As part of a new series at RingCentral, we’re highlighting some of our most interesting customers and how RingCentral helps their employees, business and customers. This week we are featuring LifeGuardian Technologies, LLC, a distributor of life saving emergency medical alert devices who recently made the switch to RingCentral Office for their business needs.

When you think of virtual offices, you probably think of IT companies, banking, online start-ups and government offices. But an online virtual office can also work for the medical field.

LifeGuardian Technologies recently made the switch to RingCentral Office for their business needs. They were looking for a cloud-computing solution as well as a world-class phone system and the ability to present a consistent, professional image. In return, they got all of these features as well as lower costs (reduced costs by 700% per month), less hassle, a flexible system and top-quality IP phone lines. Not to mention some other services that weren’tt available with their legacy telecommunications system. And all of these features are now under one vendor which means that the accounting department became one of our biggest fans.

All of these bonuses would make any medical company work smarter and more efficiently and help them enter the world of modern-technology offering the best they can to their patients and customers. If you are a medical service and are looking to shave a few bucks of of your monthly budget while upgrading the office system, then look no further than a service like RingCentral Office. Your patients will thank you for it and so will your employees.

>> Read the LifeGuardian Technologies press release

Here’s a feature that’s as simple as it sounds. The RingMe button gives your customers the ability to contact you directly from your website with a simple click of their mouse, free of charge. Put a RingCentral RingMe button on your blog, website—even your Microsoft Outlook® email signature—with minimal effort. Here’s how:

1) Log in to your RingCentral account

2) Click RingMe Options under CALL SETTINGS

3) Choose your settings

Choose from a variety of button sizes and styles. Configure your RingMe options to route calls to your company greeting, specific extensions, or department queues. Once you’ve configured your options, just copy the code and paste it onto your site or wherever you want customers to see it.

Once your customers click, they’ll be asked to provide their number. And like magic, RingCentral will connect you to automatically.

Want to learn more? Check out this short video showing the power of Ringme.

Most people get a local number when they start their business and don’t realize until much later that they should have gotten a toll free number. The signs are there, but most businesspeople don’t recognize them.

Take this short survey to help you decide if it is time to make the switch.

Y/N Question 1. Are the majority of my customers outside of my area code? 2. Does my company have multiple departments? 3. Is my local number hard to remember? 4. Does I sell products or services online? 5. Do I get many customer support calls? 6. Do I have offices or employees across the country? 7. Would my customers call more often if I had a toll free number?

 

If you answered yes to 1-3 questions, you may not need a toll free number, but might want to look into it.
If you answered yes to 4-5 questions, you are on the borderline and may benefit by getting a toll free number. If you said yes to 6-7 questions, then you definitely need a toll free number. This will give a new dimension to your business.

Photo by Leo Reynolds

When you decide to form a small- to medium-sized business, the first steps are obvious: think of something people want, get a DBA, hire employees, etc. After you have created the company, then it is time to get to work, right? Not necessarily. In today’s technology age, there are several steps that you should do now.

1) The Business Plan

Developing a business plan is a must, but it doesn’t need to be complex. A few pages outlining your business overview, industry background, product or service, business model, strategy & team provides the foundation of your plan. Having a solid business plan is a requirement to get SBA (Small Business Administration) loans. For guidance, take a look at Score’s business plan template.

2) Raise Capital

It’s not an easy time to raise capital for a new business. Many larger institutions have reduced lending programs for small businesses and venture capital has seen a downturn over the last couple years. The bright spot in local small business lending seems to currently be with local credit unions. Able to more intimately assess risk in their local markets, some credit unions have still been actively underwriting SBA loans.

3) Legal Structure

If you plan on bringing on partners or investors or will be signing contracts, you’ll want to set up a legal structure and incorporate your company. Your main options setting up as Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, or Corporation. Each structure has its advantages & benefits. Services such as LegalZoom provide cost-effective online tools to help guide you through this process.

4) Protect Your Company’s Name

Securing your brand identity is important, and becomes increasingly so as time goes by. The USPTO website has a section for trademarks where one can conduct a search to see if another business has an existing name similar to yours, and if they are in your industry.

5) Establish a Web Presence

Creating a website is essential these days. Your website needs to be much more than a postcard on the web if it’s going to be a lead generation machine. The cost of choosing a domain and hosting your site has come down dramatically over the last few years. Not to be ignored are social media options like Facebook, Twitter and a blog. These can give you a huge boost to your Google visibility.

6) Phone System

The telephone will be the primary means of sales, support and business relations for your new enterprise. Choosing a toll free number (such as 1-800-Widgets) will allow you to take calls from across the country. You’ll want to consider getting a virtual pbx which will provide the power and functionality of a Fortune 500 phone system, but with no hardware to buy or maintain. Even if your company has only one employee, you can also take advantage of multiple extensions. You can create virtual departments, make announcements and route calls from any extension to any number—your home, office, or cell.

7) Create Your Business Identity

Customizing your own letterhead, business cards, and even e-mail signature with your company name and logo helps establish credibility and brand recognition. It also helps spread the word. Once you create a company logo, use it everywhere; on business cards, brochures, letterhead, your website, even in your e-mail signature.

If you do these seven steps before you open for business, it will save you a lot of time in the long run and make your business run smoother from the get-go. And make sure to join us on Facebook, where we are growing our online conversation with our customers. Find out the latest updates, ask questions, learn tips, and stay connected.

Photos by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake

It’s a simple fact: Customers use your number to reach your company. So it makes sense to deploy local numbers where you want to reach more customers and explore new markets.

Get started by taking a look at your call logs to see where most of your calls are coming from.

• If you’re a nationwide business with a toll-free number, use Call Logs to look for opportunities in places where you’d like to do more business. For instance, if you don’t receive a lot of calls on the West Coast, consider purchasing local numbers in metropolitan areas like San Francisco and Los Angeles.
• If you’re a local business in a major city, but get regular calls from neighboring cities, consider adding numbers in those area codes—or even getting a toll-free number—to help you cast a wider net.
• Most callers won’t know they can use your number for calling and faxing. Consider adding a direct fax-only line, especially if you get a lot of faxes.

The more accessible you are to your customers, the more likely they are to rely on your services. And that can help expand your reach into new markets.

We take a rather complex term and break it down into its feature components using the example of the Virtual Office.

As we mentioned in a previous post on cloud computing, the term itself is hotly debated and its definitions are segmented. So let’s use the example of how Cloud Computing has allowed for the “Virtual Office.”

Cloud computing, at its core, is the ability for someone to take a service like a business phone system and “rent” its usage to a wide variety of customers . Because it’s cheaper and more resource efficient for a single vendor to offer services this way, it means that the end consumers have to pay far less than traditional, non-cloud based services of a similar nature.

RingCentral Office is a perfect example. Let’s say a 20 employee company is growing and wants to expand in a new location cost effectively – one that will also have remote satellite offices where employees will work from home.

Traditionally, this would mean that this company has to:

1. Order a new punch-key PBX (phone system) from a traditional hardware vendor who would charge about $1,000 per phone/desk.
2. Call the local telecommunications company to install a T1 line which contains 24 working phone lines. While the cost of this T1 could range from $300 to $700 per month, the real pain is the installation time.
3. After the hardware has been configured and installed, the same vendor that sold the phone system offers training to the company employees (for additional training fees).
4. After the phone system is bought, the T1 lines from the phone company have been installed and the employees trained on the new phone system, then it’s time for the remote offices and on-the-road sales staff to “integrate” into the new office phone system. And how do they do that? By learning how to forward phone calls on their new office desk phones, of course!
5. Any new moves, adds, or changes (known as MACs) to the phone system often require that the vendor who initially sold the phone system come out (referred to in the industry as “the white van”) and make the changes to the phone system itself.

If this company subscribed to a Business Phone System that runs “in the cloud”, the benefits are compelling:

1. Since the hardware & software that controls a business-class phone system is now delivered over the Internet as a service, this company gets fully-configured VoIP phones delivered without having to buy anything else. The only left to do is connect the phones to the Internet.
2. Since the VoIP phones also have a web interface that controls the phone and call-flow, there’s no training of employees on the new phone system required. It’s very easy to master a VoIP phone. One can even take an interactive demo to see just how easy it is.
3. These Business Phone Systems can be added to your smartphones as well. Remote office workers and road warriors can now truly “integrate” with their office desk phones. Apps like RingCentral Mobile for iPhone can be downloaded and set to show the business Caller ID, even from a personal phone.

Now that’s a simple example of how cloud computing is allowing the virtual office to be “virtual.” Because with cloud computing for business phone systems, every phone whether it’s in the headquarters or living on a smart-phone are all virtual phone systems.

The revolution has begun!

Call blocking is a great way to take only the calls you want to take. If you’ve had to deal with a string of pesky, unwanted calls, this will help you keep the funny business out of your business.

To activate call blocking:

1. Log in.
2. Select My Settings
3. Select Blocked/Allowed Numbers in the left navigation pane.

You can elect to block individual numbers as well as entire area codes, pay phones, and more. You can play a message that addresses blocked callers directly, “You cannot reach this number from your calling area,” or take a more gentle approach, “This mailbox is full.”

If you’re blocking a set of numbers, such as those from a certain area code, use the Allowed Numbers section to whitelist specific numbers from that area code you wish to receive.

You can even select Block All Calls. This is especially helpful for those who enjoy a lasting peace and quiet.

When a business converts to faxing over the internet, they suddenly have a problem with their old fax machine. This bulky machine is taking up space in the office that could be used for a bigger printer, shelving for reams of paper or even left empty to make the office look cleaner. However, simply throwing it into the garbage bin is not environmentally friendly. Here are three easy and low-cost options that will get rid of that machine and make Mother Earth smile.

1. Recycling Most big cities have places that will accept old fax machines and either fully recycle them and/or refurbish them for resale. Find a recycling company near you at the Environmental Protection Agency.
2. Nation-wide Donations If your town doesn’t have an office equipment recycling company, consider donating it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Earth911.com has a great list of recycling options that accept mailed office equipment for recycling. An important note with fax machines is that you should recycle the machine and the ink/toner separately. There is a good list of national charities that accept recycled office equipment at UsedComputer.com.
3. Charitable Donations Also, consider donating your machine to a local charity. If you belong to a church, ask them if they have an employee who could use a personal fax machine. Is there a school in your neighborhood? Non-profit groups often have financial limitations, so donations help them considerably. What’s more, your donation may even be tax deductable. States usually have a recycling program on their website that might include Charities. (For instance, Massachusetts has a page set up on their site: http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/ecycling/live.htm.) Go to your state website and see what they have listed online.

Do you have any other ways that you recycle your old office equipment that you can share? Let us know! Photo by Abhisek Sarda

How many times have you wished you recorded a call? Well, now you can with Call Recording. Simply press *9 to start a recording, and press *9 to stop it. Use this feature to record calls on-the-fly.

You can also:

• Customize recording notifications
• Retrieve recordings from your call logs
• Forward recordings through email to coworkers

It works with any device you’re using, which means you can record calls from home, at the office, or even from your cell phone. This can be particularly useful in companies that run customer service, training, and/or support lines, and that want to keep accurate records for legal purposes.

Speaking of legal, it’s a good idea to brush up on your legalese before you start *9ing every call—keep in mind there are several federal and state laws that regulate the recording of telephone calls and other electronic communications. We’re not taking any responsibility for what you do with call recording, and we’re certainly not letting you use our get out of jail free card, either.

It’s a complicated term used to describe a variety of paradigms and whose historical time line is still hotly debated.

In the world of IT, the industry seems abuzz with the phrase “Cloud Computing”. In 2007, Dell tried to trademark the term (it was rejected by the USPTO) and Larry Ellison of Oracle said, “It’s what we’ve been doing all along.”

So if it’s not new and not novel enough to be granted a trademark to an individual company, what is it?

For businesses, cloud computing means that they will be able to afford and deploy enterprise-level software and hardware applications that were previously cost or time prohibitive except for the largest of companies.

For consumers, it means that social networking, rich phone applications, and video games will all be more readily available and ultimately, open up consumer wallets for the micro-payment economies that cloud computing enables. That means the trend of people buying applications from iTunes, ringtones, and “virtual goods” on games such as Farmville and World of Warcraft will increase – dramatically over the next 5 years.

For the economy, it means that both businesses and consumers can expect a dizzying speed of pace in new online services, ideas, and industries.
In a technical jargon nutshell, cloud computing is leveraging the power of a network of computers (the internet or intranet) and delivering it to the end user as a service. This falls into three main categories of cloud computing scenarios:

1. Software as a Service (SaaS): It used to be that enterprise software came on a CD with a serial or license number to authenticate the validity of the user. The software rested on the user’s machine and used that computer to process the code that was necessary to deliver the feature functionality to said user. Essentially, the user’s computer was both the Server (processing the code) and the Client (requesting and receiving the computational requests).
   • The SaaS model means that these computers sit in a co-location facility or data center and computational requests and processes are done by the (Server) computer and delivered via a “Thick Client” (web browser) to the end user. In this manner, a single server in a single location could deliver software features and functionality to a wide array of users spread across multiple geographic locations.
   • In order for SaaS to exist, it had to first wait for a common thick client (the first being Netscape’s browser) and the ability for software to be “multi-tenant” or rather the software had to be written (from scratch) to have multiple instances of the application running within a single server.
   • While Saas is touted by some as being a relatively new industry (Salesforce.com being the brand leader in this space), a company called ADP had been doing it for decades (even before the rise of the internet) by providing its users telnet gateways as Clients (otherwise known as dumb-terminals).
2. Software Development Platforms as a Service (PaaS): A few years ago, the clever folks at Google released an API (Application Programming Interface) that granted a “developer token” by Google which gave them access. The 3rd party developers were then able to use a massive amount of servers on an application development framework that allowed engineers to “rent” these resources to create new applications.
   • In the current climate, each of the development frameworks (Cloud Platforms) are distinct; there are no standardized APIs, and building an application for one Platform does not mean you can carry it over to another platform.
3. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): While there has been a lot of coverage for Amazon’s decision to allow third parties to rent their own servers and data storage devices, managed hosting companies have also been doing this for quite some time. Co-location space rentals, MeetMe Rooms, Managed Hosting and even Dedicated Virtual Hosting means the physical infrastructure of servers, electricity, data storage units and even disaster proofing could be managed by one entity and rented out to another. Anyone can have a “cage” in a secure, costly data center by renting its resources virtually over the internet. On a holistic level, one could then create a Platform as a Service (PaaS) framework, rent a co-location’s resources to host it and then use this platform to create an SaaS application to run on this platform.

Like how this example ties it all together? Think of it this way – we can now build a startup by creating a PaaS framework which allows developers to create software applications. We then take this framework and place it onto servers and resources we rent (not buy) at a co-location facility so we can have Hardware as a Service (HaaS). Using our own PaaS framework which sits on our rented HaaS infrastructure, we can build an SaaS application that delivers feature functionality to end clients. Voila! All three major types of Cloud Computing in one single scenario!