Work can be stressful even on a good day. It’s even worse on busy or hectic days, when you barely have enough time to do everything that you need to do. It’s days like that when you want nothing more than to get out of there and find a way to unleash all of that stress. Unfortunately, it seems like more often than not we end up bringing workday stress home with us and let it affect our home lives as well. When you’re finally off the clock after a busy workday, you need to get rid of some of
Once upon a time, being an entrepreneur meant that you had an office space to work from which you might occasionally pack up and move to another building as businesses grew and evolved. This became less common over time, with entrepreneurs gravitating more toward coworking spaces where they shared office areas with other entrepreneurs. It offered a bit more freedom, and even allowed for networking with people you might not have met otherwise. In time, though, even the coworking spaces became too crowded and confining for modern entrepreneurs. A new breed of mobile entrepreneurs has left the office behind and
As far as trends and use go, Voice over IP, better known as VoIP, is big. You may not realize just how big of a business it is, though. According to the latest statistics, it’s expected that there will be one billion people using VoIP services by the end of 2017. Given that there are only 7.5 billion people in the world, that means that approximately one in every eight people uses VoIP at home, at work or at some other point during the day. What Is VoIP? If you’re not one of those one in eight people and aren’t
Many people dread having to leave a phone message when they call someone. Even if you know exactly what you were calling about, having to condense everything into a short message on the fly can be nerve wracking. Think about it… how many times have you left a message and then realized that you forgot something important as soon as you got off the phone? Knowing how to structure a good phone message can help with this. Instead of scrambling to cover everything that you need to say, you can look at the various points of message structure and fill
Running a business isn’t easy, especially when you take a hands-on role in keeping things going yourself. It can become even trickier when you add in the various business calls that owners and managers have to field. You may wonder how to balance the two roles, fielding calls from customers, suppliers and others while still running your business full-time. It isn’t always easy, but there are ways to make balancing your behind-the-scenes and on-the-front-lines roles easier. Here are a few things to consider that may help take some of the pressure off when you don’t know how to keep it
A mission statement is an important part of any business. Not only does it clarify what your business does, but it also ensures that you have a clear enough vision of your core purpose to summarize it in just a couple of lines. Unfortunately, small businesses are often guilty of not putting enough effort into creating a mission statement and some may go without one entirely. Even if your small business has a mission statement, it may not reflect where your business is now. Knowing how (and when) to refine your mission statement is just as important as creating it
The traditional workplace has always had everyone working together at the same location, usually at the same time. Modern technology and the needs of our evolving business world have led to an ever-increasing number of employees working remotely, however. This work set-up can be a great way to reduce overhead, but it can cause headaches for management if they’re not in a remote mentality. You just can’t handle remote teams the same way that you do onsite workers and expect to get the same results. With that said, what’s the best way to handle workers who work remotely? While
Video communications were once thought to be the epitome of futuristic vision, but now they’re fairly commonplace. Social media and webmail clients even have video communication technologies built in. With the technology being so commonplace, though, is there any way that you can leverage it to save your business money? Yes, there is. There are actually several, in fact. Understanding Video Communications When you think of video communications, you might think of something like Skype. You’re right, of course, though there’s much more to video communications than that. In addition to consumer-focused video software like Skype and FaceTime, video conferencing
The workplace is always evolving. This means that the way things ran just a few years ago might not flow as smoothly now. More importantly, new types of media and communications may start replacing the workplace communication trends of years past. Of course, if you’re not careful, your company may be left in the dust as new technologies come into play and other businesses move away from the hardware, software and other tools to which you have become accustomed. Even if you aren’t planning on making any changes at the moment, it’s always important to be aware of changes in communication
If you’re like most people, you’re struggling to be more organized and effective at work. If you haven’t already done so, consolidating your work flow onto one device is a great way to save time and be more efficient on the job. The closer you get to a true paperless office, the less time you’ll waste shuffling piles around in your work space. The best way to take a giant step toward having a cloud office is to start depending on your smart phone as a work tool. Consider these powerful apps and think of all the physical tools you
Social media is such an integral part of most people’s lives that having a Facebook business page might seem like a no-brainer. That’s far from the truth, however. Social media marketing takes a solid time commitment, and it’s not useful for every type of business. If your industry needs widespread advertising for occasional users, such as for computer repairs, swimming pool supplies or gardening tools, a Facebook page might not be for you. But if your business thrives on repeat customers and you want to turn your regulars into a close-knit community, a Facebook page can do that like no
Sometimes you just have to get a face to face meeting to close a deal, make a lasting contact, or see far-flung family members for the holiday. With Phone.com’s new Video Conferencing feature, we give you the perfect tool for being there even when you can’t be there. This blog will walk you through how to set up Video Conferencing on your account. The first step is to login to your Phone.com control panel. Next, mouse over configure to bring up the menu and choose Video Conference. This will take you to the System Settings screen where you can
As more and more communications take place through texts, emails and instant messaging platforms, phone calls are more likely to be placed into one of two categories: really important or nuisance calls. Phone.com has built many tools to ensure you never miss a really important call, but we’ve put just as much effort into giving you the tools you need to avoid nuisance calls. Our Call Screening and Call Blocking features are standard with every account and allow you to block incoming calls from telemarketers, unknown numbers or even pay phones or specific area codes, and you can do it
We posted a blog recently about the benefits of adding an international number to your account and received a few questions about how it is done. It’s a simple process, really, with just five steps. Start at your control panel and select “Add a Number.” In the Add a Number menu, select “Search Global Numbers” to bring up the country selector. The country selector is not all inclusive and there are many regulations and reasons why a country might not be listed. If the country you need isn’t listed, call customer service to learn more about availability. For countries with immediate
This is part two in a two-part series. You can read part one here. In part one of this two-part series, we discussed ways to dip your small business toe into mobile waters, even if a high quality mobile app is out of the question right now. But we’re not going to forget those SMBs that are ready to get their first mobile app in the Apple store and on Google Play. Part two is entirely dedicated to these folks and making sure that app is a hit. Mobile is a wild place where the online world can reach out and
If economic downturns and times of recession have taught American businesses anything, it’s that developing customer relationships is a much more profitable strategy than many might have believed in the past. Gone are the days when customers were disposable, today’s approach is all about maximizing loyalty and slowing churn in order to increase the profit per customer and reducing marketing costs. In fact, Gallup found that a customer who is actively engaged with a brand actually represents a 23 percent increase in terms of wallet share compared to the average. A lot of what it takes to make that engaged customer starts
Did you know that every Phone.com extension on your account includes a FREE conference bridge, allowing your team to run conference calls with ease? Yes, free conference calling! There are some great benefits to this free feature, including: High definition voice quality Up to 500 participants Unlimited minute usage Here’s how to make the most of your conference bridge. Accessing Your Conference Bridge Mouse over Configure and click Manage Users and Extensions. Click Edit for the extension you want to use. Click Conferencing on the left side bar. Click Get Conference Bridge. Your conference bridge number, conference ID and moderator PIN
When we train new members of our Customer Service team, we focus more than anything on just that: Customer Service. Our new agents are not expected to know every setting for all of our features—however, we do expect them to provide outstanding service to our customers, and understand that it is find to ask for help when they have questions. Here are the five top Phone.com values that we focus on when we train new Customer Service staff. 1. Quality What makes a quality customer-service interaction? Listening to each customer, really hearing what they need, and being committed to finding exact answers to their questions. Providing great customer service and continually improving that
Work can be stressful even on a good day. It’s even worse on busy or hectic days, when you barely have enough time to do everything that you need to do. It’s days like that when you want nothing more than to get out of there and find a way to unleash all of that stress. Unfortunately, it seems like more often than not we end up bringing workday stress home with us and let it affect our home lives as well. When you’re finally off the clock after a busy workday, you need to get rid of some of
Once upon a time, being an entrepreneur meant that you had an office space to work from which you might occasionally pack up and move to another building as businesses grew and evolved. This became less common over time, with entrepreneurs gravitating more toward coworking spaces where they shared office areas with other entrepreneurs. It offered a bit more freedom, and even allowed for networking with people you might not have met otherwise. In time, though, even the coworking spaces became too crowded and confining for modern entrepreneurs. A new breed of mobile entrepreneurs has left the office behind and
As far as trends and use go, Voice over IP, better known as VoIP, is big. You may not realize just how big of a business it is, though. According to the latest statistics, it’s expected that there will be one billion people using VoIP services by the end of 2017. Given that there are only 7.5 billion people in the world, that means that approximately one in every eight people uses VoIP at home, at work or at some other point during the day. What Is VoIP? If you’re not one of those one in eight people and aren’t
Many people dread having to leave a phone message when they call someone. Even if you know exactly what you were calling about, having to condense everything into a short message on the fly can be nerve wracking. Think about it… how many times have you left a message and then realized that you forgot something important as soon as you got off the phone? Knowing how to structure a good phone message can help with this. Instead of scrambling to cover everything that you need to say, you can look at the various points of message structure and fill
Running a business isn’t easy, especially when you take a hands-on role in keeping things going yourself. It can become even trickier when you add in the various business calls that owners and managers have to field. You may wonder how to balance the two roles, fielding calls from customers, suppliers and others while still running your business full-time. It isn’t always easy, but there are ways to make balancing your behind-the-scenes and on-the-front-lines roles easier. Here are a few things to consider that may help take some of the pressure off when you don’t know how to keep it
A mission statement is an important part of any business. Not only does it clarify what your business does, but it also ensures that you have a clear enough vision of your core purpose to summarize it in just a couple of lines. Unfortunately, small businesses are often guilty of not putting enough effort into creating a mission statement and some may go without one entirely. Even if your small business has a mission statement, it may not reflect where your business is now. Knowing how (and when) to refine your mission statement is just as important as creating it
The traditional workplace has always had everyone working together at the same location, usually at the same time. Modern technology and the needs of our evolving business world have led to an ever-increasing number of employees working remotely, however. This work set-up can be a great way to reduce overhead, but it can cause headaches for management if they’re not in a remote mentality. You just can’t handle remote teams the same way that you do onsite workers and expect to get the same results. With that said, what’s the best way to handle workers who work remotely? While
Video communications were once thought to be the epitome of futuristic vision, but now they’re fairly commonplace. Social media and webmail clients even have video communication technologies built in. With the technology being so commonplace, though, is there any way that you can leverage it to save your business money? Yes, there is. There are actually several, in fact. Understanding Video Communications When you think of video communications, you might think of something like Skype. You’re right, of course, though there’s much more to video communications than that. In addition to consumer-focused video software like Skype and FaceTime, video conferencing
The workplace is always evolving. This means that the way things ran just a few years ago might not flow as smoothly now. More importantly, new types of media and communications may start replacing the workplace communication trends of years past. Of course, if you’re not careful, your company may be left in the dust as new technologies come into play and other businesses move away from the hardware, software and other tools to which you have become accustomed. Even if you aren’t planning on making any changes at the moment, it’s always important to be aware of changes in communication
If you’re like most people, you’re struggling to be more organized and effective at work. If you haven’t already done so, consolidating your work flow onto one device is a great way to save time and be more efficient on the job. The closer you get to a true paperless office, the less time you’ll waste shuffling piles around in your work space. The best way to take a giant step toward having a cloud office is to start depending on your smart phone as a work tool. Consider these powerful apps and think of all the physical tools you
Social media is such an integral part of most people’s lives that having a Facebook business page might seem like a no-brainer. That’s far from the truth, however. Social media marketing takes a solid time commitment, and it’s not useful for every type of business. If your industry needs widespread advertising for occasional users, such as for computer repairs, swimming pool supplies or gardening tools, a Facebook page might not be for you. But if your business thrives on repeat customers and you want to turn your regulars into a close-knit community, a Facebook page can do that like no
Sometimes you just have to get a face to face meeting to close a deal, make a lasting contact, or see far-flung family members for the holiday. With Phone.com’s new Video Conferencing feature, we give you the perfect tool for being there even when you can’t be there. This blog will walk you through how to set up Video Conferencing on your account. The first step is to login to your Phone.com control panel. Next, mouse over configure to bring up the menu and choose Video Conference. This will take you to the System Settings screen where you can
As more and more communications take place through texts, emails and instant messaging platforms, phone calls are more likely to be placed into one of two categories: really important or nuisance calls. Phone.com has built many tools to ensure you never miss a really important call, but we’ve put just as much effort into giving you the tools you need to avoid nuisance calls. Our Call Screening and Call Blocking features are standard with every account and allow you to block incoming calls from telemarketers, unknown numbers or even pay phones or specific area codes, and you can do it
We posted a blog recently about the benefits of adding an international number to your account and received a few questions about how it is done. It’s a simple process, really, with just five steps. Start at your control panel and select “Add a Number.” In the Add a Number menu, select “Search Global Numbers” to bring up the country selector. The country selector is not all inclusive and there are many regulations and reasons why a country might not be listed. If the country you need isn’t listed, call customer service to learn more about availability. For countries with immediate
This is part two in a two-part series. You can read part one here. In part one of this two-part series, we discussed ways to dip your small business toe into mobile waters, even if a high quality mobile app is out of the question right now. But we’re not going to forget those SMBs that are ready to get their first mobile app in the Apple store and on Google Play. Part two is entirely dedicated to these folks and making sure that app is a hit. Mobile is a wild place where the online world can reach out and
If economic downturns and times of recession have taught American businesses anything, it’s that developing customer relationships is a much more profitable strategy than many might have believed in the past. Gone are the days when customers were disposable, today’s approach is all about maximizing loyalty and slowing churn in order to increase the profit per customer and reducing marketing costs. In fact, Gallup found that a customer who is actively engaged with a brand actually represents a 23 percent increase in terms of wallet share compared to the average. A lot of what it takes to make that engaged customer starts
Did you know that every Phone.com extension on your account includes a FREE conference bridge, allowing your team to run conference calls with ease? Yes, free conference calling! There are some great benefits to this free feature, including: High definition voice quality Up to 500 participants Unlimited minute usage Here’s how to make the most of your conference bridge. Accessing Your Conference Bridge Mouse over Configure and click Manage Users and Extensions. Click Edit for the extension you want to use. Click Conferencing on the left side bar. Click Get Conference Bridge. Your conference bridge number, conference ID and moderator PIN
When we train new members of our Customer Service team, we focus more than anything on just that: Customer Service. Our new agents are not expected to know every setting for all of our features—however, we do expect them to provide outstanding service to our customers, and understand that it is find to ask for help when they have questions. Here are the five top Phone.com values that we focus on when we train new Customer Service staff. 1. Quality What makes a quality customer-service interaction? Listening to each customer, really hearing what they need, and being committed to finding exact answers to their questions. Providing great customer service and continually improving that
