How A VoIP Phone System Helps Real Estate Businesses

Acefone Editor

Author

Voice - VoIP

June 17, 2020

5 mins read eye

Table of content

For those in the real estate business, you know that it is important to be able to multitask and be flexible.

Your priorities will change by the hour and being tied to a desk phone is not ideal for this industry, where you need to be out with clients and customers, showing them houses or selling your services.

This is where a VoIP system comes in to help give your staff the freedom they need to excel in their jobs, while still allowing you to capture leads and keep business running as usual.

In this article, we will run through some of the ways that a VoIP phone can help your real estate business flourish.

Freedom For Your Real Estate Agents

A VoIP phone system allows your staff to work from anywhere in the world.

They can access their phone easily on any compatible device; such as a laptop, tablet, or mobile phone – and can make and receive calls as if they are sat in the office.

This frees staff up to go wherever they are needed, without them worrying about missing an important call.

They can show houses, meet clients, speak to landlords and property developers and give them great service while their phone system continues to work seamlessly.

A real estate agent should be out in the field and needs to be knowledgeable about your properties to sell them effectively.

So they should be visiting and checking everything is OK in the property to prepare for viewings, something which is not an issue when they can take their phone line with them wherever they go.

If there is ever an emergency in a rented property that you manage, your agents can go out to solve this problem without leaving their phones unattended.

The nature of real estate means that it is unpredictable and priorities can change at any moment, but with a VoIP phone system you are prepared for anything.

Use IVR To Help Customers Reach The Right Person

IVR, or Interactive Voice Response, is a fantastic business tool that can be added to your phone system.

IVR adds options to your phone system (for example, press 1 to reach house sales), so customers calling you can self select and reach the right person quickly.

IVR helps save your business time when answering calls and improves customer satisfaction as customers spend less time on the phone trying to get through to the correct person.

The IVR system can be personalized to match your branding and can be used to put out messages en masse to customers when they call you – particularly useful if your business is closed for any reason, you can give customers an emergency out of hours number or communicate when you are open again.

Many real estate companies will have multiple departments, such as lettings, sales, maintenance and more – so this is a useful tool to help direct customers to the right department on their first call.

Store Data Securely In Acefone’s Online Portal

Your customer’s data can be securely stored in our online portal.

This portal gives you access to everything you need to know about how your phone system is operating; including call times, call costs, and recordings of all calls so you can easily access anything you need.

Everything is stored safely and securely in the cloud, so if anything happened to your office premises, you can pick up right where you left off as the data is hosted off-site and you will not lose any of your precious data.

The online portal also gives you the ability to make detailed notes on customer’s accounts.

These notes can detail all communications with customers and give details on any outstanding tasks that your real estate agents need to look at.

Anyone who connects to your cloud phone system can see these notes, and so can be up to speed in seconds with that customer’s account – even if they have not been dealing with them previously.

This gives a much more professional impression to customers than staff scrambling to find information and repeating questions the customer has already gone through to catch themselves up.

Used to your advantage, these notes and detailed analytics can take your customer experience to the next level and can help you ensure that all of your real estate agents are working well for your customers.

You can also use call recordings to train new agents and give them real examples of customer interactions.

Use Your Number To Your Advantage

Real estate businesses may not just deal with properties in one area, so you can choose a number to suit you with a VoIP phone system.

You may want to increase local ties wherever you are selling homes, so you could set up local numbers for customers to call; these numbers will automatically direct to your phone system, without any interruption for the customer.

This gives you the chance to set up virtual offices in cities all over the world, and you can hire real estate agents to work in these cities if you wanted someone local to speak to customers – as hosted phone systems can support remote workers anywhere in the world with just an internet connection needed.

If you are looking for a more national image, a freephone number is perfect.

A toll free number will make your company appear larger, and will show customers that you have invested in your customer service and want to keep communications open.

A free phone number breaks down any barriers to a customer calling you and can give your sales team extra opportunities to speak to potential customers and sell your services.

Finally, a branded number can be added to your phone system to help boost your marketing campaigns.

A branded number could be something recognizable and can be worked into your marketing to help customers remember your number when they come to need your services.

Each type of phone number has a different use, but each directs straight to your agents so customers can enjoy crystal clear communications every time they call you.

If you would like to find out more about how a VoIP phone system can help your real estate business, call us today on 1888-859-0450 and discuss with our expert team.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK's leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.

Top 10 Benefits of Using Cloud Telephony Solution in 2020 [Infographic]

Acefone Editor

Author

Infographics

June 16, 2020

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Nothing is more important than communication for businesses in today’s competitive landscape. In fact, it is more important for a client today than ever before to be able to communicate with their company of choice with ease. Therefore, it makes sense for you, as an organization, to go the extra mile with every communication channel, especially telephony systems. A switch from traditional on-premises telephony systems to cloud telephony solution is a smart business move. A cloud-based phone system offers numerous advantages for businesses, which is the reason why most of them are fast embracing cloud telephony solution. Let us list the top benefits of using it in 2020.

Benefits of Cloud Telephony

Benefit #1: Integrated Communications System in Place

A cloud telephony system empowers your organization with integrated communications that streamline the daily workflow. This service optimizes individual teams’ pipelines of work, while you can also achieve a smooth flow for the whole business. The cloud telephony solution helps outperform competitors and boosts productivity with seamless access to a range of CRM tools, instant messaging, email, voice, and video conferencing

Benefit #2: Extensive Mobility and Flexibility

With flexible work timings and policies becoming a norm, mobility and flexibility have become essential for organizations. The COVID 19 crisis, especially, has forced businesses to shift to a work-from-home model. Cloud telephony solution allows employees to make their work mobile. People can take calls and answer support queries even when they’re not present in the office. All they need is any smart device along with a stable Internet connection, and they are good to go.

Benefit #3: Better Control Over Communications

Traditional landline phones do not allow you to keep track of all business communication and conversations. With cloud telephony, you can leverage the call recording feature that lets you record every incoming and outgoing call. Obviously, the feature helps your team improve overall business communication. Moreover, the recorded calls may be used for training purposes and future reference for issue redressal.

Benefit #4: Scalability and Customizability

A volatile business landscape implies every organization must be willing and able to evolve with agility. What you really need is a solution that offers the benefits of scalability and customizability; as it turns out, cloud telephony solution covers you on both the fronts. These solutions let you add more users to communicate seamlessly with a larger customer base. And if you require a customized feature to enhance your CRM integration, you can leverage it as well.

Benefit #5: Cost Savings

A cloud telephony system also enables significant cost savings for your business. For instance, you end up eliminating the cost of infrastructure required for setting up and maintaining the traditional desk phone systems. These solutions do not clutter the office space either and serve as a rescue strategy when your employees have to make the switch to a remote working model.

Benefit #6: Resilience and Reliability

Natural disasters like cyclones, floods, and earthquakes can cause extensive damage to traditional telephony systems, but cloud systems are least affected. In fact, cloud storage keeps the information safe and makes it accessible from anywhere. No matter what happens, you can be assured about the continuity of your business.

Benefit #7: Access to Rich Business Features

A cloud telephony system is business-friendly and loaded with features. Apart from real-time analytics, the solution offers call schedulers, post-call surveys, IVR, missed call services, voicemail drops, bulk SMS automation, and more. These features empower your baseline automation that simplifies business by turning manual work into automated workflows.

Benefit #8: Efficiency in Sales and Support Processes

The auto dialer feature of cloud telephony solutions facilitates sales and support agents to make calls and send messages and voicemails automatically. With manual work reduced to the minimum, the efficiency and productivity of your employees increase in a substantial and, yet sustainable manner.

Benefit #9: Dependable Security

Cloud-based solutions are easy to upgrade. You can transition to the latest software seamlessly, which gives you the advantage of dependable security. There are constant checks against unusual activity. If anything suspicious takes place, the system will lock down automatically. The cloud provider addresses the issues on priority basis and gets your solution back to running securely.

Benefit #10: Minimal Carbon Footprint

New businesses are, more often than not, eco-conscious. Cloud telephony is a green technology because it is not dependent on energy-consuming infrastructure. If you want to make the world a clean and green place, don’t think twice before opting for the cloud.

Considering the benefits of cloud telephony solutions, it is an excellent idea for every business—regardless of size and scale—to switch from traditional telephony to the cloud. If you are looking to make the switch in 2020, go for a cloud telephony service provider that offers a complete package of features along with the assurance of reliability, quality, efficiency, and affordability.

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Top 20 VoIP Terms Every Business Should Know

Acefone Editor

Author

Voice - VoIP

5 mins read eye

Table of content

If you are thinking about installing VoIP phone system into your business, then it is important to make a well-informed decision on which system to buy.

At Acefone, we understand that VoIP can be confusing to people without technical knowledge and backgrounds as there is a lot of complicated terminologies to get your head around.

So, we have put together 20 VoIP terms you should know, so you can start searching for your new phone system with confidence.

VoIP

VoIP means Voice Over Internet Protocol and means that your phone system works through your internet connection.

VoIP is more common than you might think, and apps most people use daily work through VoIP, such as WhatsApp, Skype and more.

Choose Acefone as your VoIP Service Provider and experience crystal-clear VoIP calls with our reliable network.

IVR

IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, which is a system that can be added to your phone so customers can choose options based on who they want to speak to.

This is common in many larger businesses with multiple departments and if you call a national company, you are most likely to be greeted with this.

Softphone

This refers to the software used to connect your phone to any device you choose to make calls from; for example your laptop, tablet, or mobile device.

IP Phone

These phones are similar to traditional phones but will have an ethernet cable connecting them to your internet connection.

IP telephony

This refers to any telephone systems which work over an internet connection, similar to VoIP.

Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant is a service that can be added to your hosted phone system to take messages and answer calls for you when you are either closed or out of the office.

Virtual Assistants can forward messages to your email with the aim of helping you keep up with business and not miss a lead.

Hosted Contact Center

A hosted contact center is different from a traditional contact center, where your staff need to be in physical premises.

A hosted contact center allows calls to come through to one central number and be picked up by your staff anywhere in the world, as they can connect to your phone system remotely.

Cloud-Based Telephony

Cloud-based telephony refers to any phone system which works over your internet connection.

Data from your phone system is securely stored in the cloud, with no need for a physical office – so cloud-based telephony allows you to ensure data is safe and accessible no matter what happens to your office premises.

Call Flipping

Call flipping refers to a hosted phone system’s ability to seamlessly switch a call from device to device.

You could start a call on your desk phone and switch to a mobile or tablet without any interruption to the person on the other end of the line.

Call Monitoring

Call monitoring means you can keep track of all incoming and outgoing calls through your online portal.

You can track everything from agent waiting time to call time and costs so you can be in control of your hosted phone system at all times.

Online portal

An online portal gives you access to all of the amazing features of your hosted phone system, from call recordings to adding extensions – this is the control panel you need to make changes to your phone system and add exciting new features. The online portal is a great tool for managers to access detailed analytics.

Call Continuity

Call continuity refers to the capability of your hosted phone system to maintain a good connection and keep calls coming through.

Poor call continuity and downtime can cause frustrating disconnections and can be detrimental to your business.

Downtime/Uptime

Downtime or uptime, often presented as a percentage, refers to the amount of time your phone system may be offline for maintenance or due to error and which amount of time you should be connected.

The lower the downtime the better your hosted phone system and communications will be.

API Integrations

API’s, or Application Programming Interface, allowing you to connect your phone system to other systems you might use (for example Salesforce or Hubspot).

A hosted phone system with plenty of API integrations will be able to work well with your existing customer relationship management system and will save time and money on administrative tasks.

Hosted PBX

Hosted PBX systems allow you to make and receive calls affordably, through your internet connection and hosted off-site rather than traditional phone lines situated on site.

Extensions

Extensions can be assigned to your staff members so they each have their own personal phone number, they also allow you to monitor staff performance as you will know exactly who is on which extension.

With Acefone, you can enjoy unlimited extensions and can add and remove these through the online portal.

Plugin and Play

Plugin and Play refer to a hosted phone system’s ease of set up. Requiring very little maintenance and infrastructure, a hosted phone system will be installed quickly and easily, so you can plug it in and start working immediately.

Volume Users

Volume users refer to the amount of traffic your hosted phone system can cope with without losing connection.

A high volume means that your phone system is robust enough to support many users calling in and will not let you down when you need it most.

Automation

Automation refers to a hosted phone system’s ability to work with your CRM system, putting leads straight into your system without you needing to take extra steps.

It can also refer to a hosted phone system’s ability to send out automated messages on mass to customers, in the form of text messages or through your IVR system.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data your hosted phone system can handle, and the speed you will need to keep calls crystal clear.

There are recommendations of the bandwidth needed to host concurrent calls, your provider should be able to advise you on this during consultancy.

At Acefone, we will keep any technical jargon to a minimum, so you understand exactly which phone system you need and how it will work for you – without the confusion. To find out more call our expert team on 1888-859-0450.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

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3 Ways Of Dealing With Unhappy Customers

Acefone Editor

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Customer Service

June 15, 2020

5 mins read eye

Table of content

While running a business, unhappy customers are bound to appear from time to time.

As much as you would like to ensure that all of your customers are happy, it is important to prepare for the worst if things go wrong.

Having a process in place to ensure that unhappy customer’s problems can be solved is imperative to keeping up your reputation and ensuring that customers continue to return to you.

A customer’s recommendation is important, and just because they have encountered a problem with your business does not mean that they will not recommend you to other potential customers.

You can turn what was a negative experience into something positive if you handle the situation well, and this article will look at three ways in which you can deal with unhappy customers and leave them with a positive experience.

Listen To Customers – Communicate Openly And Honestly

It is important in the early stages of a customer complaint to listen carefully to their issue.

Make sure you fully understand what they are unhappy about and ensure that they are speaking to the person who is best equipped to deal with their problem.

With a hosted phone system, this can be done easily with call transferring, in a few simple clicks the customer can be put through to the best person or department to help with their issue.

When a customer is already unhappy, you do not want anything to come between you and the customer and a poor telephone connection will certainly get in the way of getting a resolution.

Investing in your telephone system is a great way to ensure smooth communications, so you can communicate with customers openly and honestly and do not run the risk of being interrupted.

If your hosted phone system loses connection, or something happens to your office premises, you can switch seamlessly between devices without dropping the call – so whatever happens and wherever you are you stay connected to your customers.

An unhappy customer wants to be listened to and ensuring that you have all the facilities you need so customers can make their voices heard is a crucial first step to resolving a customer concern and actually making this interaction into a positive outcome for both customer and business.

Follow Up With The Customer And Keep Detailed Records At Every Stage

Once you’ve listened to the customer carefully and understand what has gone wrong and what they need from you, it is time to investigate and take steps towards resolving the issue.

It is important that at this stage you ensure that you are keeping the customer informed at all times and that you keep detailed notes.

The notes help particularly if multiple staff members are dealing with the complaint, you do not want to antagonize the customer further with unnecessary phone calls so a note will make sure all of your staff are up to speed on the latest developments.

These notes can be securely stored with the customer’s account on Acefone’s easy to use online portal, where staff can pull up the information with just a few clicks.

Agents can pass on information here and keep records of interactions with that customer. They can also see where the complaint is up to and whether they need to follow up or investigate anything further.

This is an important way for you to cover yourself as a business if there are further queries from the customer – you can see exactly who has spoken to the customer and what information is shared.

Further to this, you can also access call recordings through the online portal, which is a great tool if there is some kind of dispute.

Following up with the customer is important, and you should ensure that you call the customer and keep them informed about the steps you are taking to help them.

This makes the customer feel included and gives them much more trust that you truly are looking into their concerns and that as a business you care about their custom.

Use Their Insights To Improve

Another important step is to use customer insights to improve your services in future. Once a customer complaint is settled to a satisfactory level, ensure that you take on board any feedback from the customer by asking them questions on how you could improve.

This shows as a business that you are dedicated to improving customer experience and the customer is less likely to leave as their voices have been heard.

Customer’s insights are key to growing as a company, and the valuable information a customer can give your business on how you operate gives you a unique opportunity to grow and develop your customer service strategy.

By giving customers a platform to speak openly with you, you not only gain these valuable insights but you can ensure that any unhappy customers are satisfied with your resolution.

Communication is key with unhappy customers, and if you invest in your communication and ensure that customers can contact you easily when they need you there is no reason why an unhappy customer cannot be changed into a happy and loyal customer.

By using these simple steps you can increase customer trust and ensure that unhappy customers become happy customers.

Handled correctly, an unhappy customer can become a great ambassador for your brand – if they share that they did have a problem but it was rectified effectively and your agents were on hand to help.

This can make other potential customers see that you are a business dedicated to helping customers and may be more likely to make a purchase from you.

Customers understand that things can go wrong, but the company’s reaction is key to their decision on whether to buy from you again.

If you would like to find out more about how a hosted phone system can help you elevate your customer service and deal effectively with unhappy customers, call our expert team on 1888-859-0450.

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4 Ways To Enhance Customer Engagement And Communication

Acefone Editor

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Operations

June 12, 2020

5 mins read eye

Table of content

Customer engagement and clear communications are key to running a successful business.

Whether you’re in finance or retail, getting customers to engage with your product, service or brand is an integral part of increasing your sales and customer loyalty.

There are many things that can help towards enhancing your customer engagement, from your phone system to your marketing strategies, so we have put together four ways in which to enhance both your communications and customer engagement.

Create A Social Media Strategy Which Speaks To Your Customers

Most people are now on social media, so creating a well thought out social media strategy is a great way to ensure that you are reaching your target audience; whether that be existing customers or new potential leads.

A well thought out social media strategy can help customers engage with your brand on a more personal level.

By providing thought-provoking posts or just genuinely useful information that your target audience is looking to hear, you can become a thought leader in your industry and ensure that customers engage with your brand online before they look at competitors.

A social media strategy will give your brand a more human voice and can bridge the gap between customer and company.

It gives you a chance to get more insights into what customers like and dislike and how they interact online and opens up a whole new area of advertising.

To ensure customers remain engaged with your business, you should ensure that you are available to them and are present where they expect you to be, so social media can further open the lines of communication between you and your customers.

If your social media strategy is working, you should get more calls, so you must make sure that your phone system is up to the job.

With a hosted phone system you can track customers coming from social media through Acefone’s easy to use online portal and can measure the impact of your social strategy simply.

Your hosted phone system will also be robust enough to handle more calls coming into your business, with the ability to add and remove telephone extensions as and when you need to.

Optimise Your IVR

With a hosted phone system, you can add on a personalised IVR system to ensure that communications with customers go as smoothly as possible.

The Interactive Voice Response allows customers to self select the department they want to speak to, based on their issue.

This saves both your business and customers’ time and effort when communicating with each other; ensuring customers end every communication with you happy and satisfied that their query was dealt with efficiently.

If your IVR is optimised, then even when you are closed for business you are able to communicate with customers – by ensuring important messages relevant to your customers are communicated as soon as they call.

IVR systems help clear up communication and increase the likelihood of customers engaging with you again and again.

If they have had a good experience when calling you once, they are likely to do so again and this could lead to repeat business or recommendations to other potential customers.

Have Agents All Over The World

Having agents to answer calls based all over the world allows you to be open 24/7.

You can also ensure that customers do not face a language barrier when they call your business, and you can, therefore, make your business global in just a few simple steps.

With a hosted phone system, agents are able to connect to your phone system from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

They can make and receive calls as if they were sat in your office, with the same crystal clear communications no matter which device they choose.

So, your small business can become global with a few clicks on Acefone’s online portal.

Simply add the agent onto your phone system and they can start right away, you can even monitor remote agents performance within the online portal to check they are working effectively and access call recordings to help manage and train new staff members.

Global customers will be impressed by the lengths that your business has taken to accommodate them and will be able to communicate freely with someone both in their time zone and speaking their language; giving them more reasons to engage with your brand.

Customise Your Phone Number

If you are wanting to increase engagement and open lines of communication between you and your customers, a toll free number can help break down any barriers to communication.

If a customer is researching products or services and comes across your business with a free phone number, they have nothing to lose by calling you and finding out more.

This gives your sales team more opportunities to get customers on board and sell your products.

A free phone number also suggests to a customer that you are dedicated to engaging with them and are investing in your customer service by keeping these communication channels open.

You could also consider setting up local numbers, which connect to your agents across the world.

This helps you engage with customers in certain areas and communities with ease and can help increase the trust in your brand if customers have a local number to call.

Finally, you can employ a customised number to help customers remember your business number; this can be branded and used across your marketing campaigns to help enhance customer engagement and make it that much easier for customers to communicate with your business.

Whichever phone number suits your business’ needs, be it a customised phone number or a vanity number, you can add it to your hosted phone system with ease.

Each number will be connected to your agents, and the customer will see no difference. They will just enjoy crystal clear communications with your business time after time.

With a hosted phone it is simple to add phone numbers to suit your customers and ensure that customers everywhere are able to engage with your brand.

If you’d like to find out more about how a hosted phone system can help enhance your customer engagement and communications, call us today on 1888-859-0450 and speak to our expert team.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

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1888-859-0450

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Missed Call Marketing: Top 6 Use Cases

Acefone Editor

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Contact Center

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Taking your business ahead is all about forging strong connections with your customers and this is best done by being available for them. Over the years, organizations have explored numerous ways to enhance telephonic communication.

The idea is to be available to your customers whenever they need to connect for resolution of their concerns and solutions to their problems. Businesses adopt a range of tools for this purpose, and these range from toll free numbers to IVR, virtual numbers and more.

The missed call solutions have emerged as an essential strategy. and missed call marketing is finding widespread popularity these days. In business terminology, missed call marketing refers to marketing products or services using a phone number where customers give a missed call.

The call is disconnected automatically after a few rings and the business records the response for diverse purposes. While the customer support agents can retrieve the caller numbers and call them back to reconnect, there is much more this data can be used for. Let us highlight the most amazing use cases of missed call service for businesses.

Use case #1: User Registration

User registration is something that businesses need to do as a part of normal activities such as giving subscription for services or onboarding users to participate in an event. The process may require massive manpower and resources if done in the conventional way. Distributing one missed call number for the users is a smarter alternative. Registration is completed with an auto reply with registration link, which means that you can save time and avoid complications.

Use case #2: User Verification

Businesses can also use missed calls for user verification as well. For some organizations that deal in online payments and transactions, like banks and ecommerce sellers, it is important to verify the clients and the activities created by them. With a missed call solution, it becomes easy to substitute initiatives like Mobile number verification, OTP and user confirmation. The callers just give you a missed call and you can verify them using their phone number. You have a smarter affirmation system without spending a fortune!

Use case #3: Call Back Service

Another smart way benefit of missed call marketing is in the form of a Call Back Service. Whenever a caller leaves a missed call, you get notified via email and text message and you can call them back to reconnect. So technically, you never miss out on prospective customers, even if you miss their calls at any point in time. This makes it an excellent customer engagement strategy.

Use case #4: Review & Feedback

Reviews and feedback are significant because they bring the opportunity to improve your products and services. Additionally, they help in understanding customer expectations and showcasing patterns. Getting genuine reviews and feedback from your customers becomes easy with a missed call solution. Getting reviews is as easy as providing different missed call numbers for various options that callers can call to share their opinions and answers. What’s more, it also simplifies building, analyzing and managing the caller database.

Use case #5: Voting & Contests

Voting and contests are widely used by businesses as a part of their branding initiatives. They are used by political parties for campaigning as well. However, gathering reactions from live events requires a great deal of manual effort and time if left to a traditional polling and counting system. Missed call service, combined with an integrated CRM, can go a long way in addressing this challenge and providing reliable and accurate data with a fraction of work. Moreover, it is possible to run different contests by using a single missed call number, that too, with the same dashboard.

Use case #6: Opt-in list building

Another business use case of missed call marketing is in the form of opt-in list building. The business can publish a Toll-Free number and request the customers to give a missed call for being a part of an opt-in list building procedure. Only those who give a missed call voluntarily will be a part of the database or list that you will be using to send across messages and emails as a part of the future marketing campaigns.

Final Words

Considering these use cases of missed call marketing, it is clear that missed call service can be used in a number of ways and provides many benefits. The fact that it can be used to unlock new sales opportunities makes it a smart choice for businesses. The best part is that it is far easier to implement and cost-effective as compared to the conventional marketing initiatives. So, it definitely makes sense to implement one of these use cases, based on your requirements.

This can be best done by collaborating with a missed call service provider you can trust.

Acefone is a leading provider that offers top-notch services and solutions to businesses looking to empower themselves with better customer communication.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

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How Important Is Service Availability And Security When Choosing A Hosted Phone Provider

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

June 9, 2020

4 mins read eye

Table of content

When choosing a hosted phone provider, there are plenty of elements you should be considering; does the phone system have the right features your business needs?

Is it scalable so it can grow with your business? You may be focused more on the features which are an important part of your choice, but it is important to consider service availability and security when choosing a hosted phone provider as these elements are key to your phone system working smoothly.

In this article, we are looking at why service availability is so important and why you should consider this and security before you make a decision on which hosted phone provider to choose.

Service Availability For Your Hosted Phone System

Service availability is a key factor when choosing a hosted phone provider, without it your new hosted phone simply will not function correctly, no matter how feature-rich it may be.

A provider with poor service availability will only give you problems further down the line when you can not access your phone lines – this could cause a business to grind to a halt.

With poor service availability, you could experience outages that render your phone unusable.

These outages cost your business money, particularly if you work in telesales or rely on being able to capture leads coming from your phone lines.

This also means staff productivity can be impacted as they will not be able to work efficiently during these outages.

Your hosted phone provider should be able to show you a robust backup plan if any of their systems fail, they should be able to explain exactly how they can get your business phones back up and running – and if they can not do this, then it is time to search for a different provider.

Additionally, hosted phone providers should be able to give some kind of guarantee on service uptime, this is an important question to ask your provider as you do not want lots of inconvenient outages.

At Acefone, we guarantee 99.99% uptime.

This means that our hosted phone systems are built to withstand disasters and we can protect your customer data and valuable business information should anything happen to your as it is stored securely elsewhere and should something happen to your business then Acefone can get you back up and running quickly.

With Acefone’s hosted phone systems you can work from anywhere you have an internet connection, so we are able to get you back up and running quickly on any compatible device – so you will not miss a lead or miss out on any custom due to service availability with Acefone.

Choose A Secure Hosted Phone System

In your business’ line of work, you may deal with sensitive data so it is important that your phone system complies with security regulations – particularly if you work in regulated industries such as financial services or insurance.

The first stages of your conversations with providers should cover their security protocols and how they comply with any regulatory requirements relevant to your industry or business.

Today, people are more conscious about where their data is being stored and how it is being protected so it is of utmost importance that you can assure your customers that their data is safe with your company.

Also, as GDPR regulations have become more stringent it is more important than ever to protect your data at all costs; or you could face some large fines if you do not follow the rules.

At Acefone, all of our hosted phone systems meet the highest safety standards to ensure your data is protected as much as it possibly can be.

We store data securely in the cloud, adhering to PIC, FCC, GDPR, and CPNI and your data is stored in different locations, adding an extra layer of protection for your data.

Also, Acefone provides protection against any potential threats to your business (from cyber attackers and more) to ensure that you are fully protected and your data is safe from attackers.

This increases the levels of trust between you and your clients and this trust can only come from significantly investing in your security.

If you are serious about protecting your business’ data and its reputation, then you should ask potential hosted phone providers what security procedures they have in place to protect you and your customers before you proceed with any installation.

It is very important that you thoroughly research your hosted phone provider, and that you know all about their security and service availability before signing any contracts.

You should have complete faith in their ability to keep your data secure and should be fully informed about the procedures in place to keep your phone system connected.

These are two fundamental elements of your communication systems and so should be the first things considered when looking for a hosted phone provider.

If you would like to find out more about Acefone’s hosted phone systems and how they can work for your business to keep your data secure and ensure you never miss a lead, call us today on 1888-859-0450 and speak to our expert team.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Acefone Editor

Author

Frustrated With Your VoIP Service Provider? Choose Acefone

Ratnam Sinha

Author

Voice - VoIP

June 8, 2020

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Cloud-based VoIP services have become a major part of business communication around the world.

Voice Over Internet Protocol, more commonly known as VoIP has not only made it possible to make cheaper calls using the internet but has also streamlined business processes with the vast variety of features that it offers.

If your organisation doesn’t already have a VoIP phone system, then you should really consider getting one in the near future.

However, if you do have one, then you need to ask yourself your VoIP provider is giving you all the services that your business deserves?

To understand this question better lets first take a look at a few things that you should expect from your VoIP service provider and how Acefone is the perfect fit for your business communication needs.

1. Pricing and Plans

You might have come across a provider that offers all the features that are available with VoIP, but the price is just too high for your budget. There is no point in spending all your money on features that you might not even need.

What you should really look for is the value for money the VoIP provider is offering your business. It is not about who is the cheapest, or who gives more features. It’s about who can benefit your business better.

Acefone offers customisable plans for your unique business needs at affordable pricing. So you can select what features you want depending on your requirements and you don’t have to pay for anything extra.

2. Third-Party Integrations

While getting a VoIP phone system for your business, you should look forward to its compatibility with third-party software. You don’t want to end with a phone system that is incompatible with any of your existing software.

Moreover, integrating your hosted phone system with a CRM software is very helpful for the agents.

It offers them enhanced tools to improve customer interaction and helps in improving your customer satisfaction giving your business more loyal customers.

Acefone offers integrations with many different Customer Relation Management software and customer support suites to make the work process simple and providing detailed customer interaction data helping you improve your business strategies to improve productivity.

3. Customer Service

Let’s say you encounter a problem with your VoIP system during an odd hour. You will want your service provider to resolve your issue right away in order to keep your business running.

It is essential to pick a provider that offers great customer service so that you can always count on them and your business never comes to a halt.

In fact, you should consider customer service as a priority while selecting your VoIP service provider.

Acefone offers 24X7 customer service to assist you with your problems whenever you need support. Our servers have 99.99% uptime which makes sure that your business communication runs uninterrupted and our team of experts is always ready to solve your queries.

4. Reliability and Security

All your customer data is stored in the cloud with the VoIP, and you wouldn’t trust the security of your crucial data to a provider that is not reliable.

Thus, it is essential to select a provider with higher security and firewall along with good network monitoring to make sure your data is always safe.

Also, make sure the provider you choose has reliable backup options in case of a natural calamity.

At Acefone, with our 99.99% uptime and multilayer security like 2-factor authentication, full access control and constant network monitoring, we make sure that you never lose your customer interaction data.

We understand that your data security is imperative. This is why we have multiple backups and we provide reliable VoIP communication for your business.

Conclusion

Getting a VoIP phone system should be a stress free process for you and the same is true when you get it from Acefone. We do all the hard work so that you enjoy all the benefits by simply plug-and-play.

We provide the feature-rich Hosted Phone System tailored according to your business needs.

We enable you to get real-time insights on your business campaigns and our multi-device accessibility makes sure that you get those reports on any device of your preference no matter where you are located in the world as long as you have internet connectivity.

Our user-friendly portal is easy to understand and use and is even customisable to suit your business operations perfectly.

You can freely pick the specific features that you need for your business from our wide range of unmatchable features for VoIP solutions.

Also, you only pay for the features you select to make sure that you don’t have to step out of your budget to get the perfect business phone system for your organisation.

If you are looking forward to getting a VoIP phone system for your business or willing to switch your VoIP service provider, you can connect with one of our experts at 1888-859-0450 who will help you choose only the best for your business.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Ratnam Sinha

Author

Ratnam is an SEO enthusiast and content writer working as a Digital Marketer with Acefone. He is fond of traveling and new experiences. He is a huge Marvel fan and is always open to learning.

How Free Phone Number Boosts Your Marketing Campaign Even During A Pandemic

Ratnam Sinha

Author

Contact Center

June 6, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

The COVID-19 pandemic is negatively impacting a lot of businesses around the globe.

As work from home is being implemented, most businesses have switched to cloud-based solutions to ensure uninterrupted work process.

As for the marketing campaigns of your business, it is still possible to reach out to your customers and boost your business’ productivity.

A toll free number is an excellent addition to your marketing campaign. This is because the free phone number is a cloud-hosted VoIP service that requires no hardware to operate.

Here are a few ways how you can boost your business’s marketing campaigns using a free phone number like 0800 and 0808 even during a pandemic.

Remote Access

A free phone number is a cloud-based VoIP solution that allows you to access all its features on any device from anywhere around the world.

So even if your office is closed during a lockdown, you can still operate from your home and all your employees will enjoy the same functionality while working remotely.

When the customers contact your business, you can transfer the call to any device of your preference making sure that you never miss a lead.

Memorable

Free phone numbers are much more recognisable and memorable than a personal number for the customers. Choose between 0800 or 0808 number to make your business more approachable.

You can even choose a vanity number like 0800-PET-STORE or 0808-GET-FLOWERS to make your business stand out from the competition and instantly recognisable.

A customer will always relate a free phone number to a large organisation giving your business more credibility, and thus increasing the trust factor in your company.

Virtual Assistant

With a free phone number, you get the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) feature or a Virtual Assistant for your business. It gives your customers a self-help option.

This not only saves time for your agents but for your callers. A virtual assistant also helps redirect the calls to the right department improving your customer experience significantly.

The virtual assistant can also handle minor queries with a FAQs section and keep the agents available for more important calls and queries.

You can even set a specific response during a pandemic to educate your customers or provide them with important information to help them.

Monitor Campaigns

A free phone number allows you to track and monitor every call of your marketing campaign to get essential customer interaction data for your business.

This helps you optimise your marketing campaigns and create more effective marketing strategies.

Also, you can get insights on every campaign and get important analytics like the number of received calls, call duration, caller’s location, etc. to enhance your marketing campaigns.

With the ability to monitor, you can even run test campaigns to see which strategy is the most effective and productive for your customer base.

Cost Savings

Free phone number is cloud-based service, which means there is no requirement for physical hardware to be set up in your office premise.

This not only saves the money required for the hardware but also eliminates the hassle of its maintenance.

Moreover, there is no need to get an IT team to look after the free phone number service either. Most of the maintenance and servicing is taken care of by the service provider who provided the virtual number.

Additionally, there are customisable plans to meet your unique business requirements. So you only pay for what you need and nothing extra. And it is essential to save cost during a pandemic as the economy gets affected.

Scalability

While relocating your business or moving to a new location, free phone number services can be set up in a few hours and your business can start running seamlessly like before.

All you have to do is contact your service provider, and they will do all the set up for you.

Expanding your business is also very easy with free phone numbers. You can always create separate extensions for different business locations, or for different agents working remotely from completely different locations.

Extensions can be like 0800-465-6545 and 0800-465-6546, which help retain the identity of your business while also organising your customer calls.

In-depth Analysis

Free phone number allows the managers and business owners to keep track of and analyse every call.

It is necessary while working remotely, as the team leaders and managers are not physically present in the office premises to guide the agents better based on their performance.

With features like call barging, call whisper, call transfer, etc. you can make sure that your customers always get an optimum experience while connecting to your business.

Getting insights on every call will help you improve your agent performance and overall business performance.

It will also help you develop new strategies based on the preferences of your customers helping you boost your business productivity.

Call Recording

Free phone numbers enable you to record every customer interaction with your business.

This helps in solving disputes and conflicts if they ever arise by just listening to the interaction of your agent and the customer.

Your customers may have unique requirements during a pandemic. You can collect the recorded calls data and review it to build a product suited for your customers during the pandemic.

It also helps you to provide better training to your agents with the best customer interaction data available by preparing your agents for every possible situation.

Moreover, you can listen back to the recordings for any details that might have been missed by the agent.

You can also capture customer stories for better testimonies of your organisation. It also helps you to know your customers better and build a customer-friendly persona of your ideal client.

Music on Hold

While your customer is in a waiting queue before being connected to an agent, playing music while they are holding is a great way to improve your customer retention.

With a free phone number, you can even put a customised message instead of music in the waiting queue.

This can be any valuable information about your company or promotion of a brand new product that you might launch during this phase where most businesses are operating remotely.

Music on hold also enhances your brand reputation among your customers and they become more likely to recommend your business to others, which gives your company a free-of-cost marketing boost.

Conclusion

Every business requires a successful marketing campaign that helps to improve reach to the customers and elevate sales, and especially during a pandemic, it is crucial to run well-performing campaigns to keep your business in the competition.

Free phone number allows your business to run successful marketing campaigns and boost your business performance even if your team is working remotely.

It is a great investment for your organisation and will always be an asset.

A free phone number records the customer interaction data, provides them with an excellent experience and also helps to save money for your business.

It will also make your customers recognise your business distinctly and improve your brand image notably.

Acefone provides feature-rich Free Phone Number for your business that helps improve your business productivity while also providing more credibility.

Connect to an expert today at 1888-859-0450 to get your unique Business Number.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Ratnam Sinha

Author

Ratnam is an SEO enthusiast and content writer working as a Digital Marketer with Acefone. He is fond of traveling and new experiences. He is a huge Marvel fan and is always open to learning.

5 Call Conferencing Tips When Working From Home

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

June 5, 2020

5 mins read eye

Table of content

We’re all adjusting to working from home, and this means for most of us we will be taking part in many more conference calls than we are used to.

Video call conferencing can still be just as professional as a face to face meeting, you just need to be more mindful of distractions and ensure that everything is running as smoothly as possible.

Here at Acefone, we understand communication is key between you and your clients, so we’ve put together our top 3 tips for ensuring that your conference calls run smoothly and are as productive as possible.

Get To Grips With The Technology

Most commonly though COVID-19, businesses are turning to Google Hangouts, Zoom and Skype to keep in touch with their colleagues and clients.

If you have not used this technology before, then it can be a little daunting to go straight into video calling from traditional face to face calls.

Most video calling software will have the same basic features across them; such as the mute button, screen sharing, and a chat function.

It is good practice to get yourself familiar with the software you will be using for your video call beforehand, saving you from any embarrassing mistakes during the call.

Try a call with friends or family to get familiar with all of the new features to make sure you are completely ready to call your clients.

If you have a cloud phone system from Acefone, call conferencing is easy and included as standard.

You can simply use your desk phone, mobile device or laptop to call anyone based anywhere in the world with the same crystal clear communications you are used to.

All you need to do to connect is get your staff to dial in and you can collaborate seamlessly.

Practice Good Etiquette

While staff are working from home, most employers will accept that they will not be dressed as smartly as if they were working from the office – but most expect a level of professionalism to be maintained, particularly if you are dealing with clients.

For a video call, it is important to still present as professionally as possible, so potential clients can see how your business operates, even when you are not operating in the same way you are used to.

While dressing appropriately is important, you should also take a look at the background of your video for anything distracting to others on your call.

A plain background is the best for a successful video conference call, so others are focused on what you are saying and not any mess behind you.

However, if you are using a telephone conference call your appearance is not as important but your environment still is and good etiquette must still be followed.

You should be mindful of noise in your home, and take the call in a quiet place where you will not be interrupted by any noise or family members passing through.

Employers and colleagues expect a little disruption while you are working from home but it is polite to be mindful of your surroundings and keep any interruptions to a minimum.

During a telephone conference call and a video conference call, you should mute yourself when you are not speaking.

This means that if there is any background noise around you that this is not distracting for anyone else on the call and they can solely focus on the speaker.

This is simple to do on your hosted phone system and will allow you to participate in successful conference calls with ease.

Finally, you must ensure that you are not distracted in any other way – for example, you should not be scrolling through social media or doing anything else during the call.

Even if it is not a video conference call people can tell if you are distracted and this will look unprofessional to your colleagues in the meeting.

Make Sure You Are Fully Prepared

If you are the host of the conference call, whether you are communicating via video or telephone you should ensure that you are fully prepared for the meeting by setting out a list of topics you would like to cover.

You could even circulate this and have your colleagues add anything they would like to be discussed, doing so helps keep the conversation on track and saves wasting time going off on tangents.

When conference calling it is easy to get distracted and forget vital points you need to cover, particularly with staff who have not seen each other for a long time due to the lockdown.

So a list of topics provides some kind of order and ensures you do not miss anything important which needs to be relayed to your staff.

If you are not the host, it is useful to prepare something for when you are called upon, so you remain professional and can get all your points across succinctly.

For some people, conference calling over video or telephone is a nerve-racking experience and so a little preparation beforehand goes a long way to making them much more comfortable speaking.

Whether you are using your hosted phone system to host a conference call or video calling software, you should check that your WiFi connection is strong before starting the call.

So you do not risk losing connection and interrupting the flow of the conversation.

If you will be screen sharing, it is also advisable to check your internet browsing tabs and close anything you might not want your employer or colleagues to see.

If you can, beforehand, ensure that children or pets are being looked after by someone else while you are on the call.

These are simple ways you can get prepared and ensure your conference call goes smoothly even while working from home with the usual distractions.

Most employers and colleagues will completely understand that this takes some getting used to, so interruptions are bound to happen even with lots of preparation!

Communicating with others is more important than ever in the current climate, so here at Acefone, we ensure you have reliable and clear communication systems in place which allow you to work from anywhere in the world with ease.

Plenty of hosted phone system users have been holding conference calls with staff across the globe even before the global pandemic we find ourselves in, and you could join them in enjoying crystal clear communications with your staff and clients.

Simply call on 1888-859-0450 to find out more about how we can help you with conference calling from home.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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