10 Important Call Center Questions

Hosted Call Center FeaturesHosted VoIP Call Centers also known as Virtual Call Centers have become affordable to small businesses. The technology available today has evolved to the point that for a minimal upfront investment any company can have a Call Center that would have cost millions of dollars a few short years ago.

A Call Center is a telecommunications platform that allows businesses to effectively route phone calls to available agents. A Hosted Virtual Call Centers makes it easy for businesses to configure inbound calls to a sales desk, a support hotline or help desk. A Hosted Call Center will even allow you to have Call Center Agents in multiple physical locations; these agents can even be home based agents.

If this is your first time evaluating a Hosted Call Center solution, here are 10 important points to consider.

1 How does the pricing work?
A provider that charges you per-agent or per-seat is charging you even when your agent isn’t on the phone. With a provider that charges per minute used, you’ll only be paying for the service that you actually make use of.

2 What Hosted Call Center Features are available?
A good Call Center solution should give you fine grained control over every aspect of your call center. This is how your customers are going to experience your Call Center and it is vitally important that you provide a comfortable experience. You should be able to, for example, choose what music customers listen to while on hold, the maximum amount of time they’ll have to wait, and the number of callers in your queue.

3 Does the provider require specialized IP Phone sets?
Home-based employment is becoming increasingly popular. And for good reason: off-site workers are able to participate in their jobs without relocating or commuting. Tap into the possibilities of a workforce unrestricted by location by making sure that your Hosted Call Center allows agents to answer phones wherever they are, without needing to stay tied down to a specific piece of hardware. Virtual Call Center software should empower agents in your office or across the nation.

4 How are incoming calls routed to agents?
The more information a call center agent has about a caller, the better. Ask the hosted VoIP provider what information is available to the call center agent and how is that information provided. Many call center providers integration with CRM applications like Salesforce.com and Sugar CRM. This type of integration is very valuable as it allows your agents to see a history of the interaction with your customers.

5 Does your service offer Call Recording?
There’s no better way to monitor and review your call interactions than to have access to recordings and transcriptions of them. A provider that makes this option available will allow you to give specific feedback to your agents by seeing exactly how they did and what can be improved.

6 Determine the capabilities of the call center supervisor
In order to manage the agents, the call center supervisors need up to the minute information about all aspects of the call center. This includes information about how the agents are performing as well as how long customers are waiting to speak to an agent. It is import that virtual call center solution provides effective real time call center reporting.

7 Do you offer the option to set schedules for individual agents?
Your Virtual Call Center is only as good as your scheduling options. By incorporating the schedules of individual call agents, you can ensure that calls are being routed to agents who are available to take the calls. Make your call queuing more efficient–which your customers will love–by using a precise schedule for each agent.

8 Is there a setup fee or long-term contract?
Fees vary widely among call center providers. A Hosted call center solutions is a web-based technology that does not require the purchase of hardware or software. Many call center providers require a term contract because of the upfront expense they incur settting up and installing your service. This may be very valuable to you and you should not dismiss a provider because they require a fee or a term contract. It may end up saving you in the end. Rather than look for a no fee, no contract provider, look for a provider that offers some sort of guarantee.

9 Is IVR integration available? Can I transfer callers to another agent, call distributor, or IVR?
Your small virtual call center doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Or, at least, it shouldn’t. With Interactive Voice Response technology integration, you can make better use of your Call Center, allowing you transfer callers to another agent, department, post-call survey, or voice mail.

10 Determine the customer support policy
There is no system that is 100% fail proof. Determine what happens in the event of a system crash? Ask the vendor if they have redundant facilities. A provider with redundant facilities is less likely to have a significant outage than a provider that does not have redundant facilities. This will give you a better sense of how prepared the provider is for these situations.

Tell Us about Your Business VoIP Needs

Get started with AVAD today. Feel free to call us toll-free at (800) 733-4136 to begin.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business answering service that is seeking affordable Business VoIP Services. AVAD simplifies virtual call center software by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex Hosted VoIP call center solution for small businesses or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

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Happy With Your Business Phone System?

VoIP phone systemsIf you are like most businesses, the answer lies somewhere between ambivalence and total disdain.

Maybe you are at the point “if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it”. While your phone system may not be broken, it really could be a lot better. VoIP is a tool that allows businesses of any size to have a better phone system at a price even a small business can afford.

A Business Hosted VoIP Phone System can be easily custom designed to meet your businesses exact requirements without the need to purchase expensive telecommunications hardware.

Any business can literally have a state-of-the-art phone system up and running in a matter of hours that has an upfront cost of $29.95/per user plus the cost of a USB headset and a soft phone.

Your system can have multiple office locations, incorporate home based employees, include Automated Attendants that can answer and transfer callers to any of your employees regardless of their geographic location, music on hold, a complete voice mail system plus many more VoIP small business Features that are too numerous to list here.

AVAD Technologies specializes in the small/medium sized business market. Business small VoIP is all we do. AVAD provides a complete solution, we provide local and toll free phone numbers, the Business VoIP hardware and software, plus free installation and ongoing support.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business answering service that is seeking affordable Hosted VoIP phone service. AVAD simplifies Hosted VoIP phone systems by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex contact center services or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

If you are thinking about switching your business to VoIP or just have some questions, please feel free to call (800) 733-4136 or fill out the following contact form and a Business VoIP Specialist will give you a call.

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How Consultants Use Call Centers

call 
centerAs a consultant you’re often tight on time.

You have clients to deal with, projects to work on, marketing to do …and the list goes on.

One area that consultants should give more consideration to is outsourcing. You can outsource a whole host of areas of your business, but let’s just look at one today – your telephone communications.

When you first hear the word call center you probably think of a big open office floor with hundreds of cubicles and phones ringing off the hook … a buzz of men and women quick talking to take an order or to provide support filling the air.

Valuable In More Than One Way

Today however, call center services go way beyond this and as a consultant can help you in more than one area of your business.

Here are just a few examples:

• You’ll be out at meetings or on the road all day … call centers generally offer an answering service and can receive your calls for you and forward them to your mobile phone if and when needed.

• You’re putting on a seminar or have created an information product you want to sell – of course you’ll have registration online, but many people still prefer calling in – this is a perfect job for a call center to help you with.

• Your business is growing, and while you’re not quite ready to hire a full time assistant you do want and need someone answering your day to day calls … call centers often have receptionist services that can help you with all of that and more.

• And there’s a whole other angle to this too. Call centers can be useful for your client projects. When you want to conduct a survey or some research … call centers can help you get that data by making those calls for you.

Choosing the Right VoIP Service Providers

The call center market is a crowded one and you’ll find all kinds of companies offering a wide array of services. Before you choose one to work with be sure that they clearly understand your goals, are open to doing an initial project like a trial so you can see if you like the working arrangements, and be sure take a look at their client list (and don’t be afraid to give one or two a call to get the whole story).

Virtual Call Centers Strategy to Find New Clients

Let me share with you another way that all of this can help you to bring in new clients. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know I’m a big believer in edu-marketing – that is marketing through educating prospective clients and not bombarding them with hardcore sales messages.

A classic edu-marketing strategy is to offer a free video or report on your website, in your marketing materials, ads and so forth. By giving your prospects the option to call a 24/7 voice mail system that automatically collects their name and contact info they feel better because they know they won’t be ‘pushed to buy’ and are then more likely to request your information … which is great for you because the more people that see your materials and the value in what you offer the better.

Hope you enjoyed this look into how you can make small business call center work for your consulting business. We’ll continue to look at other ways you can outsource aspects of your business for growth in future posts.

If you’ve used call center services and have a story (good or bad) to share, would love to hear about it in the comments below.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business answering service that is seeking affordable Hosted VoIP phone systems. AVAD simplifies VoIP internet phone service by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex call center monitoring software or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

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Prevent Bad VoIP Service Before You Start

If you are like most businesses, your phone system is a critical component of your business. Before you decide to use the services of a particular Hosted VoIP Company you need to do your research.

Business VoIP Phone ServiceNot all Hosted Providers are the same nor are the conditions that exist at each customer location identical. This however does not excuse implementing a Hosted VoIP phone system that delivers poor performance. It is the responsibility of the Hosted VoIP Provider to ensure that each installation has the proper conditions in place to ensure maximum results.

If a customer wants Hosted business VoIP primarily to save money, and at the same time the customer is not willing to pay for the proper equipment to ensure quality of service, the Hosted Provider is asking for problems if they agree to work with that customer. You can’t expect to get business quality voice running over a crappy router supplied by an ISP with a $19.95/month DSL connection and try to run 25 users on that system. This is guaranteed to fail.

On the other hand, if the Hosted VoIP Provider works with the prospective customer and explains what is required and what it costs to install a business grade Hosted VoIP solution and prospective customer actually follows the VoIP Providers recommendations, the chances of delivering a successfull VoIP phone system greatly increase.

The ideal Hosted VoIP solution has the following components;

• T-1 connection dedicated to Voice
• VoIP router from manufacturers like Edgewater Networks or Cisco
• IP Phones from Polycom or Cisco
• Hosted VoIP Service from a quality provider
• Hosted VoIP Provider can prove they have redundant facilities.
• Hosted VoIP Provider offers superior customer service

It comes down to the simple but time honored saying “Do your home work first” and “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is”. Your phone system is a critical component of your company, it does not make sense to cut corners on one of the most important parts of your business. This is why sky divers don’t choose the cheapest parachute. Failure is not an option.

Tell Us About Your Needs – Get started with AVAD today. Feel free to call us toll-free at (800) 733-4136 or you can complete a short Call Center Quote Request Form.

AVAD’s Business VoIP Phone Service is a complete solution that includes VoIP, call centers solution, automated dialing, IVR/ACD, recording, reporting, and multi-media capabilities and Call Blending.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for Hosted VoIP PBX phone service that is seeking an affordable hosted VoIP phone system. AVAD simplifies contact center software for small businesses by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex contact center solutions solutions or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

Check out for Business voip services and Hosted VoIP For Business

Call Centers are Within Reach of Small Businesses

Hosted VoIP Call CenterAVAD’s Hosted contact center supports both individual as well as distributed multi-site call centers to act as a single virtual call center, regardless of geographic location.

Build Your Own Hosted VoIP Call Center:

* Simplified installation and maintenance.
* No hardware required.
* Easily add/remove agents.
* Add an unlimited number of agents.
* Agents can be located anywhere, including home based agents.
* No hardware required, agents can use a soft phone.
* Agressive Pricing Plans

Configurable Routing:

* Enhanced Automated Call Distribution (ACD).
* Route calls to any agent regardless of geographic location.
* Customizable Periodic Comfort Message

Key Features:

* Automatic Call Distributor (ACD): Intelligent call routing and queuing.
* Enhanced ACD: Advanced queuing when call center is not staffed and maximum wrap-up timer settings.
* Auto Attendant: View Auto-Attendant Details Interactive voice response (IVR) and custom messaging.
* Call Center Reporting: View Call Center Reports Preset real-time and historical reports in graphical and tabular form.
* Music On Hold and Comfort Announcement: Callers are provided with a greeting, followed by music or advertisements and periodic comfort announcements in audio or video format.
* Monitoring and Recording: View Call Recording DetailsPre-integrated, third-party vendor solutions for real-time monitoring and recording of agent calls.

Improve Customer Service:

Ensure all incoming calls are serviced efficiently under any network condition and at any time.

Create Virtual call center:

Establish call centers anywhere in the world, just with a broadband connection.

Follow-the-Sun Customer Care:

Offer 24x7x365 ubiquitous services with a single number for distributed call center locations.

Manage Calls Effectively:

Choose from a range of call distribution policies, including skills-based call distribution. Minimize Costs: Provide the option for agents to work remotely with access to all call features. Voice mail Transfer: Transfer calls directly to voice mail.

Tell Us About Your Business VoIP Call Center Needs – Get started with AVAD today. Feel free to call us toll-free at (800) 733-4136 or you can complete a short Call Center Quote Request Form.

AVAD’s Hosted call center for small business is a complete solution that includes VoIP, call centers solution, automated dialing, IVR/ACD, recording, reporting, and multi-media capabilities and Call Blending.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business call center for business that is seeking an affordable Call Center solution. AVAD simplifies Call Centers for small businesses by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex contact center solutions or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

Check out also for Hosted VoIP phone systems and Hosted VoIP phone service

Close More Deals With A Hosted Call Center

VoIP call center solutionsWhy Does My Business Need a Call Center?

The answer to this question is simple, “Call Center technology will help your company close more sales”.

In order to close more sales, you need a telephone system that allows you to precisely control the customer experience when that customer is ready to make the purchase or is in the pre-purchase information gathering process.

A properly structured Hosted VoIP Call Center can have a profound impact on your sales closing ratio. A Hosted VoIP Call Center will ensure that sales calls are always routed to available sales agents no matter where they are located and regardless of the time of day. If all of your agents are busy assisting other calls, the VoIP Call Center will give callers information about your products, as well as periodically letting the caller know how long they will have to wait to speak with an agent.

We Manage The Infrastructure – You Manage The Call Center

AVAD provides a complete VoIP call center solutions. We provide 100% of the network equipment, hardware, VoIP software, local & long distance calling and toll free numbers. We also help you customize a Call Center solution and we will help train your staff.

We understand it is complicated to implement and manage a Call Center. We help you every step of the way to insure that you are successful. With AVAD, no previous Telecommunications or Call Center experience is required. Tell us is what type of customer experience you want, in plain english, and we will design the solution for you.

Our 100% Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee Says It All.

“If for any reason during the first 60-days following installation of AVAD Technologies Business VoIP Phone Service does not meet your expectations, we will uninstall and refund any monies incurred by your organization for Capital Expenditures (CAPEX) promptly.” No questions asked.

Why Choose AVAD’s Hosted Call Center?

AVAD’s Hosted call center systems is a complete solution that includes VoIP, contact center software, automated dialing, IVR/ACD, recording, reporting, and multi-media capabilities and Call Blending.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for business services VoIP that are seeking an affordable Call Center solution. AVAD simplifies Call Centers for small businesses by assigning a call center consultant to your your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex Call Center solution or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

Managing communications, and integrating with your customer relationship management software like SalesForce.com is built into AVAD’s Call Center solution and is now available to businesses of any size at a fraction of the cost from five to 10 years ago.

If you would like to learn more about how Hosted VoIP Call Center Software can benefit your company, please call (800) 733-4136 or you can complete a short Call Center Quote Request Form.

Check out also for Business VoIP Phone Service and Business VoIP services

Can VoIP Be As Reliable As Traditional Phone Service?

VoIP  RedundancyCertain businesses and government agencies that support critical infrastructure require their phone systems to be functional 100% of the time. Examples include the military, police, fire and hospitals. When failure is not an option, then you must have redundancy in the event your primary system fails.

Sky diving is an example of an activity where failure is not an option. Sky divers always carry a reserve shoot in case their primary shoot fails. The cost of adding a second parachute adds to the cost of sky diving. The same principal applies when adding redundancy to a Business VoIP phone system.

Watch Out For the Bogus Performance Guarantee

While VoIP technology has become very stable over the past several years, no technology is 100% reliable. If your company requires 100% reliability, then you must build redundancy into your system.

You cannot expect the provider of any service, including VoIP phone service to guarantee 100% reliability. While the provider of a service publicly states they offer a 100% guarantee, to find out exactly what that means, you must read the fine print. In companies that provide a service like, like Business VoIP phone service, this is known as the Service Level Agreement (SLA), often tells a different story.

Most SLA’s have a “Damages” clause which is where the company limits its damages in the envent of a service outage. In the event of an outage, regardless of how “damaging” financially it is to your company, the most you can expect to recover is a percentage of your monthly bill. That is a bogus guarantee and one that you should not rely on.

How do you get 100% uptime on your phone system?

The answer is actually fairly simple. In order to guarantee 100% uptime of your phone system, or for any system, you need two completely independent fully functioning systems in place.

An example of this type of redundancy is a back up generator at a hospital. It is unacceptable for people to die if the facility looses power and that is why hospitals always have redundant power supplies.

Situations like these require an 100% redundancy. How much redundancy your company needs depends on the damage an outage could cause. The economic harm of an outage is affected by the frequency and duration of an outage.

What is your tolerance for phone system outages?

Before you spend money building redundancy into your system, you should determine the economic cost of an outage. The amount of redundancy your company requires depends on the answers to the following questions;

1. Is any outage time acceptable?
2. How long of an outage can you withstand before the damage to your company becomes unacceptable?
3. How much are you willing to pay to guarantee against each outage type?
4. Are some types of outages unacceptable?
5. Are you willing to live with the occasional system wide outage that lasts for a hour or less or occasional call quality issues?

Redundancy is a trade off, most of the time

There are different ways of achieving redundancy on a Hosted VoIP phone system. Complete, 100% guaranteed redundancy requires 2 of everything and costs roughly twice as much as your current phone bill. Other types of redundancy cost less to achieve.

Before building redundancy into your system, determine how much and what types of phone system outages your company can accept and then figure out how much it costs to implement. In some fields 100% redundancy is a must, Sky Diving is one that comes to mind.

AVAD Technologies is a leading VoIP service providers in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete hosted call center solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution, and Hosted VoIP solutions for Business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a Hosted VoIP phone service, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

Check out also for VoIP service providers and VoIP for small business

Why Are Some Businesses Passing On VoIP?

VoIP service providersWhy is it that some businesses have passed on the opportunity to implement Voice over IP (VoIP) even though VoIP has been proven to be able to deliver significant benefits to the organization. Many businesses have sited fears of potential unforeseen implementation costs, quality issues or possibly putting their network at increased risk.

Research has shown that many companies, both large and small are uncertain about the benefits to their organization that a VoIP telephone system offers. 55 percent of North American and European companies reported that they did not understand the value that a unified communications solution can deliver to their organization.

Many individuals in the position to make or influence the telecommunications decision do not fully understand the benefits a Voice over IP telephone system can have for their organization. These individuals generally understand how VoIP works, the improvement in ROI, and some of the features made available by business VoIP services. But, unless they truly embrace how VoIP enables Unified Communications and think through all the possibilities a VoIP system brings to the organization, they are unlikely to implement VoIP.

“The Vonage Syndrome”

Even though, VoIP companies are fairly new as compared to the traditional telephone companies, many of this newer business telephone companies are not effectively making the case for VoIP to their clients. The biggest mistake these new companies make when discussing the benefits of VoIP is the cost savings over their current telecommunications solution. I call this the “Vonage Syndrome”.

While cost is important, it should not be the primary selling point. In fact, existing telecom companies are still competing with and winning new deals against VoIP providers. It is the IP PBX features and functions that a VoIP telephone system brings that set VoIP apart from traditional PBX systems.

Business VoIP vendors must first educate their customers as to why VoIP makes sense for their business.

When speaking with a perspective client, it is important to stress that software VoIP technology has dramatically improved, especially call quality and reliability. More importantly, VoIP companies must stress how VoIP technology can be used to help the customer improve customer service and efficiency.

Forrester (News – Alert) Research has determined that mobility is a top priority for companies, with 64 percent of respondents citing it as a priority and 23 percent calling it a critical priority. In order to continue to increase mobility and extend to voice over internet protocol companies the functionality they want to be efficient and productive, a move toward business VoIP makes sense. If you notice, cost savings was not in the top 2 reasons.

Conclusion:

The biggest benefit of business services VoIP is the functionality a VoIP system offers. These new features offer businesses ways to improve customer service, increase customer satisfaction, aid in

AVAD Technologies is a leading VoIP service providers in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP business solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution, small business phone service provider for Business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a Business VoIP Phone Service, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

Check out also for Voicemail service for business and Voice over internet protocol services

Call Center Benefits Of A Predictive Dialer

A Predictive Dialer is a component of business phone system, generally in a Call Center environment, that dials automatically, a list of telephone numbers (a client or prospect list) and connects live callers automatically to an available Call Center Agent.

contact center solutions The predictive dialer uses a sophisticated algorithm, that learns the unigue calling patterns of a call center, predicts availability of Virtual Call Centers agents, dials the appropriate amount of telephone numbers and maximizes the time agents spending speaking with live callers.

How does a predictive dialer work?

The predictive dialer keeps track of the success rate (calls answered by a live person) of the telephone numbers on the list being dialed, an adjusts the rate at which telephone numbers are dialed. The predictive dialer simultaneously monitors the call center agents to determine a typical call length and therefore when an agent will next be available. The dialer dialer uses this information to maximize the time call center agents speak with live callers.

Unanswered, busy, disconnected calls, calls to fax, answering, and automated services are disgarded, only calls answered by live people are connected to agents. This greatly increases the productivity as it frees them from the agents from having to manually dial telephone numbers, waiting idly listening to voice mail greetings, and spending valuable time on unsuccessful calls.

Why are pedictive dialers popular?

Predictive dialers are popular because they result in significant savings by reducing the number of call center agents required to handle a given volume of calls. Every minute a call center agent spends on tasks other than speaking with a live caller is inefficient. Dialing phone numbers, listening to voice greetings are time not spent handling import customer, tech support, and potential customer calls.

A predictive dialer has been shown to dramatically increase the percentage of time call center agents spend communicating with customers. Hosted VoIP phone system that implements predictive dialers can expect an increase in agent talk time and therefore productivity. Agents in call centers that do not use predictive dialers typically spend 20-minutes per hour talking to a live customer, whereas agents in Hosted VoIP PBX phone service that use a predictive dialer spend approximately 45-minutes out of each hour speaking with customers. This is a dramatic increase in productivity and therefore cost savings.

AVAD Technologies is a leading VoIP phone service provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete contact center software to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution, business VoIP solutions for Business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a VoIP Solutions for small business, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

Check out also for VoIP service providers in USA and VoIP call center

Install New VoIP Phone System before Moving Offices

Hosted VoIP phone systemOne of the most over looked aspects of moving office locations is the impact the move will have on your employees. Moving is a stressful time for the management responsible for executing the move, but is equally stressful for the employees.

Your employees must not only get used to new surroundings, they must also conduct business as usual even though for them nothing is as usual. Even the best planned moves are stressful.

So why is it that companies add to the stress by changing phone systems on the same day they move to a new location?

The answer is based on an old assumption that is no longer true. Management assumes the new small VoIP phone system should be installed in the new location and will be ready for use on the first day the new office opens.

If we were still in the era of the tradition PBX phone system, this would be true. Hosted VoIP has changed business telecommunications in many positive ways.

One of these benefits is that Hosted VoIP has simplified the installation process and costs nothing if you do it yourself. Still, many businesses assume they have to wait to install the VoIP system in their new office location.

Anyone can move a Hosted VoIP phone system

Moving a Hosted VoIP phone system is nothing like moving a traditional PBX phone system. It is much simpler because all of the hardware is hosted and maintained by the small business phone service provider.

The only telecom equipment at your offices are the IP Phone sets and since they are plug and play, they can easily be moved by your employees to the new office.

As long as each employee keeps the same IP Phone, the system will function exactly the same in your new office. As soon as the IP phones are connected to the network, the re-installation of your VoIP phone system is complete. All company greetings (Auto-Attendant), call routing, voice mail greetings and voice mail boxes remain unchanged. It is really that simple.

Your phone systems continues to function normally during the move

Even while your IP Phones are in boxes your phone system continues to function normally. This is because the equipment that runs your system is not in your office; it is offsite at the VoIP Service Providers telecom facility.

Only phones that are packed are down. The other parts of the system, including your company’s main greeting (Auto-Attendant), individual employee voice mail greetings and voice mail boxes continue to function normally. Your employees can even forward incoming calls to their mobile devices during the move so they won’t miss any calls.

To the outside world your company’s phone system will appear as if nothing has changed, even during the move.

With a traditional business phone system or even a Premise based VoIP system, your system will be down during the move.

Hosted VoIP makes moving less stressful for employees

If you have decided to switch to a hosted VoIP phone system, you might as well install the new system in your old office before you move.

Since there is no additional cost for installation and you have already purchased the IP phone sets (which are probably sitting in a box somewhere in your offices), you might as well install the system and train your employees before you move into new offices.

When moving day arrives, learning a new phone system will be one less headache and new thing your employees will have to deal with.

AVAD Technologies is a leading business VoIP providers in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete contact center software to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution, VoIP business solutions for Business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a VoIP broadband phone service, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

Check out also for Voicemail service for business and VoIP Solutions for small business

VoIP Saves Money and Improves Productivity

Business VoIP telephoneMany businesses continue to use the telephone the same way they did 10, 20 or even 30-years ago. These companies are missing an enormous opportunity to transform their company by using a Hosted VoIP phone system to increase productivity, improve customer support while saving money.

Why You Need To Manage Incoming Calls

Every employee, customer and prospective customer at some point will interact with your company over the telephone. It is extremely important to carefully map out your company’s incoming and outgoing call flow to make this process as efficient as possible or you risk losing business. An effective call handling process ensures your company has a professional image.

A Hosted VoIP phone system gives you complete control over how incoming and outgoing calls are processed. Having an effective process avoids problems such as losing important calls and transferring callers to the wrong person or department.

You are the 3rd person I have been transferred to!

Your customers do not like being transferred incorrectly from one department to the other. Routing a customer call to the appropriate department on the first try is very important, especially if that customer is already upset about something. Don’t compound the problem by incorrectly handling these calls. We have all had this experience and it leaves a very bad taste.

We see a lot companies that let the calling experience just happen, evolve over time, or allow employees to decide how customer calls should be handled. This is not the way you want to manage such a critically important business function. You would be surprised how many companies manage the phone system this way.

The good news is that you can easily turn this situation from a problem into a benefit with a Hosted VoIP phone system.

A Hosted VoIP Phone System Is Affordable

Most small businesses don’t realize how affordable small VoIP phone system that has state-of-the-art is. This is great news for the growing business. Many of your competitors have fallen into the same trap of portraying an unprofessional image simply because they don’t realize how easily a Hosted VoIP phone system can correct this problem.

One of the main reasons why companies have not been able to create a professional phone image is that is either too expensive or too difficult or both.
The initial investment to get a fully functional Business VoIP small business is a lot less than you might think. You can buy quality IP phones for less than $125.00. The only other hardware required is a VoIP router. For a 15 person company, a VoIP router costs less than $750.00. You can add more items like conference phones and video conferencing phones, but in order to get a fully functioning phone system all you really need are the IP Phone sets and a VoIP router.

Only Pay For The Services You Need – No Hardware

With a traditional phone system, you have to purchase the hardware required for the services your phone system needs. If your company needs an Auto-Attendant, you have to purchase Auto-Attendant hardware and pay for the installation. In the future, if you need to add a second Auto-Attendant in a different location, you are forced to purchase additional hardware.

This is not the case with a Business VoIP phone system. You get complete freedom to change your phone system at any time without purchasing additional hardware and paying for installation. You can literally change, add or remove phones, auto-attendants, hunt groups, call centers on-line and in real time.

The Flexibility To Adapt As Conditions Change

Flexibility is the true benefit of a Business VoIP phone system. You will no longer have to adapt your business to the limitations imposed by your phone system. If you think about it, almost everything you do and every change you make to your company requires changes to your phone system. Often, it is the cost of the changes to your phone system that prevents companies from executing strategies.

It is difficult to measure the cost of not executing a strategy, but companies that do not adapt often do not succeed.

AVAD Technologies is a leading small business VoIP provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP call center solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution, Hosted VoIP for Business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a Hosted VoIP phone service, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

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5 Curable Causes of Poor VoIP Call Quality

If you are using a VoIP phone system, there is a good chance you have experienced poor call quality. This article discusses the causes of VoIP call quality problems and what you can do to correct them.

VoIP Call QualityThe causes of poor quality VoIP calls are easy to diagnose and correct. Your VoIP Service Provider should be able to identify and work with you to correct these problems. More importantly, these problems should not be ongoing. If your VoIP Service Provider is unable to correct your call quality problems, you need to find a different provider.

5 Most Likely Causes of Poor VoIP Calls and How You Can Fix Them:

1. The Problem: Jitter

Jitter is a common problem of the connectionless networks or packet switched networks. Because the information (voice packets) is divided into packets, each packet can travel by a different path from the sender to the receiver. When packets arrive at their intended destination in a different order then they were originally sent, the result is a call with poor or scrambled audio.

Jitter is technically the measure of the variability over time of the latency across a network. Jitter is one of the most common VoIP call quality problems.

The Solution: Use Jitter Buffers

A jitter buffer temporarily stores arriving packets in order to minimize delay variations. If packets arrive too late then they are discarded.

2. The Problem: Latency

VoIP delay or latency is characterized as the amount of time it takes for speech to exit the speaker’s mouth and reach the listener’s ear. Latency sounds like an echo.

There are 3 types of delay commonly found in today’s VoIP networks;

1. Propagation Delay: Light travels through a vacuum at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, and electrons travel through copper or fiber at approximately 125, 000 miles per second. A fiber network stretching halfway around the world (13, 000 miles) induces a one-way delay of about 70 milliseconds (70 ms). Although this delay is almost imperceptible to the human ear, propagation delays in conjunction with handling delays can cause noticeable speech degradation.

2. Handling Delay: Devices that forward the frame through the network cause handling delay. Handling delays can impact traditional phone networks, but these delays are a larger issue in packetized environments.

3. Queuing Delay: When packets are held in a queue because of congestion on an outbound interface, the result is queuing delay. Queuing delay occurs when more packets are sent out than the interface can handle at a given interval.

The Solution: Prioritize

Prioritizing VoIP traffic over the network yields latency and jitter improvements. Policy based network management, bandwidth reservation, Type of Service, Class of Service, and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) are all widely used techniques for prioritizing VoIP traffic. A quality VoIP router can solve many of these issues and will result in business quality Business VoIP Phone Service.

3. The Problem: Poor Internet Connection

Most ISP’s are designed for web surfing and not VoIP advantages. Transporting voice packets is different and requires an additional set of internet protocols that your ISP may not be providing.

The Solution: Business Class High Speed

Fortunately, most of the ISP’s, including cable and DSL high speed internet providers offer business class high speed internet service that is acceptable.

4. The Problem: Inadequate Router

Bad equipment is bad equipment.

The Solution: Install a Specialized VoIP Router

This is one of the most common causes of call quality issues. Many small businesses use their internet connection for both voice and data. This is perfectly fine as long as your router has the ability to prioritize VoIP traffic.

Without a router that is configured for packet prioritization, call quality can be impacted by the other users on your network. For example, if during a call, another user on your network downloads a large file, without packet prioritization, your call quality could be degraded. A VoIP router prevents this from happening by giving priority to voice traffic on your network.

VoIP routers are not an expensive piece of hardware. A VoIP router for a small business ranges from $300.00 for a five person office to under $1,000.00 for a 25-person office.

5. The Problem: Internal Network Improperly Configured

VoIP is less than 10-years old. Many companies do not consider the higher quality demands of VoIP communications. If your company decides to route both voice and data over the same network without properly configuring your network for VoIP traffic, you can expect to have call quality issues.

The Solution: Network Configuration

This is one of the easiest and least expensive problems to correct. A Business VoIP capable router that is properly configured will generally solve the problem.

AVAD Technologies is a leading VoIP service providers in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP business solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution and software VoIP for small business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a Hosted VoIP phone service, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

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Avoid Being Locked Into Long-Term Service Contracts

When business slows, companies respond by reducing expenses. What would happen if your business was not allowed to cut costs because of language in one of your service contracts? The answer is obvious, at worst, your business could fail or at the very least, your profits will be reduced.

Term Contracts Benefit One Side – And It’s Not Your Side

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Telecommunications companies have been using term contracts to lock businesses into paying for a set level of service for years. If your business has slowed, a term contract locks you into paying for services that you don’t need. Service contracts only benefit one of the parties to the contract, and that party is not you.

A telecom service contract that locks you into a minimum amount of services for a fixed period of time only benefits the telecom company.

To show you how completely one sided a service contract is, what do you think would happen if during the contract period, your company needed to increase the service above the terms on the initial contract. Do you think the company would say no, you have to wait until your contract expires? Of course not, they will happily let you pay more; they just don’t want you to pay less.

If You Are Forced To Sign A Term Contract, At least Ask For a Business Downturn Clause

If you have no other options and you are forced to sign a term service contract, at least include a business downturn clause. Some telecom companies have started offering a “business downturn flexibility” clause in the contracts to both new and existing customers.

These new clauses are a ploy to keep companies locked in. Voice over internet protocol companies are not under any pressure to improve the quality of their services because they have had a virtual monopoly. VoIP is a real threat to this industry. Instead of innovating, telecommunications companies have responded by locking you in. Long term, this strategy is doomed.

AVAD Technologies VoIP broadband service

A Business VoIP phone service provider that does not require Long-Term Contracts

With AVAD Technologies you are free to leave at anytime and for any reason. Of course we don’t want you to leave, but we won’t use a contract to make you stay either.
Our motto is,

We can’t make customers stay; we can only make them want to stay”

We work hard every day to earn your business. We believe a telecommunications system is a tool that helps our customers meets their corporate goals. In effect, we become your in-house telecommunications department.

AVAD Technologies is a leading VoIP service providers in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete Virtual Call Centers solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution and business VoIP services for small business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how AVAD Technologies can help your company convert to a Hosted small VoIP phone system, please call (800) 733-4136 to speak with a Business VoIP Specialist or you can complete a short VoIP Quote Request Form.

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Call Center Enhancement Announcement

NEW YORK, NY, September 19, 2011 – AVAD Technologies, LLC, a leading provider of Hosted VoIP Phone Service to small and medium size businesses, today announced enhancements to its Hosted Call Center solution. These enhancements include improved Reporting a Predictive Dialer and a new Web Portal Interface. These new capabilities are designed specifically for call centers with higher call volumes and more complex reporting requirements.

Business VoIP AVAD Technologies Hosted contact center solutions supports all call center environments, from small companies to individuals that need basic call distribution, queuing, and simple reporting, to advanced distributed, wholesale and in-house call centers.

Recent Enhancements to AVAD’s Hosted Small Business Call Center Include:

Enhanced Reporting – broader real-time and historical performance metric capture enables call center supervisors to optimize their local or global workforce, with the use of new pre-configured, scheduled and customizable reports.

Redesigned Web Clients – a user-friendly web interface enable agents to more efficiently handle calls and improve a supervisor’s ability to monitor agent activity in order to ensure greater customer satisfaction.

AVAD’s Hosted Call enables increased efficiency for geographically distributed business call center. Allowing these companies to realize significant cost savings and efficiency.

Benefits of AVAD’s Hosted Call Center

AVAD Technologies Business VoIP Phone Service offers several benefits for small and medium size companies, including:

Cost Savings – Limited upfront capital investment and predictable ongoing operating expenses.

Efficient Supervision of a Virtual Workforce – Management of multi-site, mobile and remote agents from our web based call center portal.

Administrative Flexibility – Ability to quickly and efficiently handle unexpected call volume, without negatively impacting customer wait times.

Business Continuity – Calls are queued and can be quickly and easily re-routed to alternate locations.

AVAD Technologies is a leading small business VoIP provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete business VoIP solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, call centers solution and VoIP phone plans for small business and large enterprise customers.

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Choosing the right hosted PBX VoIP provider is not a simple decision

Small business pbx Small Business Hosted VoIP PBX

If your primary motivation is to reduce your telephone expense, this article may not be for you.

On the other hand, if you want to learn about the factors that should be evaluated when selecting a Hosted VoIP Provider for your small business, then you should continue reading the rest of this article.

VoIP phone service provider – Its not only about price

Price is only one of many factors that should be evaluated when selecting small business VoIP provider. When you consider that your company’s phone system is the primary means by which employees and customers, communicate with your company, then choosing a phone system solely on the basis of price is may lead to incorrect decisions.

Any savings in the short term will pale in significance to the loss of revenue from a decline in productivity and customer satisfaction. How many times have you called a company after doing research on their product and hung up the phone in frustration because either you were not able to reach a person who could help you or were placed on hold by either a receptionist or an automated system. What a waste.

This scenario happens all the time, and many times the phone system is the culprit.

This is why you should consider the PBX Features and the VoIP calling plans the Hosted VoIP Provider offers and how you can use those features to enhance your business’s objectives.

For example, if your current phone expense is $1,000.00 a month, the most you could possibly save is $1,000.00. Assuming that you were able to get your phone service for free, which is unlikely? That is it, you can’t save any more than 100%. While reducing expenses is important, in order to succeed in the long run, a company must increase revenue and the phone system must be able to support your business objectives.

Can the prospective system support my Business Objectives?

As a business owner or manager, you should be asking the following fundamental question about your phone system: does it have the capability to support your current/and future/business objectives?

Specific questions include;

1. Can the system Improve productivity? For example, can your current phone system incorporate remote locations and home based employees? Or, is each location on a separate system?

2. Is your company’s phone system unified? Having to tell a caller to hang up and dial another location in your company is frustrating at best. At worst, it could cause you to lose a potential customer.

3. Can the phone system support your customer support requirements? Can employees and customers reach your critical departments 24/7 even if no one is physically at the office? Can the phone system automatically route calls to the proper department regardless of geographic location?

4. Will the VoIP Provider work with you to customize the system? The VoIP Provider is extremely important. The VoIP Provider should provide 24/7 support and monitoring of your VoIP phone system. The voice over internet protocol providers should also provide training to your employees both during the initial installation as well as future training of new employees.

As you can see, price while important, is not the primary consideration when choosing your next business telephone system. These are just some of the questions that must be considered when choosing a Hosted VoIP Provider.

AVAD Technologies is a leading voice over internet protocol services provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP small business to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, Call Center Software and VoIP business solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

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Why Home Based Call Center Agents Save Money & Increase Sales

With concerns rising about offshore outsourcing in terms of quality and security, more companies are becoming interested in the cost-saving benefits of using agents who work from their homes.

Virtual call center

Savings is important, but it should not come at the expense of lost revenue, and if your customers are primarily from the US, you know how frustrating it can be speaking with an agent from a foreign country that is difficult to understand. Often this leads to customers who simply hang up and go elsewhere.

If you decide to develop your call center services in-house, you can support your customer service or sales staff with Hosted Call Center technology that efficiently routes calls, offers multiple ways to interact with customers (audio only, Video & Chat), and manages the information your customers provide by integrating with your customer relationship management software. You can create a hybrid contact center solutions that integrates in-house call center agents with home-based call center agents.

Save Money with Home Based Call Center Agents

A Hosted Call Center allows your business the ability to incorporate home based agents with your in-house call center agents or even an outsourced call center. Home based call center agents gives you the added benefit of staffing with local people who speak the language and who have the same culture. This is very appealing to many of your customers. Using home based Call Center Agents also makes staffing easier and opens up a whole new source of employees. It also allows you to save money by reducing the need for office space to house your call center.

Many home-based agents work part-time or as independent contractors. This reduces expenses significantly as your company is not required to pay for health insurance, benefits, sick time, vacation time and maternity leave. You only pay the call center agent when he or she is actually working.

Virtual call center have been around since the 1990s, but companies were reluctant to give up the control and supervision of an in-house call center. JetBlue Airways Inc was one of the first companies to implement home based call center agents. Jet Blue now has a 900+ call center agents that work exclusively-at-home.

Call Blending Improves Call Center Efficiency

AVAD’s Call Blending allows agents to move between Inbound and Outbound seamlessly maximizing productivity. A big benefit is this greatly reduces idle time for inbound agents.

Previously, agents were either inbound or outbound call center agents. This leads to staff being underutilized. If no calls were coming in, the agent would simply sit idle and while you pay them.

The process of call-blending helps to maximize the time that each work station can devote to handing the telephones, both inbound and outbound calls. The process is automatic and can be configured to your company’s individual needs. As an agent completes a phone call and becomes available, the system will place the agent into the inbound queue and notify the agent by emitting a tone in the headset. The will then be connected to a caller. This allows distribution of the inbound calls to be more evenly distributed across agents.

Call centers of all types use call blending as a way to keep employees productive but not overworked, and keep customers happy.

About AVAD’s Hosted Contact Center Solution

AVAD’s A Hosted Call Center solution is a complete solution that includes VoIP, call center software, automated dialing, IVR/ACD, recording, reporting, and multi-media capabilities and Call Blending.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small businesses that are seeking an affordable inbound & outbound Call Center solution. AVAD simplifies Virtual Call Centers for small business by assigning a call center consultant to your your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex VoIP call center solutions or a simplied solution; it all depends on your specific needs. Managing communications, and integrating with your customer relationship management software like SalesForce.com is built into AVAD’s Hosted Call Center solution and is now available to businesses of any size at a fraction of the cost from five to 10 years ago.

AVAD Technologies is a leading small business phone service provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP phone plans for small business to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP configuration for business and VoIP business solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

If you would like to learn more about how a Hosted VoIP Call Center can benefit your company, please call (800) 733-4136 or you can complete a short Call Center Quote Request Form.

Check it out for Hosted pbx providers and VoIP service providers in USA

Small Business VoIP Benefits

The nation’s small businesses are always looking for cost-effective ways to manage their operations. Many of these organizations are abandoning traditional office phone systems in favor of Small Business VoIP Telephone Systems.

What is VoIP?

A small business VoIP uses an organization’s existing Broadband Connection to transmit voice the same way that traditional telephone networks transmits voice. The call is routed using a small business VoIP provider network just like traditional telephone calls are routed.

VoIP is often less expensive than traditional telephone systems, especially for long distance calls. A VoIP handset has the same telephone number regardless of location, so users can plug the phone into any high speed internet connection and continue to make or receive phone calls as if they were sitting in their office without notifying the IT department or the Hosted VoIP PBX phone service.

Installation

To the average small business, Business PBX VoIP may seem like an esoteric technology that will be difficult to adopt. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Most small VoIP Installation does not require an on-site visit from the provider.

VoIP equipment is interchangeable and therefore is lies prone to becoming obsolete. Although there is dedicated small business pbx phone system, the system can be used with traditional telephones. The operation of the phone system is the same as a traditional system. Customers, vendors and other incoming callers dial the number just like they did before. They won’t even realize the telephone system is changed. Outgoing calls also operate the same way and your staff won’t need to learn new technology just to make a phone call.

Downside?

There are few limitations to hosted business VoIP solutions over traditional phone systems. The biggest concern is if your internet connection goes down you lose your phone service as well. And the internet connection may have lag that isn’t noticeable in normal web surfing or downloading but makes back-and-forth conversations slow and frustrating.

Call Center Decisions

To overcome the limitation, many businesses business VoIP services provide legacy phone ports so you can still connect a few traditional phone lines to the system. The system will automatically route the calls to the best available one according to the pre-configured rules. So when the internet connection is down, the phone service can still be available.

Business small VoIP services are a great alternative for businesses that cannot afford to have a dedicated in-house IT staff.  With Hosted VoIP business solutions, most of the telecom equipment is located at the VoIP Provider’s office.  The only telecom equipment located at your offices is the VoIP Phone Sets.

Overall, VoIP has far more advantages than disadvantages and some experts predict it is only a matter of time until analog phone systems go the way of the rotary dial.

AVAD Technologies is a leading VoIP service providers in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP call center solutions for small business to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, contact center software for business and VoIP business solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136

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Focus On “Core” Business Not “Chore” Business

Quite simply, AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP small business is a better, smarter way for small and medium sized companies to run their businesses, improve customer service, and level the playing field against larger companies that can afford expensive telecommunications systems.

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Small business owners are stretched to the limit. They can barely keep up with the demands placed on them running their Core Business. Add the non “Core” tasks and most small business owners become overwhelmed. This is why small business owners need to focus their resources and talent on managing the company’s “Core” functions and not spend time on “Chore” functions.

Chore functions include things like managing the computer systems, managing the office cleaning staff or anything that is not related to what the company was created to do. Telecommunications is one of those “Chore” functions that should be outsourced to a company that specializes in this area. Every minute you spend managing Non-Core or Chore functions is a minute spent no focusing on your primary business.

Businesses can’t afford to spend time managing their communications. Managing communications is not their competitive advantage. Companies should outsource this function to a company whose “Core” function is telecommunications. AVAD Technologies is a company that specializes in business telecommunication services.

Businesses need to make sure they never miss an incoming call. A missed call is potentially missed revenue. Providing excellent customer service is a must in today’s competitive business environment. Solid contact center software is a key component of customer service and should be left in the hands of experts.

Should I buy or should I lease a hosted VoIP phone system.

If you can’t predict the future, why would you want to buy a system? If you don’t know how big or small your business will be in 12, 24 or 36 months and if you are unsure as to how changes in your industry will affect the way you do business, why would you purchase any system that could possibly limit your ability to adapt.

Your Phone System Must Be Totally Reliable

Even if there’s a natural disaster like a tornado or power outage you must be able to recreate your system in a very short period of time. Voice over internet protocol services, because it is hosted in the Cloud, will actually not go down, even if your physical office has been destroyed. Your users will have access to the phone system as soon as they can get to an internet connection, even if that connection is in their homes.

Read about: VoIP Disaster Recovery and how a Hosted VoIP Phone System can help your company plan for unforeseen disasters.

AVAD Technologies Hosted small VoIP phone system for small business is what today midmarket customers need is.

1.    Better Customer Service: Customer Calls get routed quickly and efficiently to any employee, anywhere via Intelligent “Front Office” capabilities.
2.   Agile Productivity: Employees are productive on their desk phone or mobile phone – and can bring their productivity with them anywhere.
3.    A Better Experience: HD voice and video are game changers. Integrates into Outlook and Browsers – the tools you already use.
4.    More Reliable: Your business never goes down, and is always current and updated.
5.    Better Economics: Hosted VoIP business solutions allow you to pay only for what you need and use. Grow and Shrink as you need. And no CapEx.

AVAD Technologies is a leading small business VoIP provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete voicemail service for business to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP phone plans for business and VoIP business solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP system please call (800) 733-4136

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Small Businesses Can Have A Call Center

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We Manage the Infrastructure – You Manage the Call Center

AVAD Virtual Call Center simplifies the set up and installation of your call center. The only hardware your need are computers, headsets and a high speed internet connection. We will do the rest of the set up. Installation of your call center can take less than 48 hours.

You have complete control through AVAD’s Call Center Web Interface, you can make all of the changes to your call centers solution for small business including adding agents in any location including home based call center agents.

We monitor and trouble shoots your Call Center 24/7 to insure the highest level of service. With our system there are no upfront hardware or software costs, no additional infrastructure, and no leased phone lines. We provide a complete hosted call center solution, it’s up to you to configure to suit your individual needs. Of course we are always there to assist should you run into any problems.

Because we are a Hosted service, we can respond to any changes in your agent staffing. Our web interface is intuitive and easy-to-use and will let you manage your agents and reconfigure your Hosted call center whenever you need to.

AVAD’s Hosted Call Center Software supports both individual as well as distributed multi-site call centers to act as single business VoIP solutions, regardless of geographic location. AVAD’s Hosted VoIP Call Center supports both individual as well as distributed multi-site call centers to act as a single virtual call center, regardless of geographic location.

AVAD Technologies is a leading small business phone service provider in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete business services VoIP to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP small business and VoIP business solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

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The Call Center Selection Process

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If you are looking for a call center to outsource your processes, you must keep some essential points in mind. Of course there are many call centers out there that can provide you the basic services, but are they all really good? You bet not.

Make sure you take a look before you try to leap. Here are some points that will help you get the right call center for your business:

Do they have the right technology?

The right VoIP for call center should have financial soundness and right technology. They must also have ability, experience and institutional stability before you consider them as possible choices. After you have weeded out call centers based on these fundamental points, you are ready to make selections.

Are they helpful?

A call center is there to provide help to your customers. If it is not helpful to you, chances are that it won’t be of much help to your clients either. Check their management operations to see their level of service. Talk to them to know if they actually understand the nature of your business. Can you contact the call center directly, or do you have to pass through various levels of authorities to get in contact with the right person? Can they adapt to your needs, or do they have rigid policies? Do they respond to your requests half heartedly?

The basic purpose of inbound call center outsourcing is to provide helpful services to your customers. Just keep in mind that if they aren’t too helpful to you, they won’t be half as helpful to your customers. This beats the whole purpose of hiring a call center.

Who is recommending them?

When you talk to any small business phone service provider, they will represent themselves as the best company in the market. So how do you get to know which one is actually the best? To know that, just ask them for some recommendations. From those, select the ones that have businesses similar to yours and ask them what they feel about their call center services. This analysis will clear many things out.

What is their culture?

Visit the call center and take a look at the people working there. Are they smiling and relaxed? Or tensed and rushing? Talk to the human resources people there. Get to understand their culture. If the employees seem happy and helpful, this would be a good sign.

Do you have specifics?

If you have some specific choices, like multilingual support, make sure the Call Center Software you are considering has the desired features. If they do not have enough support, then there is no use hiring them.

Once you put all the companies through these scanning points, you will have a really thin list of VoIP call center companies. There will most probably be just one company that would satisfy all these criteria. Hire them.

AVAD Technologies is a leading voicemail service for business in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP phone plans to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP advantages and hosted call center solution for small business and large enterprise customers.

Check it out also for VoIP service providers in USA and VoIP business solutions

What is Motivating the Businesses VoIP Migration?


Most businesses move to Voice over IP (VoIP) on the belief that VoIP technology will save money over their current phone system. In many instances, this is simply not true.

Traditional phone companies have responded to the VoIP challenge by lowering their rates. With this being the case, what is it that explains why so many companies are moving to VoIP?

If the benefit of moving to a voip internet broadband telephone is limited to just the cost savings, we would not expect to see so many companies adopting VoIP technology.

What is the Real Benefit of VoIP for Businesses

The real benefit companies’ gain from adopting VoIP technology comes from the increase in productivity, improvement in customer satisfaction and flexibility.

Productivity/Customer Satisfaction and Flexibility

Virtual PBX for small business, especially Hosted VoIP enables companies of all sizes in virtually any industry to increase productivity. Because a VoIP Phone Systems allows companies to incorporate workers in any geographical location, companies can expand their hours of operation without incurring overtime.

For example, a company with a technical support department can have support staff on the east coast and the west coast. This allows a company to have expanded hours of operation and not has to pay overtime since employees will be working during normal business hours. This is a productivity gain because a company gets the same level of output without increasing costs. It is also an increase in customer service since the company was able to increase the hours it can provide customer service (8:00 A. M. Est to 8:00 P.M. Pst).

Another obvious productivity/satisfaction gain comes from giving companies the ability to hire workers in any area that has a high speed internet connection. Just because your company headquarters is in a high rent area, like New York, Chicago, Los Angles, does not mean you have to have your entire company at this location.

The JetBlue Example

JetBlue’s 500 reservations agents work out of their homes within a half-hour drive of the JetBlue Reservations Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Reservations Center has 100 seats for training new reservations agents and also houses the IT staff. JetBlue reservations agents connect to the host reservations system over the internet and use voip internet phone service to interact with customers. The IT staff supports reservations agents remotely by business voip phone system. And when the agents have a hardware problem that can’t be resolved over the phone or they need to upgrade the operating system or application, they take their removable hard disks to the Reservations Center to be reimaged or exchanged for new disks.

By using voice over internet protocol services, JetBlue has tapped into a pool or talent that may not have been available had JetBlue required their reservation agents to work out of a central office location? Another benefit to JetBlue from this strategy is the savings in overhead associated with leasing office space. This expense completely goes away because JetBlue adopted VoIP technology.

Conclusion

VoIP, especially VoIP Solutions for small business, offers company opportunities to increase productivity, improve customer satisfaction and save money. The flexibility to hire workers in any location and incorporate them into a company’s phone system is a game changer. Companies are now freed from only having to draw talent from the local area surrounding the home office location and they are no longer to accept the higher rent space of a geographical area, just because it happens to be where there headquarters are located.

AVAD Technologies is a leading Business VoIP Phone Service in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete hosted call center solution to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP advantages and Virtual Call Center software for small business and large enterprise customers.

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Why Are Some Businesses Passing On VoIP?

Voicemail Service for Business

Why is it that some businesses have passed on the opportunity to implement Voice over IP (VoIP) even though VoIP has been proven to be able to deliver significant benefits to the organization?  Many businesses have sited fears of potential unforeseen implementation costs, quality issues or possibly putting their network at increased risk.

Research has shown that many companies, both large and small are uncertain about the benefits to their organization that a voice over internet protocol providers offers. 55 percent of North American and European companies reported that they did not understand the value that a unified communications solution can deliver to their organization.

Many individuals in the position to make or influence the telecommunications decision do not fully understand the benefits a Voice over IP telephone system can have for their organization. These individuals generally understand how VoIP works, the improvement in ROI, and some of the features made available by VoIP. But, unless they truly embrace how VoIP enables Unified Communications and think through all the possibilities a voicemail service for business solutions brings to the organization, they are unlikely to implement VoIP.

“The Vonage Syndrome”

Even though, VoIP companies are fairly new as compared to the traditional telephone companies, many of these newer VoIP companies are not effectively making the case for VoIP to their clients. The biggest mistake these new companies make when discussing the benefits of sip VoIP services is the cost savings over their current telecommunications solution. I call this the “Vonage Syndrome”.

While cost is important, it should not be the primary selling point. In fact, existing telecom companies are still competing with and winning new deals against broadband VoIP phone service provider. It is the IP PBX features and functions that a small VoIP phone system brings that set VoIP apart from traditional PBX systems.

Business VoIP vendors must first educate their customers as to why VoIP makes sense for their business.

When speaking with a perspective client, it is important to stress that VoIP technology has dramatically improved, especially call quality and reliability. More importantly, business telephone companies must stress how VoIP technology can be used to help the customer improve customer service and efficiency.

Forrester (News – Alert) Research has determined that mobility is a top priority for companies, with 64 percent of respondents citing it as a priority and 23 percent calling it a critical priority. In order to continue to increase mobility and extend to companies the functionality they want to be efficient and productive, a move toward business telecommunication services makes sense. If you notice, cost savings was not in the top 2 reasons.

Conclusion: The biggest benefit of VoIP broadband phone service is the functionality a VoIP system offers. These new features offer businesses ways to improve customer service, increase customer satisfaction, aid in

AVAD Technologies is a leading business voice services in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete voip call center solutions to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers business VoIP solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP advantages and Call Center Software for small business and large enterprise customers.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted VoIP solutions please call (800) 733-4136.

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Routers are a Critical VoIP Component

Hosted call centerThe Router is a critical link in any VoIP deployment. Most routers that you get from cable companies or that you can purchase at Best buy for under $100.00 dollars are simply not capable of effectively handling voicemail service for business. A quality VoIP router for a small office costs about $350.00. Routers for larger offices vary based on the number of users at each location and start at $700.00 for 15-users office.

VoIP routers provide the following benefits;

1. QoS – Quality of Service
2. SIP Server Redundancy
3. Traffic Shaping
4. VoIP Proxy

VoIP Terms Defined

1. QoS: stands for Quality of Service: QoS does several things, on a network that shares voice and data, a QoS capable router gives priority to voice traffic. This is important because there will be times when you are on the phone and someone else using your network sends or receives a large file or downloads a video and you do not want this to affect the voice quality of your call. A router that can provide QoS will prevent this from happening.

2. SIP Server Redundancy: A quality voip service providers in usa has servers at more than one location. If one location goes out of service, the secondary or back up location automatically takes over. A true VoIP router will automatically route calls to the backup location if the primary location is out of service. The router you get from your ISP or Best Buy does not have this capability.

3. Traffic Shaping: Allows you to decide how much bandwidth to allocate to voice and how much to data. If you give priority to voice traffic, you could use up all your available bandwidth and your computers will not be able to access the internet. VoIP routers have this built in.

4. VoIP Proxy: Allows phones on your network to register directly with the PSTN. If your cannot do this your call first has to travel to your small business VoIP provider SIP server and then to the PSTN. Any increase in distance that your VoIP packets have to travel increases the chance of lost packets and other forms of network interference.

Most quality voip phone service provider strongly recommends that you install a router designed for VoIP traffic in order to guaranteed Quality of Service. They are hesitant to require it because of the higher costs. If your business depends on your phone, you would be wise to get a VoIP router.

AVAD Technologies is a leading business services voip in USA. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP configuration to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. Avad Technologies offers managed voip solutions, VoIP Services, VoIP advantages and contact center solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

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10 Important Call Center Questions

Hosted VoIP Call Centers also known as Virtual Call Centers have become affordable to small businesses. The technology available today has evolved to the point that for a minimal upfront investment any company can have a Call Center that would have cost millions of dollars a few short years ago.

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A Hosted VoIP Virtual Call Center is a telecommunications platform that allows businesses to effectively route phone calls to available agents. A Hosted Call Center makes it easy for businesses to configure inbound calls to a sales desk, a support hotline or help desk. Hosted contact center software will even allow you to have Call Center Agents in multiple physical locations; these agents can even be home based agents.

A comprehensive sales and customer support system are a critical component for any business. It is not enough to provide a competitively priced quality product. It is absolutely essential that you provide your customers with a first-class service experience when doing business with your company – before, during and after the sale.

If this is your first time evaluating a hosted business VoIP for call center, here are 10 important points to consider.

1 How does the pricing work?

A provider that charges you per-agent or per-seat is charging you even when your agent isn’t on the phone. With a provider that VoIP phone plans per minute used, you’ll only be paying for the service that you actually make use of.

2 What Hosted Call Center Features are available?

Good hosted call center solution should give you fine grained control over every aspect of your call center. This is how your customers are going to experience your Call Center and it is vitally important that you provide a comfortable experience. You should be able to, for example, choose what music customers listen to while on hold, the maximum amount of time they’ll have to wait, and the number of callers in your queue.

3 Does the provider require specialized IP Phone sets?

Home-based employment is becoming increasingly popular. And for good reason: off-site workers are able to participate in their jobs without relocating or commuting. Tap into the possibilities of a workforce unrestricted by location by making sure that your outbound/inbound call center allows agents to answer phones wherever they are, without needing to stay tied down to a specific piece of hardware. Call Center Software should empower agents in your office or across the nation.

4 How are incoming calls routed to agents?

The more information a call center agent has about a caller, the better. Ask the provider what information is available to the call center agent and how is that information provided. Many call center providers integration with CRM applications like Salesforce.com and Sugar CRM. This type of integration is very valuable as it allows your agents to see a history of the interaction with your customers.

5 Does your service offer Call Recording?

There’s no better way to monitor and review your call interactions than to have access to recordings and transcriptions of them. VoIP broadband phone service that makes this option available will allow you to give specific feedback to your agents by seeing exactly how they did and what can be improved.

6 Determine the capabilities of the call center supervisor

In order to manage the agents, the call center supervisors need up to the minute information about all aspects of the call center. This includes information about how the agents are performing as well as how long customers are waiting to speak to an agent. It is import that a call center solution provides effective real time call center reporting.

7 Do you offer the option to set schedules for individual agents?

Your Virtual Call Center is only as good as your scheduling options. By incorporating the schedules of individual call agents, you can ensure that calls are being routed to agents who are available to take the calls. Make your call queuing more efficient–which your customers will love–by using a precise schedule for each agent.

8 Is there a setup fee or long-term contract?

Fees vary widely among call center providers. Hosted small business VoIP solutions are web-based technology that does not require the purchase of hardware or software. Many call center providers require a term contract because of the upfront expense they incur setting up and installing your service. This may be very valuable to you and you should not dismiss a provider because they require a fee or a term contract. It may end up saving you in the end. Rather than look for a no fee, no contract provider, look for a provider that offers some sort of guarantee.

9 Is IVR integration available? Can I transfer callers to another agent, call distributor, or IVR?

Your Virtual Call Center doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Or, at least, it shouldn’t. With Interactive Voice Response technology integration, you can make better use of your Call Center, allowing you transfer callers to another agent, department, post-call survey, or voice mail.

10 Determine the customer support policy

There is no system that is 100% fail proof. Determine what happens in the event of a system crash? Ask the vendor if they have redundant facilities. A sip voip services in USA with redundant facilities is less likely to have a significant outage than a provider that does not have redundant facilities. This will give you a better sense of how prepared the provider is for these situations.

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Tell Us about Your Call Center Needs

AVAD Technologies is a leading managed VoIP solutions in USA and small business pbx phone companies of Hosted VoIP PBX phone service. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete VoIP configuration to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. AvadTechnologies.com offers IP office manager, VoIP Services, voice over internet protocol providers and call centers solution for small business and large enterprise customers.

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BEIJING — In a move that has confused...

Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Industry issued a notice calling they will begin cracking down and ban “illegal VoIP” phone services in China. The announcement, which many believe is designed to protect the interests of State-owned telecom carriers, has, as you can imagine, caused concerns that VoIP companies such as Skype will be forced out of China.

During a recent telecom industry conference, Wen Ku, director of the Industry Ministry’s Technology department said “the ministry is not against Internet-based telephone services, but only those operating illegally in the country”.

He went on to state ” sip voip services is a world trend in the telecom industry, and China is not against VoIP technology,”.

Another Ministry of Industry spokesman, said the “issue is over”, and refused to comment on whether the ministry will adopt any measures to crack down on Skype.  This is possibly a sign that China may not ban small business hosted voip.

China has been vague on what constitutes an illegal VoIP service. The ministry on Dec 10 called for a crackdown “on illegal small business pbx system & services” and said it was collecting evidence against them.

At the conference, Wen would not define what an illegal VoIP Solutions for small business is but noted that the crackdown is mainly to fight online crimes and fraud done through voicemail service for business.

Since 2005, Chinese authorities have permitted only China Telecom and China Netcom, to conduct trial VoIP for businesses in four cities. Experts say that this rule technically means that all voip small business provided by other companies are illegal, said Wang Yuquan, senior consultant with research firm Frost & Sullivan in China.

These pilot programs never happened, and the so-called illegal hosted pbx providers have grown rapidly since that time.

Experts believe that Chinese authorities will be extremely cautious in dealing with the regulations to avoid raising international concerns and do anything that could harm their economy.

China does not want to see another foreign company which providing business VoIP phone system services forced out of China (due to censorship), especially after what happened with Google.

Skype’s partner in China, TOM Group, said earlier this week that the Web-based calling service complies with the Chinese law.

A TOM Group spokeswoman said that “the operation of Skype in China is compliant with local laws and regulations” and “it is business as usual”.

Chinese users currently have no problems accessing Skype.

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Hosted VoIP Versus On Premises VoIP!

By now, you have probably heard all of the hype about how Voice over IP can enhance your business, save you big money and solve the entire world’s problem. You may even have considered jumping in yourself.

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Before you jump in and commit your company’s valuable resources, you need to have a clear understanding of how this technology works and even more importantly, how it can benefit your company.

Assuming you have decided business services VoIP is the right solution for your business, the next decision you will be faced with is; do you want to “Own” your VoIP phone system or do you want to “Rent” your VoIP phone system”?

The term used to describe “Owning” small business VoIP solutions is called “Premesis” VoIP or “Premesis Installation”. The term used to describe “Renting” a VoIP phone system is “Hosted VoIP”.

From a technology perspective, there is no difference in voice quality and reliability between a Premise Based VoIP service and a Hosted VoIP Service assuming these alternatives have comparable hardware, software and internet connections. In other words, an “Apples to Apples” comparison.

Hosted business VoIP versus Premesis VoIP Considerations

Generally, it does not make economic sense to own your business pbx phone below a certain number of phone users in your organization. The cost of purchasing the VoIP hardware and hosted pbx providers must be spread over a minimum number of users before it begins to make economic sense. A good rule of thumb is that you need 100 to 150 phone users before it becomes economically justified. In addition, the cost of implementing a Premise based VoIP solution requires a significant commitment of ongoing resources (Dedicated IT personel) to maintain the system once it is up and running.

Another significant expense that should be taken into consideration is the expense of setting up and maintaining a “Redundant” facility. If your phone system is “Mission Critical”, then you must have a back up in the event your primary facility becomes inoperable. This means you will need to have 2 of everything (2 sets of servers, 2 broadband connections etc) in separate locations in case the primary location becomes inoperable.

The primary non-economic reason for choosing a Premises Based VoIP solution is if your company has specific applications, such as a CRM application, that requires customization and integration with your phone system.  Generally, Hosted VoIP PBX Installation allows less customization than Premise Based VoIP solutions. Custom applications also require an additional commitment of staffing resources.

Business VoIP services and VoIP Allows You to Focus on Your “Core” Business

A Business VoIP Installation frees your company from the burden of managing the infrastructure and security of the locations that house your system. When you are free from managing these non-core activities, you have more time and energy to focus on your primary or “Core” activities.

The monthly cost of operating business pbx solutions is generally higher than the monthly cost to operate a Premesis VoIP system. The primary reason for this is that in a Hosted system, you pay per user per month where as in a Premesis solution after amortization costs of the software you pay only for actual usage. Most analysis’s we have seen favor the economics of a Premesis solution starting in year 5. A big reason for this is that after year 5 the hardware and software have been fully amortized.

Do what you do best and outsource the rest!

Conclusion: Business VoIP Phone Service or Premesis VoIP

If you haven’t noticed, we have not focused this article on money as primary criteria for choosing one solution over the other. The reason is simple, if you are like most companies, your telecommunications solution is a mission critical component of the success or failure of your company. It does not matter what the cost of a solution is, if that solution does not help your organization meet its objectives, the cost of a particular solution or the potential savings of that solution is irrelevant.

Only after you have determined that a particular solution satisfies your needs should cost come into play. Your phone system is central to the long run health of your organization and deserves careful analysis and planning.

With that said, the choice between a Hosted VoIP solution and a Premesis Hosted VoIP Virtual Call Center solutions should be based on the specific circumstances of your company. If your company requires customization and integration with applications such as a CRM, then a Premesis sip voip services is most likely going to be what is needed.

If on the other hand, customization is not needed, then a Hosted VoIP solution is probably going to be the most appropriate solution.

Tell Us About Your Business VoIP Needs

Get started with AVAD today. To learn more about AVAD Technologies Hosted pbx providers please calls (800) 733-4136, or visits us on the web at AvadTechnologies.com

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5 things to consider when choosing your VoIP provider

What is the best way to find a VoIP provider that you can afford? is the question always in our mind, when selecting VoIP provider.

I know as well as anyone this can be a very daunting task. There are a number of VoIP providers to choose from, so the task of deciding should be based on which VoIP Provider offers the most real value for your money.

First: Make accurate price comparisons

As with anything, you should consider price. Monthly VoIP fees for a single user can vary from $24.95 to $59.95 depending on the VoIP provider you are considering and the VoIP Features included. The lower the monthly fee, the less likely you are to get extra features and support from the VoIP business solutions Service Provider. For instance, some of the less expensive VoIP phone plans may not allow you to place calls outside of their network or your minutes may be capped at a certain amount every month. If you exceed your monthly cap, your calls are metered and you will be billed on a per minute basis for calls that exceed your monthly cap. This is certainly something you want to keep in mind as you consider your options.

Second: Determine the VoIP features your business must have

Make a side-by-side list comparing the VoIP Features offered by the business services VoIP providers you are evaluating.  VoIP Features vary widely from Provider to Provider. You should determine what VoIP Features are most important to your company and make sure they are a feature that is offered by the VoIP Provider you choose and is there an additional charge for this feature. Features like voicemail and call waiting are not universal to all VoIP plans, make a list of those features and make sure the VoIP Provider you choose offers those features.

Third: E-911 Service is critically important

Not all VoIP providers offer emergency services or E-911 access. This is a critically important factor in your choice of a business voice services providers and one that can have a significant financial impact to your company if the VoIP Provider does not offer this feature. E-911 is the method VoIP Providers use to notify the police in the event of an emergency. If this service does not work perfectly, and this has happened, the police will not be able to respond to an emergency at your office location. You or an employee of your company could suffer great bodily harm, or even worse, if the police are unable respond to an emergency at your office location. A law suit is almost sure to result from this situation and even though it may have been the fault of your VoIP small business Provider, you can expect your company to be named in that suit.

If you plan to make your VoIP internet broadband telephone the primary phone in your home, then you should try to select one that is offering E911 as a service. That is the technology that is used to determine where you are when you call 911 on your phone. If, on the other hand, you plan to use your cell phone as your primary phone and then the VoIP as a secondary line, E911 capability may not be a big deal to you.

Fourth: Technical Support

Technical support should be a primary consideration when choosing a small voip phone system provider. Some companies will charge you extra for support, while others will not. Most of the companies don’t charge you for basic technical support, but most charge when support requires an on-site visit from a technician. One of the key benefits of small business pbx is that an on-site support visit is rarely required. One of the most important support questions you should ask your VoIP Provider is “What are your hours of support?” Quality voice over internet protocol providers should have live support available 24/7, 365 days a year.

Fifth: Number Portability

Lastly, check into number portability. Most businesses want to keep their current business phone number. The telecommunications Act of 1996 made the transferring of phone numbers a US Law. This law recognized that a business’s phone number is an important asset of that company and made a business’s phone number an asset of the company they can take with them even if the change phone companies. The law requires companies to transfer phones numbers to other providers when a customer makes a request to transfer a number.

AVAD’s Hosted Business VoIP Installation allows your business be more productive and avoid the hassles and expense of buying and managing your own phone system. We allow you to push the operation and expense of your communications service to us, and we bundle together all the services you need on a single bill – including voice service and phones, business VoIP telephone service, local and long distance calling minutes, hosted email, and hosted web services.

To learn more about AVAD Technologies hosted VoIP call center please call (800) 733-4136, or visit us on the web at AvadTechnologies.com

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Small Businesses Are Saving Money with VoIP

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To the average small business, VoIP may seem like an esoteric technology that will be difficult to adopt. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Company telephone equipment doesn’t become obsolete. Although there are dedicated business voip phone system, the system can be used with traditional telephones. The operation of the phone system is the same as a traditional system. Customers, vendors and other incoming callers dial the number just like they did before. They won’t even realize the telephone system is changed. Outgoing calls also operate the same way and your staff won’t need to learn new technology just to make a phone call.

The only thing you need to learn is how to take voip advantages of the new found freedom and flexibility the business small business pbx phone offers. The One Number Follow Me feature that you can specify who and when people could reach you at which phone number; The Voice Mail that sent to your cell phone so you can see it and listen to it at the right time; The Auto Attendant that directs the calls to the right person at different hour of the day; Employees working from home, even at different state, etc…

What Are The Downsides to VoIP?

There are few limitations to Small business pbx system over traditional phone systems. The biggest concern is if your internet connection goes down you lose your phone service as well. And the internet connection may have lag that isn’t noticeable in normal web surfing or downloading but makes back-and-forth conversations slow and frustrating.

To overcome the limitation, many VoIP small business provide legacy phone ports so you can still connect a few traditional phone lines to the system. The small voip phone system will automatically route the calls to the best available one according to the pre-configured rules. So when the internet connection is down, the phone service can still be available.

For businesses that cannot afford to have a dedicated IT personnel to keep their network always at its best shape, many business voice services again provide an alternative by using traditional phone network in house, and only using the Internet/network to provide voice over internet protocol services when it is necessary. – Like connecting voip phone service provider or employees work at home using IP extensions. So even the in house network connection is somehow affected by virus or malfunctioned equipment, the phone system can still function well.

Overall, software voip has far more advantages than disadvantages and some experts predict it is only a matter of time until analog phone systems go the way of the rotary dial.

AVAD Technologies specializes in the small/medium sized business market. Hosted VoIP PBX Installation is all we do. AVAD provides complete voip phone plans solutions, we provide local and toll free phone numbers, the VoIP hardware and software, plus free installation and ongoing support. If you are thinking about switching your business to VoIP or just have some questions, please feel free to call (800) 733-4136.

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VoIP Benefits for small business!

Prior to the introduction of Voice over IP, businesses had few choices and were generally paying too much for business phone service. The only option was the local phone company and voice over internet protocol companies in USA.

If you're a smart businessperson, you're probably always looking for new ways to maximize efficiency and minimize costs. One of the ways you may be thinking about is trying out Internet telephony and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), which lets you use the Internet to make and receive phone calls.

Internet telephony isn't a new technology (it's been around for years in one form or another), but only fairly recently has it become reliable and ubiquitous enough to be a serious choice for business. While Internet telephony was once an oddity often plagued for garbled and dropped calls, these days a well-planned and implemented VoIP Phone Systems can provide call quality and reliability that rivals mobile phone or landline calls.

Along came VoIP and suddenly businesses had another option. However, businesses soon learned this new VoIP technology was not quite as reliable as traditional phone service. That was 5-7 years ago when VoIP was in its infancy.

VoIP technology has matured to the point where the call quality and reliability is comparable to traditional phone service. The real benefit to the small businesses is the PBX Features and voip business solutions that VoIP technology delivers.

Most Hosted Business PBX Phone systems offer a feature rich package of PBX functions that include Auto-Attendants, Hunt Groups, Voice Mail, Call Transfer, etc (see a full list of VoIP PBX Features) without requiring you to purchase expensive telecommunications hardware.

Small business hosted voip makes it easy to incorporate a geographically distributed group of employees; even remote works that work out of a home office can be incorporated into your business phone system. With a Hosted VoIP Phone system the only hardware your business needs are the IP Phones and a VoIP router.

A Hosted Voip telephone systems allows businesses to only pay for the PBX services actually used. Upgrading a Hosted VoIP Phone system is a simple process from a technical perspective and generally does not require additional telecommunications hardware.

Creating a multi-location system is no different than adding a phone to your current office system. VoIP Phone Systems simplify adding additional geographic locations, including home based employees. New office locations can be added in any location that has a high speed internet connection.

AVAD Technologies is a leading Hosted voip small business in USA and small business phone service provider of Hosted VoIP PBX phone service. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete software voip to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. AvadTechnologies.com offers IP office manager, VoIP Services, software Voip and small business phone service provider for small business and large enterprise customers.

How Does a VOIP Business Phone System Work?

You may be wondering what VoIP is and how exactly it works. You may have heard the words business Voip telephone before. Well essentially it’s some sort of software or hardware that lets you make calls over the internet. Because the calls are spending most of their time floating around as a digital signal handled by your business hosted voip, the cost to manage those calls is almost negligible. As a result you save a lot of money on phone calls.

Many people have used a computer and a microphone to record a human voice or other sounds. The process involves sampling the sound that is heard by the computer at a very high rate (at least 8,000 times per second or more) and storing those “samples” in memory or in a file on the computer. Each sample of sound is just a very tiny bit of the person’s voice or other sound recorded by the computer. The computer has the wherewithal to take all of those samples and play them, so that the listener can hear what was recorded.

Business VoIP Phone Service is based on the same idea, but the difference is that the audio samples are not stored locally. Instead, they are sent over the IP network to another computer and played there.

To understand how it works you need to understand a few basic things. You get your internet connection into your home or office through a modem. Then that internet connection is shared to multiple computers or devices through a router. Or you might have a combined modem router.

If you’ve used something like Skype before you’ll know that you can use software on your computer with a bluetooth Voip headset or with your computers microphone and make calls to anyone around the world. Another way that voice over IP can work is through hardware. This hardware is called a voice box, ATA or VoIP phone adapter.

This ‘voice box’ connects to your router just like a computer would; it’s basically just another device on your network. Then you take an ordinary phone and plug it into the voice box and it becomes a managed Voip solutions. Then your VoIP provider talks to your phone through the voice box, allowing you to make and receive calls over the internet with an ordinary phone.

In USA business Voip calling plans tend to involve large discounts for multiple lines and often start with local and national calls. If your business makes a lot of calls then VoIP can save you thousands of dollars over the long term.

AVAD’s Hosted business services Voip allows your business be more productive and avoid the hassles and expense of buying and managing your own phone system. We allow you to push the operation and expense of your communications service to us, and we bundle together all the services you need on a single bill – including voice service and phones, small business pbx phone, local and long distance calling minutes, hosted email, and hosted web services.

AVAD Technologies is a leading Hosted business telecommunication services in USA and small business phone service provider of Hosted VoIP PBX phone service. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides complete ip office manager to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. AvadTechnologies.com offers IP office manager, VoIP Services, software Voip, and hosted business Voip for small business and large enterprise customers.

How to choose a VoIP Provider?

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What is the best way to find a Voip provider that you can afford? Is the question always in our mind, when selecting Voip provider. I know as well as anyone that can be a very daunting task to choose a good Voip provider. There are a number of Voip providers out there to choose from, so I know deciding which one to use can give you a real value for money. Here, though, are 5 things to consider when choosing your Voip service providers in USA.

First of all, as with anything, you should consider price and. Monthly Voip fees can run anywhere from $24.95 to as much as $59.95 depending on which Voip small business provider you are considering. The lower the monthly fee, though, the less likely you are to get any extra features and support from your service provider. For instance, some of the less expensive Voip providers don’t allow you to place calls outside of their network or your minutes are limited to a certain amount every month. If you exceed your monthly cap, your calls are metered and you will be billed. That is certainly something you want to keep in mind as you consider your options.

The second thing you want to think about when selecting a Voip provider is the features you will get. What is important to you in terms of call features? Do you need voicemail? Features like voicemail and call waiting are not universal to Voip calling plans, so you should make sure you know what you want and what is being offered as you go into a relationship with a provider.

Not all Voip providers offer emergency services or E911 access. If you plan to make your business Voip telephone the primary phone in your home, then you should try to select one that is offering E911 as a service. That is the technology that is used to determine where you are when you call 911 on your phone. If, on the other hand, you plan to use your cell phone as your primary phone and then the Voip as a secondary line, E911 capability may not be a big deal to you.

Technical support also should be taken into consideration when you choose a Voip provider. Some companies will charge you extra for support, while others will not. Most of the big companies don’t charge you for basic technical support, but the smaller ones might. Check with your Voip provider to see if they are going to offer you the necessary support for your Voip service. You should also determine what type of support the VoIP Provider offers hosted Voip call center, is it live support 24/7 or is it "self help". Obviously, live support is preferable.

Lastly, check into number portability. When you choose your Voip provider do you want to be able to keep your current landline phone number? Some companies will allow you to move your number and some will not. Depending on how important this is to you will determine whether or not you will factor in that when choosing your Voip provider as well as hosted pbx providers. It warrants mentioning and considering, though.

AVAD's Hosted VoIP small business pbx allows your business be more productive and avoid the hassles and expense of buying and managing your own phone system. We allow you to push the operation and expense of your communications service to us, and we bundle together all the services you need on a single bill - including voice service and phones, broadband service, local and long distance calling minutes, hosted email, and hosted web services.

AVAD Technologies is a leading Hosted business Voip solutions in USA and small business phone service provider of Hosted VoIP PBX phone service. With its cutting edge line of integrated voice/data solutions, AVAD Technologies provides a complete business Voip to cost-conscious, results-driven, value-oriented organizations. AvadTechnologies.com offers IP office manager, VoIP Services, software Voip, and VoIP Solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.

Business VoIP Considerations

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Most businesses move to Voice over IP (VoIP) on the belief that VoIP technology will save money over their current phone system. In many instances, this is simply not true.

Traditional phone companies have responded to the VoIP challenge by lowering their rates. With this being the case, what is it that explains why so many companies are moving to VoIP?

If the benefit of moving to a hosted VoIP for business is limited to just the cost savings, we would not expect to see so many companies adopting VoIP technology.

What is the Real Benefit of Business Voip Solutions

The real benefit company’s gain from adopting VoIP technology comes from the increase in productivity, improvement in customer satisfaction and flexibility.

Productivity/Customer Satisfaction and Flexibility

VoIP, especially Hosted VoIP enables companies of all sizes in virtually any industry to increase productivity. Because a voice over internet protocol services allows companies to incorporate workers in any geographical location, companies can expand their hours of operation without incurring overtime.

For example, a company with a technical support department can have support staff on the east coast and the west coast. This allows a company to have expanded hours of operation and not has to pay overtime since employees will be working during normal business hours. This is a productivity gain because a company gets the same level of output without increasing costs. It is also an increase in customer service since the company was able to increase the hours it can provide customer service (8:00 A. M. Est. to 8:00 P.M. Pst).

Another obvious productivity/satisfaction gain comes from giving companies the ability to hire workers in any area that has a high speed internet connection. Just because your company headquarters is in a high rent area, like New York, Chicago, Los Angles, does not mean you have to have your entire company at this location.

The JetBlue Example

JetBlue’s 500 reservations agents work out of their homes within a half-hour drive of the JetBlue Reservations Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Reservations Center has 100 seats for training new reservations agents and also houses the IT staff. JetBlue reservations agents connect to the host reservations system over the internet and use VoIP Solutions for small business to interact with customers.

By using VoIP technology, JetBlue has tapped into a pool or talent that may not have been available had JetBlue required their reservation agents to work out of a central office location? Another benefit to JetBlue from this strategy is the savings in overhead associated with leasing office space. This expense completely goes away because JetBlue adopted VoIP technology.

Conclusion

VoIP, especially Hosted Business Voip Solutions, offers opportunities to increase productivity, improve customer satisfaction and save money. The flexibility to hire workers in any location and incorporate them into a company’s phone system is a game changer. Companies are now freed from only having to draw talent from the local area surrounding the home office location and they are no longer to accept the higher rent space of a geographical area, just because it happens to be where there headquarters are located.

AvadTechnologies.com offers business telecommunication services, VoIP Services and VoIP Solutions for small business and large enterprise customers.