Let Your IVR Greet Clients with a Unique Mother’s Day Greeting This Coming Sunday!

Good customer service starts with a personal touch—small things that go a long way. It’s an indication that you’ve taken a moment out of your busy day to take notice of something different. That you are aware. That you care.

Different is special—and who doesn’t like special?

That’s why we love national holidays.

Now, you might think that an automated answering service is incapable of a ‘personal touch’—but that would be like saying that robots are incapable of feelings, and anyone who’s seen Spielberg’s A.I. knows better!

So here’s how your very own artificial intelligence (aka Auto Attendant) can respond in an intimate manner (with just a helpful nudge on your part):

Most virtual PBX systems should let you record and maintain a library of customized greetings to feed your IVR. So if you were to prepare a special message in advance, you could simply switch over to it when the appropriate day arrived—and that’s that. Simple, isn’t’ it?

You can prepare as many greetings as you like and be ready to meet any occasion.

It’s a small effort to show your customers that you care about going that extra mile to make them feel special.

Try it out this coming Mother’s Day!

(April 8^th, just in case you’ve forgotten... don’t worry, we won’t tell ;)

Every mother is sure to smile upon hearing your greeting—and as for the rest of us kids, we’ll have a chance to dart out to the nearest flower store and, breathing a sigh of relief, call to say ‘of course I didn’t forget mom—how could I!’

In both cases, you’ll have a friend for life.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Labels: business, call, cloud computing, custom greeting, customer service, data center, IT, live answer, mother's day, phone system, technology, virtual IVR, virtual PBX, virtual phone

Use Synclio’s Virtual PBX with a Skype Number

If you’re one of the forward-thinking business owners who’ve already made the switch from traditional landlines and cell phones to Skype but felt the one thing keeping you from true bliss is the inability to integrate a proper phone system—you’ll love what we have to say!

So here it is: you can.

All you’ll need is a Skype online number.

Synclio’s cloud based vitual PBX treats your Skype number just as it would any other landline or cell-phone number, giving you full access to all the awesome features. Now you can reap the benefits of a full-featured PBX while using Skype’s mega low rates and calling plans!

So whether you have completely done away with the major telecoms (and the associated major headaches) or only use Skype to supplement your traditional means of communication, you can now enjoy one powerhouse of a system!

What’s more, with features like Find Me Follow Me and customizable call routing rules, you’ll experience a seamless integration of all your devices—so it’ll truly be YOUR business, anywhere.

To learn more about the common features of a virtual phone system, check out our 'Anatomy of a Virtual Phone System: What’s in it, and why you need it?'

Labels: business, cost saving, IT, phone system, skype, technology, virtual pbx skype number, virtual phone

How Our ‘Find Me/Follow Me’ Service Can Help You Never Miss Another Call

Business never sleeps. As the sun goes down on one market it rises over another—and even on the same street, people seem to be ticking to a completely different set of biological clocks.

To stay competitive in this modern world, businessmen have long realized that the traditional idea of ‘regular operating hours’ no longer applies. So the challenge, especially to smaller players who cannot afford after-hours staff, has become that of coping with ‘irregular operating hours’.

This is still more challenging if your line of work requires frequent travel.

For instance, let’s say that you’re an electrician in business with another partner. You don’t want to miss any calls—but neither of you can become a permanent fixture in the office.

You could hire a receptionist—but that’s an extra salary to pay, and it’s not like the phone is constantly going off the hook...you simply want to be there when it does.

Another option would be to include your mobile phone numbers in all your ads—but consider that you may not want to make your personal phone numbers public, and getting another set of business phones is again running a significant expense. Then, you also want to avoid giving the impression of a disjointed operation (a first impression is only made once) and a single contact number just looks so more professional.

Find Me/Follow Me is a service offered in conjuncture with a virtual phone system and a powerful tool in this kind of situation.

Basically, it lets you keep all your phone numbers—office, mobile, home, etc—under your profile. Then, whenever a call is destined for you, the system would automatically start dialing every number in succession until you are reached (or route it to your voicemail if you chose not to answer).

So whether you’re out on a site, at home, or in the office, you’ll always be able to take the call. Moreover, since the call is placed to the company’s main line and the subsequent rerouting is performed within the system, none of your personal contact numbers will be revealed in the process, and the public will always be dealing with a single number.

This protects your privacy and promotes your company's brand-recognition!

A virtual IVR has many additional features to let you fully control the way calls are handled by the automated system, thereby helping you find that elusive balance between work and personal life.

The Find Me Follow Me service, as part of our virtual phone system, provides a reliable, cost effective call handling solution that will ensure you'll never miss another call—keeping both you and your customers happy!

To learn more about the features of a virtual phone system, check out: ‘Anatomy of a Virtual Phone System: What’s in it, and Why You Need It?’

Labels: asterisk, business, call routing, cloud computing, cost saving, customer service, find me follow me service, IT, phone system, technology, virtual IVR, virtual PBX, virtual phone, voicemail

Weatherproof Your Business: Take Shelter from the Storm in the Cloud

So starts an article dated April 29^th 2011 on the international news site France 24.

There can no longer be any doubt that we have entered an era of increasingly volatile weather conditions. The tsunami that has wrecked havoc across the island of Japan just last month and the recent ‘spate of tornadoes’ (as aptly put by the author) are just the latest affirmations of a definite global climate trend.

Just imagine the immediacy when such a misfortune strikes. Natural disasters are unruly beasts, and even modern climatologists with all their sophisticated knowledge and equipment are often thunderstruck by their sudden onslaughts. Sometimes the best they can do is give us mere days—if not hours—of notice.

If, god forbid, such mad winds started blowing in your neck of the woods, you’d throw your family in a car and get the hell out of there—as far and as fast as you could!

Naturally, your first concern is to protect yourself and your loved ones.

But once the worst of it has passed and only wreckages remain, how would you figure in the aftermath?

Your house may have been damaged or destroyed. Perhaps even your office. Any equipment and infrastructure you may have owned have likely taken a dip and didn’t take well to swimming. Your insurance may or may not cover the damages—depending on how well you’ve read the fine print—but even if it did, it would take weeks, months even, to get everything back on track.

Now, it’s bad enough to suffer a loss of your physical possessions, but imagine losing your business too, and with it your means of rebuilding your lost wealth...

You’d obviously find consolation in the fact you and your family have made it out with your skins. You’d tell yourself that you can always start fresh—in a different town, different place. That you still have your skills, your years of experience, perhaps even some of that old youth... But deep down inside, a single question will be wrenching your guts out: “Could I not have done anything better?”

You see, as human beings we have the gift of foresight, and therefore the privilege of preparing for the unexpected. To decide, when bad news come lashing at our doors, if we’d have the ability to act, or only to react.

In some situation, only a reaction is possible—this is where we need to act well in advance to protect ourselves. That’s why you don’t keep all of your money in a single place, or even in a single currency.

Sometimes still, the best we can possibly do is only curb the damage—limit what and how much can be lost—and this is where cloud computing becomes invaluable.

Think about it: if most of your business was powered up in the cloud rather than from your office it would have been infinitely easier for you to bounce back up on your feet following such catastrophe. Sure, your physical possessions would’ve suffered a beating—but at least you’d still have the ability to earn a living. Wealth can be rebuilt. That’s why your first concern is for your life, and the second is for your livelihood.

Moreover, being a business owner, you’d probably have the foresight to buy insurance. So most of the assets you’ve owned will be reclaimed in value.

The main concern is therefore not for any assets owned by your business, but rather for your business itself. Every day your service remains down is a day that sets you back and gives your competitors an advantage. Your customers might tolerate a reasonable interruption—but not a prolonged shutdown.

So it’s crucial to get your business back up and running as quickly as possible. It should be apparent how the cloud can give you an advantage: if most of your business depended on your self-owned infrastructure and your infrastructure went up in smoke—you’d be out of luck. However, if the main aspects of your business, such as data storage and communications, were powered from the cloud—the most you might have to do is to buy a new laptop (assuming your old one got damaged) and you’d be back in business!

At this point you might wonder ‘but hey, if my infrastructure can be damaged by a natural disaster, who says theirs can’t?’

This is a legitimate concern, and here is a simple answer:

The following video shows the Google Data Center where Synclio, for instance, host their servers. Have a good look and listen. If, watching this presentation, you feel that your infrastructure security is on par with theirs, you probably don’t need it. But Google spent $2.3 BILLION building this state of the art facility—the most advanced of its kind. I somehow doubt that your basement can be a match (Unless, of course, you are Bill Gates—then I’d probably be happy with my basement too)

So just in case all this doomsday talk has spoiled your appetite, take a look out the window for a moment, sip on that tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and rejoice in the pleasant sunshine. Thankfully, we’ve only been talking 'what ifs'. But remember that the bright sun can just as quickly be covered by a passing cloud, and it’s always better to be prepared.

To quote Nathan Muir from the movie ‘Spy Games’: “When did Noah build the ark Gladys? Before the storm.”

Labels: cloud computing, data center, data protection, google, IT, phone system, security, severe weather, technology, tornado, tsunami, virtual PBX, virtual phone, web management

Don’t Go Reinventing the Wheel... Here's Why Building a Physical Phone System is a Bad Idea.

So you’re thinking of putting together a physical phone system. Good. Let’s try something for a minute. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Count to ten.

Still seem like a good idea?

Ok, read on then.

It may have been the norm in the old days to have your hand in everything: grow your own food, raise your own beef, build your own house and even cut your own hair. But not too long ago a little something called the Industrial Revolution took place. That pretty much changed all of it.

Adam Smith, for instance, had observed that a worker trained in making nails yielded a far greater quota than a man uninitiated in the fine art of nail-making. This was a process he had identified as the division of labor, or specialization, and argued that a man becomes far more productive when his time, energy, and resources are directed in a single endeavor.

So let’s see how it applies to the question at hand.

You’re running a business. That’s your niche. If it’s a small business, chances are you’re already wearing more than a few hats.

Do you really want to add another with a small ‘IT’ logo to your wardrobe?

Let’s look at it from a Cost vs. Value perspective, dear to the heart of any entrepreneur.

You might have read a clever article about some open source PBX product now available for free download. Then recalled how, flipping through the flyer of a local electronics store, you had noted the rock-bottom prices of hardware components. Your little number-crunching machine then went on to put two plus two together—and next you were in your car driving towards the nearest Tigerdirect outlet, ready to build that sexy phone system you’ve always wanted.

Well, it’s a good thing your wife did some research and sent you this article before you got too far, because here comes a reality check:

A physical phone system is a complex combo of software and hardware equipment that will require, at the very least, proper setup, configuration, and maintenance.

There was only one reason businesses in the past went through the trouble of setting up those clunkers—and that’s because they didn’t really have an alternative.

It’s true that today you can put together an equally robust physical system for a fraction of what it used to take—especially with open source applications—but that doesn’t mean that every 10-year-old and his sister can crack open their piggy-banks and go nuts... That’s because buying the equipment is only half the trouble. Next you need to have everything set up, configured, and installed—a highly involved process.

So your options quickly dwindle down to either taking a crash course in the relevant IT technologies, or (more likely) hiring a professional.

Guess what, the professional has a family to feed, and he didn’t get that nice certificate only to cover a hole in the wall—he got it to bring home some milk. One guess who’s going to be his cow...

But even once everything has been set up, it’s still only half the trouble (no, I didn’t skip simple math at school). Like a brand new house, once it’s been built, the darn thing still has to be maintained. Go see any homeowner after his first winter to find out if he’s still wearing that picture-perfect smile.

Equipment fails, software gets corrupted, and even when everything seems to be sailing smoothly, the whole thing needs to be periodically updated and upgraded. So if you thought you’ve seen the last of that ‘professional’ with the first visit, be prepared to find yourself signing a long-term contract and feeding the calves on a regular basis.

So why not spare yourself the pain and go with a more streamlined solution? After all, you didn’t lay down infrastructure when you needed your first land-line, or opened a hairdressing salon to get your hair cut—you simply purchased a service. Why start doing things differently?

As for value, a virtual PBX gives you all the features you’d find in a physical one (and more) with the added freedom of the web, for a single low monthly fee.

This has ‘Smart Business ’ written all over it.

You must be good at what you do, but virtual phone systems is our niche. So why not prove the father of capitalism right yet again and start trading?

For more information about the benefit of going virtual, check out: ‘5 Reasons Virtual Systems are Taking Over the Physical World’.

And for a breakdown of most features you’re likely to encounter, try our last post: ‘Anatomy of a Virtual Phone System: What’s In It, and Why You Need It’.

Labels: asterisk, business, call, cloud computing, devision of labor, IT, open source, phone system, specialization, technology, virtual PBX, virtual phone

5 Reasons Virtual Systems are taking over the Physical World

It’s no secret that Cloud computing is taking over the world in a storm with a myriad of virtual solutions ready to address all of our modern IT needs, leaving the vendors of traditional systems moaning: “don’t rain on my parade.”

As a small business owner you want to stay ahead of the weather, so let’s take a look where the winds of change are blowing. Here are 5 reasons virtual solutions are fast replacing their physical counterparts:

Flexibility

In the virtual world, your work and data are no longer confined to a single machine or location and instead 'float' in the cloud—a figurative way of saying reside in centralized servers conveniently accessible via your own web portal. This gives you the freedom to work anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

Productivity

Because your work is up there in the cloud, it's now easier than ever to stay on top of changes in a team-environment, share files, and collaborate with co-workers. It also makes on-site backup a redundancy, as all your work is already backed up automatically in the safest place on earth (er...in heaven)

So if your equipment catches a bug or your if office burns down, at least the safety of your work will NOT be one of your worries.

Upgradability and Maintenance:

Since both the physical infrastructure and software components are now centralized in a single location and maintained by a company whose sole business is to provide the service it has chosen to specialize in—upgrades are simpler, smoother, and far more frequent than if you had to wear an IT hat (on top of your other office apparel). In plain speak, this means that the user always remains on the cutting edge, and with minimal interruptions.

Security:

There are many reasons that make Cloud Computing at least as safe, if not safer than, traditional systems. Not the last of these is the fact that companies who’ve made it their business to offer a virtual service have far greater resources than the average user to invest in combating security threats and coming up with solutions.

Furthermore, since such companies usually host their servers in state of the art facilities, they're far better protected against hardware failure and natural disasters.

Affordability

The essence of specialization in any industry is reflected in the bottom line, and here is no exception. The savings are vast because users have no need to purchase any additional hardware or software components, or to worry about installation, configuration, maintenance, and upgradability issues. What’s more, a single low monthly fee can often buy our access to services we would have otherwise simply not been able to afford.

For this reason, the advantages of going virtual are perhaps most evident in hardware intensive operations, where just the costs of getting in is often beyond the means of most average users.

A virtual phone system such as the one offered by Synclio is a perfect example of how cloud computing brings the sky within reach of virtually anyone.

Labels: affordability, business, cloud computing, cost saving, customer service, efficiency, flexibility, IT, productivity, security, technology, virtual PBX, virtual phone

4 Ways a Virtual Phone System Can Improve Customer Experience in Your Business

A great product or service is sure to attract new customers—but do you have what it takes to keep them with you for the long haul?

With increased interest comes increased need for support. And guess what, if you can’t handle them, your new clients will soon move on to find someone who can—just like in a relationship.

Since you don’t want your business to end up like the cute kid who gets dumped in the end of the movie and spends the rest of his life building model airplanes in his parents’ basement, below are four simple ways a professional phone system will help make sure that those hard-earned clients remain with you through good and bad, sickness and health (etc, etc.)

1. Never miss another call.

When a customer calls support, nothing is more frustrating than that perpetual ringing tone ringing on, and on, and on... (See?) Perhaps because it reminds us of just how lonely we really are. Or perhaps we simply don’t like to feel our youth wasting away. Either way, we want to be answered—now.

With a virtual PBX, your customers get answered instantly, 24/7, and can easily follow a simple phone tree to reach the person they wish to speak to.

Sure, it may just be a friendly voicemail that will greet them at the end of the line—but hey, how much more connected will they feel hearing a human voice, even if only a recording? And besides, leaving a message for the right person feels so much more satisfying than just hanging up.

2. No more broken phone.

Perhaps the one thing more annoying than not getting through at all is getting through only to be bounced around from one line to the other, as if caught in some mega pinball machine. A virtual PBX takes human error out of the switchboard by letting you easily set your own phone tree and call rules, so that each call is automatically routed to the right person, every time. Simple. Quick. Reliable. If only human beings were this consistent.

What’s more, with our convenient ‘Find Me/Follow Me’ feature, you can take the call no matter where you are. And we mean anywhere

So if your car broke down and you got stranded alongside the highway, you can keep on offering support even as you’re helplessly waiting for the CAA truck to show up—good for your business AND for your morale!

Just make sure you don’t end up flipping with an “I’ve been waiting here for three f&@# hours!” at your client, then switching back to ask the CAA dude if he’d care to rate your service...

3. Never leave a customer hanging.

Another common scenario—and a major source of customer dissatisfaction—can be termed ‘the call-back that never comes’. It goes something like this: Johnny has a problem. Johnny calls ‘Support’. Rep tells Johnny that he’ll call him back in half an hour. Johnny sits waiting by the phone. An hour later, Johnny is still waiting by the phone. By the third hour Johnny picks up the phone and dials back, this time speaking to ‘Retention’.

Now, we may never know what made the rep neglect poor Johnny: perhaps he was relying on one of those knock-off sticky notes that just aren't sticky enough; perhaps he got caught up with another caller and asked one of his colleagues to follow up on his behalf--who regrettably was using that same wad of stickies...

Synclio helps make such mishaps a thing of the past by keeping all your client info in a single place, accessible by the entire team, and letting each department review their own call records. Johnny is happy. Rep is happy. And the girl at ‘Retention’ gets to finish her Sudoku—job satisfaction all around!

4. We’re all about the first impression!

Sure, we like to think of ourselves as highly evolved little monkeys: civilized, sophisticated, supremely un-superficial. But let’s face it—we’re still as moved by the primordial effect of appearances as a peacock looking to mate. And both he and we know that no birdie is getting lucky if it can’t make a first impression.

So this one’s a no-brainer. When a customer calls for the first time you want them to get a sense of dealing with a professional organization, not some outfit out of Jimmy’s basement. You might be running a perfect solo act—but with your own 1-800 number and a full set of extensions, who’ll ever know you from the big guys?

Go ahead, razzle-dazzle them!

Besides, nothing says ‘professional’ louder and clearer than an elegant phone system. Civilized, sophisticated, perfectly alluring to a species of highly evolved monkeys.

In many ways, running a business is like building a relationship. It’s not enough to lure a mate in. Getting lucky is a start—but without the ability to keep them satisfied for the long haul you’ll soon find yourself strapped for cash and heart-broken, looking back on a string of short-lived affairs.

The foundation of any strong relationship starts with proper communication.

Now let Synclio set you up!

Labels: business, call routing, call stats, cloud computing, cost saving, customer service, efficiency, IT, technology, virtual IVR, virtual PBX

Walking on Clouds—the Freedom of Going Virtual

Labels: affordability, business, cloud computing, devision of labor, flexibility, freedom, IT, phone system, productivity, specialization, technology, virtual IVR, virtual PBX, virtual phone, web management