3 Questions Businesses Should Ask About Their Phone

This post offers 3 simple, but powerfully effective ways that even first time
entrepreneurs can do to achieve higher profits, attract new clients,
and build your brand.

1) Will I need more than one extension?

Offering toll free numbers for sales and local numbers for support are small, but critically important aspects of your brand marketing that should not be ignored. In fact, because the rise of Google Local Business listings and other local business directories have grown in everyday use by customers, it's critical to choose your business numbers in the initial phases of starting your business or new division.

Even if you're a micro business, you will need to wear many hats taking on sales and support roles. Having more than one phone number offers a professional appearance to your prospective customers and you can place them on your business card as well as your website. It provides a sense of security to your customer base that there is depth to your organization. As your business grows, having unique numbers for sales and support means that you can easily forward the toll free number to your new employee. Best of all, online phone services like RingCentral allow you to track the phone activity of that number, so you can keep track of your contractors and employees productivity as well as get clear metrics.

Even a very small business should be asking:

• How many different phone numbers would one expect at a larger company if they were selling a product similar to me?
  
  I know many entrepreneurs would say, "I don't have any competitors." but for the sake of this exercise, let's pretend :)


• Could the 3 to 5 extensions I think I need grow to 5 to 10 extensions in 6 months?
  
  A good gauge is to have 1.5 extensions per employee. This takes into account the different fax numbers, roll-over extensions, and different numbers one would use for various marketing campaigns.

RingCentral offers a ground-floor start-up business a service called RingCentral Online. There are several packages that are well suited for those companies that may grow from 1 to 5 employees within 12 months and quickly need extensions for various departments.

If you anticipate that your growth will go from 5 to 10 employees in 12 months, I would suggest a higher-platform service such as RingCentral's 4-Line Office Phone System.

2) How heavily am I going to fax?

Believe it or not, faxing costs for ink & paper as well as the human labor costs of organizing faxed sales contracts can be one of the most costly line items for a small business!

Also, as a rule of thumb, integrating your fax + toll free number + support number is not just ideal, but smart. It will give you an edge over your competitors who do not follow this ideology. The following are verticals or organization types that we've seen gain significant time savings and better sales-flow with electronic fax services that are tied to their business phone systems:

• Legal (Attorneys save time and money by having all faxes automatically saved as electronic records that can be easily forwarded, sent in emails, or printed).


• Sales (Faxed contracts and repeats of "did you get my fax?" are things of the past).


• Support Services (Being able to send forms and letters with a mouse-click instead of a physical fax not only saves time & money, it's better for the environment :) ).


• Start-Ups (You are going to sign a lot of contracts whether they be NDAs, Sales Agreements, financial statements, fund-raising documents, or general marketing documents. Keeping track of all of them not only makes organizational sense for a business striving for ultimate efficiency - if the company undergoes due diligence for venture capital dollars or a potential acquisition, having everything recorded electronically makes life way, way easier in what is usually a time of stress & anxiety for founders).

Check out RingCentral's easy integration to a small business phone system plan.

3) How many minutes am I going to need?

There is a phenomenon for people on vacation which gives credence to the old adage: "plan to spend more than you plan to spend."

It's tempting to sign in for a plan that doesn't give you enough options but offers cheap, flat rate long distance. Or sign up for a feature-rich plan that locks you into a paradigm where upgrades and add-ons are cumbersome and expensive.

If you anticipate more than 300 minutes of phone time per employee (that's only 1.25 hour per week) than a RingCentral Online plan is OK for up to 10 extensions. But if your organization does a considerable amount of time on sales & support, you'll want a service like RingCentral Office. The flat rates savings are heard to beat, and there won't be any nasty long distance bills on your monthly statements.

Photos by cirofono and ToniVC

Tip: How to Identify Incoming Calls for Each Extension

We surveyed our customers and found that nearly half of their employees spend 75% of their time working away from the office. Given this statistic, it's clear that mobility is paramount in today’s business world. With features like call forwarding and multiple extensions, RingCentral gives your business the ability to stay connected with your customers, even when you're out of the office. In today's Tuesday Tip, we'll show you how to update your answering rules so that you can identify incoming calls from multiple extensions.

Let's say you forward all your sales, support and billing calls to your cell phone, how will you know which extension is forwarding the call? Simple! Add an identifying code to forwarded caller ID numbers. That way, you'll be able to quickly identify which extension the call is being forwarded from, see the caller ID information on your cell phone and give the appropriate response. "Hello, you've reached the sales department..."

To do this, first log into your RingCentral account:

1. Select Company Settings, find the extension you want to identify, then under Rules, select Edit
2. Find the answering rule you want to add your code to and select Edit
3. Under Forward My Calls, select Edit for the number you are having your calls forwarded to
4. Enter your code in the pop-up window

That's it! You can select up to 5 digits for each code, and choose whether you want to place the code at the beginning or at the end of the caller ID number. Repeat these steps for each extension you'd like the identifying code appended to. If you'd like to use this option with your DigitalLine, be sure to enter your RingCentral DigitalLine as a forwarding number.

Top 3 Vanity Number Mistakes to Avoid

Knowing how to search for a vanity number and how they work is critical to your brand's marketing success

1) Don't search small inventory websites for number availability

While I'm obviously biased, RingCentral's Vanity Number Search tool is amongst the best. Chances are good that if the number is available, it's on RingCentral's site and listed as part of their inventory. Too many first time vanity number customers find one or two single websites and conduct a search for number availability, thinking that all inventory is listed within a single site. Conduct a more exhaustive search and remember that toll free numbers can always be ported over to any phone service provider of your choice. Once you own the number, you own the number - not the telecom company. So search high and low for that number and do invest time into the process.

2) Don't restrict your choice of number by industry description or company name

Chances are, especially for 1-800 numbers, that your mnemonic number of choice may not be available. 1-800-Got-Junk isn't worth millions for no reason, but it may also mean that 1-800-ABCplumbers is not available. That shouldn't deter you from getting a vanity number that's going to be easy to remember at parties, on radio ads and on the web. Think of verbs such as "Go" or "Call" as additions to your brand or industry name in the vanity number. For example, 1-800-Go-Fedex is a simple but powerful example of adding an "action verb" to the addition of your brand. There are tons of other examples, so don't settle for the first number you find!

3) Know the hierarchy of vanity number recognition with the public

As I've written before on this blog, even American Idol often repeated "These are 888 numbers folks, not 800 numbers." That means that many people still perceive toll free numbers as being 800 numbers. The obvious ideal is 1-800 numbers, after that the second best choice is 888 numbers. IMHO 866 and 877 numbers are equally third choice. However, that being said, if 888 numbers worked well enough for American Idol... then the lesson is, it's ok to have an 888 number and not an 800 toll free, but it may require an extra few seconds reminding folks of that in your ads. If I had to choose between getting a less desirable mnemonic in an 800 number format or getting a more desired name in 888 format - I would pick the 888 format every time.

Start exploring now and see what you can find. Just make sure you remember these three common mistakes while you make your search.

Leaving the office behind opens new opportunities

We recently asked our customer —small to medium-sized business owners across the U.S.— how their businesses operate. This survey reveals a continuing shift from the traditional on-site centralized work force to a distributed virtual office model.

Here are the complete results:

1. How much time do your employees spend conducting business away from the office?


2. When receiving or making business calls while not in the office, do you try to give the impression to your clients that you are at your office?

3. Describe your office environment


4. For the year 2010, do you plan to expand your business?


5. If you plan to expand your business, what will be the working environment for new employees?


These results illustrate how small business owners are adapting to current economic conditions. For example, only 15% of respondents report having all employees work form a single location, while the majority—a whopping 57%—work from a virtual office.

Running a business under a virtual office model reduces office-related rental expenses and allows companies to expand their talent pool beyond a limited geographical area. In other words, the virtual office model provides a win-win solution for businesses.

As more companies sharpen their competitive edge by applying the virtual office model, it’s crucial for businesses to adopt a phone system designed for the modern and mobile business environment. This is where RingCentral shines.

“RingCentral facilitates the seamless integration of distributed employees into a single business phone system regardless of the employee’s choice of phones—mobile or fixed line,” says Vlad Shmunis, CEO of RingCentral. “The best part is that businesses do not need to spend a single dollar in capital expenditure.”

RingCentral conducted this study from October 16 to November 11, 2009. More than 300 customers responded to this online survey.

5 Signs Your Telecom Carrier Just Isn't That Into You

1) Understanding taxes and surcharges on your bill make that calculus test you failed in 12th grade look easy.

Sometimes, I look at my bills and sigh because I can't figure out why I am being charged $1.36 for some fee I have never heard of. And the bills are usually 4 pages long. You almost need a code breaker to figure these things out. Makes me think that they are trying to hide something from me.

2) You ask for call center functionality and they give you something called "Centrex".

Centrex is an old PBX technology that was prevalent in the UK in the 1960s and it is still being used albeit not frequently. If someone tries to sell Centrex... run away!

3) Their tech support doesn't answer calls at night. In fact, they're not open at night.

Are all of your clients located in your time zone? No? Then why would you want your telecom carrier to only work during your business hours?

4) You ask for new extensions to your office phone system and you wait and wait and wait.

After adjusting your schedule to be available for an appointment with a five-hour window, you have to wait for the technician to arrive. Fingers crossed he doesn't get stuck in traffic and force a rescheduled appointment on another day

5) You're still dialing into your office line to retrieve voicemails... I mean, really?

Why are you still calling your office phone to listen to your messages? That is so 1990s and a real pain. You should be able to get your messages from anywhere.

Conclusion

If any of these points ring true for you, then it is time for you to consider a new telecom partner for your business needs.

Tuesday Tip: Business Applications for Frugal Entrepreneurs

Cutting costs around the office is possible with the right business applications. Here are several tools your office shouldn't be without.

• Google Docs: The beauty of Google Docs is that you can collaborate with others in real time, access your documents from anywhere, and even publish them to your website. With Google Docs you can create spreadsheets, presentations, and collaborate on documents so you always have the most recent version online. Best of all it’s free to use!

Have your own domain name? Put it to use with Google Apps for Domains. All the best Google applications, plus you get to use your domain name in your email address so your business correspondence always looks professional.

• OpenOffice: Not ready for web-based applications? Open Office is an open-source full-fledged office suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation package, and database. This powerful suite can be installed on as many computers as you’d like, and is absolutely free to use.

• Basecamp: Organization goes a long way in business, and this cost-effective web-based application is a great tool designed to help small businesses collaborate and stay on top of all its active projects. Basecamp features to-do lists, file sharing, milestones calendar, group chat, time tracker, message boards, and a concise project overview page to help your team get all their tasks done in time. iPhone users have the option to download various applications to keep them productive even when they’re on the road. Plans start at $24 a month, but there is a free 30-day trial if you’re curious.

• Freshbooks: This web-based service offers a slew of features to users looking for an invoicing program similar to QuickBooks. A free account lets you use an unlimited number of invoices for up to three clients (you can pay a premium if you want more), and allows you to insert your company logo on your invoices, mail out invoices, and track the time you spend on each project. Your clients can pay your directly online via one of the multiple payment sites, and best of all, it keeps track of any outstanding accounts for re-billing. Certainly a must have for anyone starting a new business.

• Constant Contact: Using newsletters to keep your customers engaged and informed is a must, and Constant Contact has some serious tools that allow you to create professional online surveys, newsletters, and invitations to events. You can also keep track of who’s reading your emails and clicking on your links in real time. Their plans start at $15 month, and go up based on the number of email address on your list.

• Free Conference: This free service offers your small business a convenient way to set up conference calls with clients, employees, and colleagues. Calls can be scheduled online from any Web browser for up to 150 callers. There is a 4-hour maximum time per call, and all participants receive an email with a dedicated dial-in number along with an access code.

• SlideShare: Wanna share that great PowerPoint deck or Word document with the world? SlideShare allows you to do just that by creating an embeddable Flash presentation you can post on your website or blog. Simply upload your docs, add audio, and wait for the Flash movie. Presentations can also be downloaded by users or shared via email with friends. It’s all very Web 2.0.

Got any other suggestions? Let us know which ones you use in the comments below. Hope this guide helps you save money this season.

Tuesday Tip: Fax from your iPhone

Who’d ever thought it would be possible to send, receive, and forward a fax from your iPhone?

Today’s feature-laden smartphones give you the freedom to run your business from the road, and an application like RingCentral Mobile goes above and beyond the call of duty to give you true mobility when you need it the most. We’ve written about RingCentral Mobile before, but today’s Tuesday tip will purely focus on mobile faxing features you’ll want to know about.

Receiving a Fax

If you’re an iPhone owner, you must download our free iPhone application called RingCentral Mobile in order manage any faxes. This application gives you the ability to view incoming faxes under the “Messages” tab, which are marked by a small fax machine icon to the left of the sender's fax number. Here you’ll also see the number of pages the transmission contains as well as the time and date the fax was sent.

To view a fax message you simply tap the message alert, which in turn takes you to another screen where you can zoom, rotate, or view the entire faxed document by swiping your finger up or down the screen. Definitely a great way to get a glimpse of incoming faxes while you’re on-the-go.

Forwarding a Fax

There will be times when you’ll want to forward a fax message to another colleague for immediate attention. Fortunately, RingCentral Mobile gives you this ability by providing you with a fax forwarding option on the top right hand side of the Fax View screen. You simply select this option, enter the email address of the person you wish to forward the message to, enter a short message, and hit send. Your fax document is forwarded as a PDF attachment.

Sending a Fax

This is not necessarily a part of RingCentral Mobile yet, but I thought I’d let you know there is a way to send faxes from your iPhone or any smartphone for that matter. In order to do this, you simply enter the fax number followed by @rcfax.com in the” To”” field (example: 5105551212@rcfax.com), enter a message in the email’s subject field, and attach the document you wish to fax. Pretty simple, eh?

That’s it! You can find more information about faxing documents by visiting RingCentral Mobile. If you have any tips or recommendations, leave us a comment in the section below.