Phone.com Feature Spotlight: Video Conferencing

On October 5, 2018
8:44 am
Filed under Product

It seems like we all live through video these days. Whether it’s Snapchat or Instagram, Vimeo or YouTube, video dominates all the facets of our lives. It certainly helps, of course, having a high quality camera ready to go right in your pocket. Video has also revolutionized the ever-changing workplace. Potential employees can interview for jobs over video, businesses can connect with remote employees with the click of a button, company-wide meetings can take place on a screen, and so many more solutions. At Phone.com, we’ve added a video component to our communication platform as a premium feature for our

Here at Phone.com we’re not only proud to deliver top notch business class phone service to a diverse group of small businesses, we’re also able to legally protect the sensitive information handled by medical professionals with our HIPAA compliant coverage in our standard features. If you’re unfamiliar with that acronym or new to the VoIP industry, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) was signed into law in 1996 with the chief aim at providing accountability for health insurance companies and patients’ information. With the VoIP revolution, small, medium and large medical companies are able to cut costs by not having to

At the Phone.com headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, we’re lucky to be in such a wonderful coworking space like Launch Pad surrounded by entrepreneurs, tech companies, and myriad other small businesses that make up the community. One such entrepreneur started using our service but had a bit of a problem figuring out the Call Forwarding feature with his account. Since it’s one of the first things you have to do after signing up, we decided it’d be a perfect blog post. Depending on which plan you have, call forwarding may affect your pool of minutes. For unlimited minutes, you should

Because of the sensitive information handled by a medical practice and the compliance requirements of HIPAA and HITECH, you have to be pretty picky when choosing new technologies for your office. This obligation is especially true when dealing with communication methods, since you certainly don’t want to accidentally expose confidential patient data. As a result, many medical offices are slow to adopt new technology. If your phone system could use an overhaul, however, it might be time to consider switching to a VoIP service instead. There are several benefits to choosing VoIP over other options, including some that are vitally

SMS, more commonly referred to as text messaging, is a major part of modern life. In fact, it’s such a big part of both our personal and business lives that it’s easy to overlook SMS as a feature. Once upon a time, SMS was magical… the ability to send a text message from a phone was like nothing that had ever been seen before. These days, though, SMS is so integrated with the phone experience that the only time we really notice it is when there’s something wrong with a SMS app and our messages just aren’t sending. There’s more

VoIP services can be a huge boon to a small business. Not only does VoIP offer a flexibility that you won’t find with landline phone systems, but the pricing for small business VoIP services also beats just about any other small business phone service you might try. Here at Phone.com, for instance, you can start with a base plan as low as $9.99 per month if you’re a sole proprietor or other small business that needs limited monthly minutes; given all of the features that are included with your account, that’s a price that’s hard to beat. How does small

Welcome to the latest installment of “Innovation Corner.” Here, we dig into the expertise of Alon Cohen, our CTO and Executive VP, and share insider tips, lesser-known features and fun ideas on how to get the most out of your phone system and your Phone.com account. We’re all about flexibility, efficiency, ease of use and, of course, affordability for our customers of all sizes. Service Spotlight: Video Conferencing Our video conferencing tool is a Phone.com premium service. Nothing to download, nothing to install. Bring up to 25 participants together for face-to-face meetings, with up to an additional 200 participants able

Your contacts are important, and having an easy-to-use address book makes reaching out to connect with someone so much more convenient. Of course, this only does you so much good if you have to reenter your contacts on every device that you have. Fortunately, there’s a better way: Our address book services give you the ability to import, export and manage your contacts while also syncing them to your various devices. It’s possible that you don’t even realize how valuable your contacts are, but we do. That’s why we offer more than just basic syncing and sorting, instead giving you

Two new phones have been added to the Phone.com lineup, providing our customers with even more options for their business needs. The latest offerings from Yealink offer vibrant color displays, HD audio and support for multiple VoIP accounts. Phone.com is one of the first VoIP providers to offer the Yealink W56P, a flagship phone with a 2.4 inch color screen. It also offers an outstanding 30 hour talk time and 400 hour standby time to keep up with your busy schedule. The $149.95 package includes a base station, one handset, power adapters and a charging cradle. With the base station, you

It’s easy to see what other phones in your account are doing with just a glance. You can tell if a phone is ringing or if someone’s already on a call when you use our presence functionality. Phone.com is pleased to announce the addition of expansion modules to our hardware lineup. Your phone has limited space to display that status information, but expansion modules allow you to monitor even more phones. Besides showing the status, each key will also work as a speed dial. This enhanced functionality is ideal for anyone who needs to visually monitor or manage many extensions

For most people, call screening means picking up their phone when it’s ringing and looking at the caller ID information. That might be enough if you just have one phone number, but what if you’re a small business with multiple numbers ringing through to your cell phone or desk phone? Phone.com has you covered. We take call screening the extra step with an audio announcement including specific caller information – which number was dialed and caller ID info, specifically – arming you with the knowledge you need to make that important decision to answer or not. If you’re using the

When you’re a sole proprietor or part of a really small team, too much success too fast can be overwhelming if you don’t have a call center solution. What do you do when you’re on a call with a customer looking to upgrade his service, then call waiting starts to beep in? Do you put the happy customer on hold to see what the second call is or do you let the second call go to voicemail and risk losing a call? We’ve put a lot of effort into the feature set of our business phone service in the cloud specifically

Phone.com CTO and Executive Vice President Alon Cohen recently presented on the history of VoIP at the MoNage conference hosted by Jeff Pulver. Pulver and Cohen have a long history together, highlighted by the fact that together they were the first entrants voted into the VoIP Hall of Fame. For those in the know, Cohen is really the only option for this kind of presentation. Without Cohen and his groundbreaking work at an Israeli startup named VocalTec, there might not be any commercial VoIP today. VocalTec faced many obstacles on the road to VoIP, and if not for a major pivot it might never have

It’s a real dilemma. You’re scheduling an important business call, but your calendar is unpredictable. Do you give them your office number or cell? If you give them your office phone, there’s a risk you’ll miss the call if you have to step away from your desk. On the other hand, giving out your cell phone number could really put a kink in your positive work/life balance. It can also sometimes appear a little less than professional. That’s why Phone.com gives you the tools you need to take your business with you. With Phone.com, your office number goes with you.

“Thank you for calling, can I put you on hold?” No matter who you call, at some point you’ve heard the line above, assuming a human even answers the phone in the first place. As a business that depends on telephone-based support, placing a customer on hold comes with certain risks. Some of your customers will wait indefinitely and some will hang up immediately, but the vast majority of your callers will fall somewhere in between those two extremes. For those callers who will wait, what’s the best way to keep them engaged? Well, we know it’s not muzak. The

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

At Phone.com, we support customers using a wide range of phone types with our service, even if we don’t sell those phones directly. Unfortunately, manufacturers sometimes discontinue the sale and support of certain models as they introduce newer ones to replace them. In September 2016 Polycom will stop selling all phones in the SoundPoint IP series, although the phones will continue to receive software updates and support until the end of 2019. We encourage all customers to consider the VVX Business Media Phone series, which replaces the SoundPoint IP series and offers better functionality and a richer experience. Please contact

Global marketing in the 21st century relies on a number of methods. Email is still a top tool while social networks and collaboration tools have combined to make things much easier, but many times nothing beats actually talking to your customer. No matter your telephone service provider, you can always expect your U.S.-based customers to be able to reach you. For international callers, however, it can be a different story. High international rates and confusing dialing processes might keep potential customers from dialing in. Even worse, if you have existing global customers they might think twice before placing an expensive