by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Imagine that Arthur Miller had not written Death Of A Salesman, but instead wrote Death Of A Sale. In the opening scene an eager customer places a phone call to one of several competing suppliers, only to hear after ten rings those two dreaded words: “Please hold.” What unfolds is a tragedy played out in three acts of agonizing waiting: Patience, Anger and Utter Despair. And when the curtain comes down, the sale has been lost and perhaps the customer, too. This is theater that no business owner ever wants to see, and it doesn’t have to happen. With Auto Attendant, long call-holding periods, botched call routing and lost messages are easily avoided. Existing customers get the good service they expect. Prospects are made to feel confident they have called a company that is on the ball. Sometimes referred to as a “virtual receptionist”, Auto Attendant is a business telephone system feature that without human intervention routes calls to extensions or departments, plays music on hold, records voicemail messages and sends voicemail messages to email. It can also manage advanced call-forwarding options and send faxes. When implemented properly, what Auto Attendant does best is save customer relationships and gives businesses a better chance to convert prospects into customers. Most Auto Attendant systems offer a simple menu that can be customized to the needs of an organization (“for sales, press 1, for customer service, press 2”, for example) to facilitate its use by callers. It may also allow callers to reach an operator or receptionist by pressing a particular number, usually “0”. Auto Attendant systems have options that provide for...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Dissatisfied with your current telecom carrier? Need enhanced technology? Unhappy with service outages? Paying too much? The likely drivers of the search for a telecom carrier are a desire for improved technologies, the quest for better customer service and more reliable tech support, the need for a higher level of management reports and analytics, and the goals of increasing revenues and containing costs. Here are some thoughts on how you may go about evaluating the merits of a carrier. Technology Provided: Ascertain if the carrier’s technology meets your business requirements, both present and future. Weigh each feature of the carrier network and determine its importance to your needs. Know what you want and what you don’t want. Think about how well the service will integrate with other technologies you now utilize or anticipate utilizing in the near future. You may wish to explore how readily the platform accommodates the use of mobile devices, which have increasingly become integral to business telecommunications. Bundled packages of digital phone service, high-speed broadband internet service, PRI over a fiber optic connection and Ethernet network plans can be purchased for better pricing. To improve productivity and reduce travel costs, determine if a carrier supports efficient web-based and audio conferencing systems. Customer Service/Tech Support: No matter how strong a carrier’s technology platform may be, if the level of customer service and tech support does not meet your expectations, that carrier can have a deleterious effect on the operation of your business, jeopardize your customer base and hurt your bottom line results. Inquire about the carrier’s customer service philosophy and procedures, find out about the responsiveness...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
A burglary or act of vandalism can ruin your day – and, in the extreme, it can ruin your business. To prevent that, you need to protect your pocket, the one that holds your profits, not the one that holds your leaky pens. The importance of maintaining a safe, secure operation for your business cannot be over-emphasized. Managing access to your facility and monitoring activity inside and out are the keys to enterprise security. Insurance may cover the dollar cost of theft and damage that you may incur, but the true cost to your business can far exceed the repair or replacement of assets stolen or destroyed. Access control and video surveillance systems will secure your business site, help to protect valuable assets, including equipment, inventory, proprietary technology and confidential data, while ensuring a safe workplace environment for your employees and your customers. Quality technologies manufactured by premier firms such as Honeywell and Mobotix for intrusion detection and surveillance are available at costs that readily justify the benefits they produce. Using keypads and proximity readers, door and gate control systems can limit access by location, by time of day and days of the week. IP surveillance cameras, operating in real time, can be viewed at a monitoring station or accessed by computer, tablet or smart phone. While some video cameras store images on built-in computers, others utilize DVR technology for archive storage. Having adequate security systems may produce the added benefit of reduced outlays for insurance premiums. Lowering your business insurance costs requires lowering your business risks, and the risks of theft, fraud and property damage can be reduced...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
As swiftly as telecommunication equipment continues to improve, the phone system you have may seem to meet your current needs but may fall well short of the capabilities of today’s technology. More importantly, your present system may be woefully inadequate in meeting the future needs of your business. In an increasingly digitized world, once discrete technologies have become more and more integrated, which has had a significant impact on the telecommunication industry – and it can have a positive impact on your business. To improve productivity now and prepare for growth down the road, this may be the time to upgrade your phone system and take advantage of new technology in the marketplace. But how do you know when it’s the right time to make a change? Here are some things to consider: If you are thinking about adding to staff or expanding to a new location, you will want to know if your phone system can be scaled to satisfy the projected needs of the enterprise. Will it be able to handle more volume? Can it accommodate multiple locations in a seamless fashion? Or consider how integrating a phone system with other technologies will enhance the productivity of your employees. That may lead you to voice over internet (VoIP) as a solution, or perhaps to a cloud-based platform such as Quorum. You may want email notification of voicemail messages that are received. As technology has become ever more mobile with the advent of smart phones and tablets, for example, ask if you’re taking advantage of the tools that will keep your work force in the field connected to...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
To answer that question you could pick a number out of the air that seems right or if you are moving to a new location decide that “since we had 4 trunk lines in the old place, 4 lines should suit us just fine when we move to the new place.” Let me suggest a more analytical approach. The best answer to the question of how many lines are needed to conduct business efficiently can be derived through a series of calculations using telephone traffic engineering formulas. Telephone traffic engineering is something of an arcane science. It is a field of study founded by Dutch mathematician and engineer A. K. Erlang early in the 20th century. Not limited solely to the realm of telecommunications, though, traffic engineering is just as readily applied to determining, for example, how many tellers are needed in a bank branch to take care of customers on a busy Monday morning or how many lanes of highway are needed to reduce commuter congestion on those get-away Friday afternoons. But regardless of the type of traffic being measured, the goal is always the same: to rationalize resources and satisfy demand in an efficient, cost-effective manner. Having the right number of trunk lines in place is critical to the performance of your telephone system, to the level of service your customers and prospects receive, and to the profitability of your business. To ascertain what that number is, traffic engineering uses probability analysis and statistical forecasting tools to predict levels of caller activity to establish the number of lines needed to handle an expected volume of calls. These...
by | Sep 20, 2016 | Uncategorized
Mobotix Night & Day Camera There are few areas of technology where advances have been more profound than in video surveillance systems. Where once video surveillance consisted of one or two fixed cameras feeding blurred video into a black and white monitor at a central location that was viewed by a security guard who may or may not have dozed off, there now are high resolution computerized camera systems with multiple functions mounted on a network platform that allow for nearly unlimited user options. Built-in software organizes digital video into a manageable database and by the use of video analysis software greatly facilitates targeted monitoring. When looking at video surveillance system manufacturers, industry leader, Germany-based Mobotix, A.G., most often comes to mind. So, let’s see why Mobotix equipment enjoys the market appeal that it does and how it may well serve the security needs of your business. Mobotix manufactures megapixel IP cameras that create accurate, high resolution images that are easily viewed. These durable instruments, with built-in software, are cameras with the attributes of computers. What is more, since software is provided with each camera, there are no licensing or update fees, as updates are delivered free of charge via the company’s website. Moreover, the cameras have no moving parts, no lenses or positioning motors, which translates to minimal maintenance requirements. And weatherproof models can withstand temperatures from -22 degrees to +140 degrees Fahrenheit. High resolution cameras with up to 360 degree views reduce the number of cameras needed to monitor a work area, thus producing a cost savings for the business owner. Mobotix, by building a high-speed computer...
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