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How to Win More Customers with a Quality Greeting

by Derrick Arteus

Automated business greetings can be frustrating, but they don’t have to be. While all those number prompts serve a purpose for your company, it’s important to look at it from the perspective of your current and potential customers. Are you potentially losing new and recurring business because your automated greetings are so frustratingly long?

Here are three solid tips to win more customers with quality automated greetings:

  • Keep it simple. How many prompts does your potential or current customer have to go through to get to a live representative? If it’s more than 2, then you’re probably losing business.
  • Only say what needs to be said. Skip the 5 minute informational recording that someone has to listen to in order to chose an option. People are calling your automated greeting to speak with a live representative.
  • Prioritize your options. Take some time to analyze what clients are calling in about most, and have those be some of the first options they hear. Why have customer service be option 9 when that’s what 90% of your customers call in for?

How Can I Learn More?

Want to learn more about creating quality greetings? Join us for our free 30 minute webinar on how to add greetings for your company menu, voicemail, or hold music.

What

  • Learn how to add a greeting to your account with our various upload options
  • Configure your greeting for use as custom hold music or voicemail
  • Set up a menu system with a quality automated greeting

When

Thursday, July 10 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM PST.

How

Register Now

Phone.com University

Phone.com University – How to Send and Receive Faxes

by Derrick Arteus

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Faxing has never been easier with Phone.com! Say goodbye to your fax machine and enjoy the convenience of sending and receiving faxes digitally from your computer.

Every Phone.com account includes the ability to send faxes without any additional charges. To receive faxes, you’ll need to add a dedicated phone number to your account that only receives faxes. 

Sending a Fax

  1. Mouse over Configure and select Manage Users & Extensions.
  2. Select Edit for the extension you want to send a fax from.
  3. Select Send a Fax on the left-side navigation bar.

You’ll now be on the send a fax page where you can upload your attachment, enter the number you want to send your fax to, and preview what your fax will look like. 

Be sure to enter your email in the Send a confirmation email to: (Fig. 1) field as this will be your only confirmation that your fax sends successfully. 

fax1

Receiving a Fax

First, you’ll need to add a new Phone.com number to your account.

  1. Mouse over Configure and select Add a Number.
  2. Select the type of number you want to add – U.S. Local, Toll Free, or Global.
  3. Select the specific number you want to add.

Once your number is added, you will then need to configure it to receive faxes.

  1. Mouse over Configure and select Manage Numbers.
  2. Select Edit for your fax number.
  3. Select Edit for the Number Action field.
  4. On the call handling rules page, change Select Operation to Receive Fax (Fig. 1).
  5. Select the extension number you want to receive faxes at (Fig 2).
  6. Select Save Rule Settings.

fax2

Now that your number is configured, all faxes that you receive will be delivered to the extension inbox that you specified. 

That’s it for today, see you next Monday for some more Phone.com knowledge!

Celebrating an Old-fashioned Fourth of July

by Phone.com

We’d like to wish all of our US-based customers a very happy Fourth of July! We hope you’re enjoying the day outdoors with family and friends.

Phone.com’s west coast office is situated in Poway, California, a small, friendly city of around 50,000 people. Powegians pride themselves on preserving their local history, and nowhere is that more vividly evident than at our annual Old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration.

Poway-Midland Railroad ticket office. By Sue Walsh

The July 4th celebration is held at Old Poway Park, home to the Poway-Midland Railroad, a full-size, narrow-gauge railway with a restored steam train that carries passengers around the perimeter of the park in antique railway cars.

Volunteers throughout the park are dressed on July 4th in period costume—from the refined ladies spinning cotton candy to the rugged outlaws holding up the train, smoking guns and all. With live music and square dancing, old-fashioned field games for the kids, and summer treats like watermelon, hot dogs and corn on the cob, there is always something to do.

Old-fashioned Fourth of July Gallery

Do you have an Independence Day celebration in your neighborhood? Wherever you’re spending your Fourth of July, Phone.com hopes its a great day!

Find the Best Vanity Phone Number for Your Business

by Sue Walsh

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With so many companies building an online presence, it’s easy to forget that we still rely on the humble telephone to do business and create success.

Small companies use their phone lines to answer customer questions, take orders and deal with vendors, which is why a memorable vanity number is such a valuable asset.

What is a Vanity Number?

A vanity number is a local or toll-free phone number made up of a string of numbers or letters that are either easy to remember or represent your business well. For example, 858-555-5000 or 1-800-FLOWERS.

Software Advice, a Texas-based service that helps businesses select the right software for their needs, recently published a great decision tree (shown below) that will help you choose the best vanity number for your business.

At first glance, the chart looks a bit intimidating, but the process is simple: Find the best word or phrase to represent your business > see if it’s available > take it!

Vanity Number Decision Tree. Source: Software Advice.

Phone.com Vanity Numbers

Phone.com offers a free vanity toll-free number with all plans. When choosing yours, we encourage you to work through Software Advice’s flowchart to find the very best number for you — it should only take a few minutes.

Also remember that your vanity number should be easy to recall, look professional and lend credibility to your business. 1-800-FLOWERS, for example might be better than 1-437-FLOWERZ.

Building and maintaining name recognition with a vanity toll-free number is one of the easiest ways to win business!

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3 Proven Phone.com Tasks You Can Delegate to Your Employees

by Derrick Arteus

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One of the greatest tricks up your sleeves as a small business owner or manager is the power of delegation. If you find yourself stuck managing the day to day account management of your Phone.com account, then it might be time to delegate some of these tasks to your employees or fellow business partners.

The good news is that there is a solution. With Phone.com, every account includes an unlimited amount of extensions. These extensions provide a secondary login access that allows extension users to manage a wide array of account related activities.

While I could write an entire page about all the features available, here are the top 3 proven tasks an employee can do within an extension that you no longer have to:

  • Voicemail Setup – Employees can add their own greeting, change their voicemail password, and enable voicemail notifications right from their extension.
  • Faxing – Say goodbye to fax machines, every extension provides the ability to send a digital fax in seconds.
  • Call Forwarding – Set it once, and forget about it. Employees can directly manage their forwarding from their extension, whether they are on the road or at the office, they’ll always be connected.

How Can I Get Started?

Setting up extension logins on your account for employees is quick and easy. Join us for our upcoming free webinar to learn everything you need to know about the process.

What

  • Learn how to set up an extension for an employee and get them logged in.
  • Show your employee how to send SMS, faxes, check their voicemail, and more so you never have to!
  • Configure other settings such as address book contacts, conference calls, and call forwarding.

When

Thursday, July 3 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM PST.

How

Register Now