers can cause.

There are several forms of cloud computing security. Below you’ll find the top three security controls that every organisation must use to thwart the most advanced data threats out there today.

3 cloud security controls that you must use

For IT teams that are overseeing the shift to the cloud, here are the 3 cloud security controls that you must use in order to avoid misconfiguration as well as data leaks. 

1. Control your cloud service access

Many companies struggle to control the accessibility to their cloud services. 

According to research from RedLock’s Cloud Security Intelligence CSI team, almost 51% of organisations have accidentally exposed at least one of their cloud storage service (for example, AWS S3 storage drives) in the public. However, Amazon and various other cloud providers send warnings to the companies to prevent storage bucket content from being exposed on the internet.

Another most common mistake made by companies is allowing SSH (Secure Shell) connections directly from the internet. This simply means anyone who knows the server location can bypass the firewall and access the company’s data without any major difficulties. 

If you want to control the access, you can use the identity and access control tools provided by the cloud providers. You can control who has access to which data and when. While creating the identity and access control policies, allow the minimum set of privileges that are needed and grant permissions temporarily whenever required. 

You can also use tools like CloudKnox that let you set access controls as per the user activity data.

2. Keep your data secured

As mentioned above, securing data on the cloud is of paramount importance to make sure that only authorised personnel like you and your employees have access to the files and documents stored in the cloud.

Many companies have unencrypted data stored in the cloud which gives hackers easy access to the information. One example of this is voter’s information and confidential government files that are exposed because the data was not encrypted on the cloud. Also, the servers are easily accessible to unauthorised users. 

It’s highly irresponsible and risky if a company stores sensitive data in the cloud without putting the appropriate controls to avoid access to a server and protect the data. Encryption must be used to protect a company’s data at rest and transit.

So make sure that your cloud services provider encrypts your data and ensures security.

A company must maintain encryption keys wherever possible. This mighty task becomes easier when the organisation provides access to the keys to the cloud service providers, although the responsibility of securing the data lies with the company.   

Encryption is a safe failure; it’s imperative because even in case any security configuration fails and an organisation’s sensitive data gets leaked to unauthorised users, they cannot misuse it. 

3. Secure the credentials

In 2017, OneLogin breach showed that it’s not unusual for the AWS access keys to be leaked on the internet. These access keys can be exposed on their websites, repositories, unprotected dashboards and any such forums. 

A company must treat the AWS access keys as the most crucial gem of a crown. They must make their developers aware of the security controls to prevent the leaking of such access keys in any public forum.

Organisations must ensure that they create unique keys for every external service and restrict access to minimum privileges. Companies must also ensure that the access keys don’t have any broad permissions. These keys can be easily used to access highly confidential data and company’s resources if fallen into the wrong hands, for data breaches.

If you’re leading a company, you must create IAM roles to allot some specific privileges, just like API calls. Also, ensure to rotate the access keys regularly in order to prevent attackers access to the compromised keys and allowing it to enter the cloud environments miscellaneously in the face of privileged users.

Avoid using the root user account, not even for administrative tasks. However, you can use root user to create a new user and assign limited privileges. Simply, lock the root user account by adding MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and use it for specific tasks. For other tasks, use provision users with restricted permissions. 

MFA offers an extra protection layer apart from username and password. It makes it tougher for the attackers to steal your company’s data. The company administrators should enable the MFA to restrict access to dashboards, management forums as well as privileged accounts.

Lastly, continuous monitoring of user accounts is essential for cloud computing security. They must be regularly checked and filtered to disable the one’s which are no longer in use, failing which the attackers can use them as a potential path to steal the company’s sensitive data.

Conclusion

As cloud adoption grows, it becomes important for organisations to think diligently about the cloud security controls that must be implemented to lower complexity, while ensuring comprehensive security. 

Companies ultimately need to partner with reliable cloud service providers who have an exceptional record of providing full-fledged security and the resources that ensure that the data is completely protected. After all, cloud security is not a trivial matter.

Cutting-edge cloud security controls like those outlined above will ensure that your firm, enterprise, or service is prepared to face more advanced and complex security challenges as businesses embrace digital innovation.

Acefone is a leading cloud hosting service provider that offers hosted phone solutions with strong data security. To make your business more secure, call us at 1888-859-0450 .