Virtual Offices from EarthLink Business – Never Lose Touch with your Customers

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Scott Yelton

A virtual office is a defined as combination of off-site live communication and address services that allow users to reduce traditional office costs while maintaining business professionalism. Rather than renting costly office space, and furnishing and staffing a physical office, there are options to maintain a business presence that do not require a physical office especially for geographically dispersed employees that are not required to physically interact with other employees or customers on a daily basis. A new survey by the Intelligent office, a provider of “virtual office space” to mobile workers and small businesses, points to one way that companies can improve engagement: “Give employees the freedom to work where they want”. So the question becomes how to make this possible without losing the ability to communicate effectively and maintain a professional business entry point for clients who are trying to interact with you. A professional web site with multi-channel communications methods like email, chat is certainly one method but most clients also value being able to talk to a live person. Here are a few of the methods your organization can use to make that possible in a scalable manner without losing that personal interaction.

Remote Receptionist or Auto Attendant – A team of workers working remotely can use a cloud based auto attendant to front end calls and direct them to the right individual or a group of individuals. It can also be set up with different rule sets based on time zones, holidays, weekends or after hours to shift the calls to different employees based on availability or work hours.
Soft Client or Remote Worker voice services – Offered by many VoIP providers, including EarthLink Business, this service allows employees to receive calls and interact as part of network based phone system in the same manner they do in an office environment. Some carriers offer both soft client and IP Phone based options for these employees.
Virtual Fax and voicemail – Also available as part of the communication suite is the ability to establish cloud based voicemail and fax machine that takes messages and faxes from clients and makes them available via a portal or as a file transmitted to email which allows you to stay green and virtual.
Cloud based Call Center – Many people think of call centers as sweat shops crowded with cubicle based employees busily taking inbound calls all hours of the day and night. In today’s network based environments several companies offer the ability to move that functionality to the cloud and distribute calls to workers based out of their home or remote locations.

As businesses look to trim expenses, virtual office services help reduce overhead while keeping professionalism high. As businesses trend to a more “online” workplace, the notion of paying for space will become more of a scarcity reserved for retailers, doctor’s offices and other merchandise or service related businesses that require a physical premise. EarthLink Business is one of the companies who can help your organization determine the most efficient, cost effective means to help get you achieve a successful transition. Our Hosted Voice offering in particular offers many of these communications tools to help your employees “move out”.

Things to Consider when Switching to Hosted VoIP

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Scott Yelton

Many businesses these days are evaluating the switch from their traditional telephony environment to VoIP (or “Voice-over I.P.”). There are many compelling reasons to do so that are too numerous to cover in this article but a recent independent research study by Metaswitch lists them as:

More features—and better features that enhance productivity
Easier system management—service and features can be self-provisioned, whereas with legacy telephony these options are limited as well as more difficult to deploy
Customer service—VoIP operators understand how their new service can be utilized, and support it accordingly
Business grade—VoIP quality and reliability is now on par with legacy telephony

So with all the great benefits it is easy to see why so many customers are flocking in that direction. However, it is important to understand how your business will need to adapt to this new environment and what it takes to get there. Here are the top 5 things to consider:

1. Incoming Call Management – In most legacy systems, calls come into a main phone number and light up the keys on every phone in an office, then hunt down a group of lines until all lines are full. With a hosted VoIP solution the options are virtually unlimited…which is good…but can be challenging when it comes to making decisions on how to most efficiently handle calls. Each phone is assigned its own unique telephone number or “DID.” The main phone number can be routed to a network-based auto attendant, an individual user, or a group of users in what is referred to as a MADN group. There are also often call routing options that allow you to reroute calls to mobile phones, answering services, or multiple locations. Before you make a change, evaluate which options providers offer and make sure they meet the needs of your business.

2. Wiring – Most legacy phone systems used based copper wiring to deliver the phone signal to the phone set from the wiring closet. With hosted voice you will most likely need Ethernet cabling to the user desktop or the area where the phone is located, such as a lobby or break room, where Ethernet has not previously been required. Most VoIP providers will advise you to contract a third party wiring vendor to get this completed prior to the cut over of your services but some providers also provide structured cabling options as part of their service like EarthLink Business.

3. System Management – When moving to a hosted solution, end users and business administrators have much more power and control than they ever had with legacy systems. This is a wonderful thing when users learn the features and are empowered to make changes from web based controls “on the fly”. However, these admins need to learn the ropes of the new system (including what they are expected to control and what the provider has to control on their end). Some VoIP providers offer the option of either self-managed or carrier managed business group administration services, which is a big benefit if you are a small business with no office administrator.

4. Quality of Service – Saving money is a key driver when considering a switch, but don’t forgo the quality and reliability of your telephony services just for a lower price point. For example, there are plenty of options to get VoIP over the public internet, and user experiences can be good with this option. However, if you experience quality issues with these voice calls, there is not much recourse for determining where the problem is and how to resolve it. By using this method of delivery you are also voiding any service level agreements offered by the provider on quality of calls. Many carriers offer options for secured, private network connectivity that also provides for quality of service guarantees. EarthLink Business provides multiple SLAs (Service Level Agreements) based on the types of services provided

5. Consultative Design – With all the options and things to consider when making a transition, it is important to have a subject matter expert (or better yet a team of experts) who can review your current environment, understand your future requirements and make recommendations on how you should design the VoIP services. Most VoIP providers consider this a commoditized product and do not adequately address this area. At EarthLink Business we provide a dedicated account team with subject matter experts on everything from VoIP to data networks to IT services that can address your complete environment when making a recommendation. To find out more contact EarthLink Business!

Unified Voicemail & Faxing – Make answering & Fax Machines Green with Envy

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Scott Yelton

Comparing today’s unified messaging solutions to a bulky fax machine or a traditional voicemail system seems like an unfair fight. Even the new hardware in the market place with IP functionality doesn’t have much promise when paired against cloud-based services. Voice and fax communications have clearly moved to the next level, and the market is coming right along with it.

For starters, businesses that have hardware to support these functions typically have maintenance and functionality issues on a fairly regular basis. Who hasn’t stood by a fax machine waiting for an important document to be received only to be faced with a paper jam or send/receive error message? When it comes to voicemail and faxes, the name of the game is knowing when you have messages and having access to them when (and where) you need them. The solution: unified voicemail and faxing that use the cloud.

Unified voicemail/fax utilities deliver messages to network-based servers and distribute them to end users multiple ways, including smartphones, tablets or PCs as an email attachment or via a secure web-based portal. Users no longer have be confined to their office to know they have voicemail; messages can be delivered to their email account as well as their faxes, and faxes can be delivered via a private number and stored in a secure online environment for later reference (which also eliminates the need to print every fax…going green was never so easy!).

Lastly, mobile integration is a big draw for anyone who carries a mobile phone and has a desk phone. With some providers it is possible to integrate the mobile line with their office phone number to create a single message store for all their voicemail messages (see illustration). This allows simplicity of use by only having one place to receive and manage messages. So the buying decision for these service involves determining which solutions works best for your environment. The easiest way to test the waters is through the use of a service provider that uses a web based or client based application to begin with unless you have specific requirements for a CPE deployment. While there are many carriers that can supply network-based voicemail and fax, you need to find one that can provide as an integrated part of your telephony environment so everything works seamlessly. That’s where EarthLink Business comes in; we provide a Hosted Voice solution and the consultation and expertise to recommend the best mix for your business. Want to learn more? Click HERE!

Unified Communication Decisions – Hosted vs. Premised Based Solutions

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Scott Yelton

For IT managers staying in tune and preferably staying ahead of the business needs is required when preparing for the communication needs of the business. Fundamental decisions on the platform and infrastructure are the foundation level for solutions that will reside either on premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment that set the table for growth potential and interoperability. The good news is there are some definitive factors that will help guide you to the right platform before you get too far down the evaluation path. Let’s start with the basics such as services and functionality that is fundamentally better served by premised based environments. For businesses that require complex paging and intercom functionality such as distributed customer service oriented environments are better served by a premise based system. Don’t get me wrong, hosted environments offer some degree of functionality for these functions but it is limited. As you move up the unified communication scale services such as outlook integration and interoperability with mobile networks and devices can be served by either hosted or premise based solutions.

In the case of premise based systems the NEC UC platform offers some particularly fluid interoperability between client based software applications, hardware and the network. That said, hosted environments have come a long way in this regard and are at par, if not above par, with the premise based solutions and do not require the same level of integration with local systems, PC’s and mobile devices as most of the hosted applications are web based and most of the integration is managed in the “cloud”. This also offers a higher level of redundancy and accessibility for the applications. For example, accessing many of the UC applications on a premise based system means connecting back to the corporate network via a VPN client and sharing the same bandwidth as everyone else in the corp. network whereas the hosted solutions offer easier access to distributed networks over the public internet. When all is said and done you can get the same web based control for call control and mobility from a system based approach but it will require more effort to get there utilizing your own network.

For the IT manager faced with integration with CRM or IVR tools like sales force.com, MS Dynamics or a custom CRM premise based solutions have a leg up on the hosted environments. For starters most major IP PBX manufacturers have already gone down the path of integration with the API’s for most of the major CRM environments and built standard API code for the custom integration. If the system is already built into your LAN then response time for screen POP’s and contact screens will inevitably be faster with a premise based IP PBX. Also the PC based applications will have more snap and zing in the local LAN environment than a hosted solution. One note, there are hosted companies making traction on CRM integration so depending on which CRM/IVR platform you are utilizing there may be options for utilizing either a hosted or premise based solution. Just do your homework ahead of time to determine compatibility. ACD (Automated Call Distribution) is also a big factor and should be evaluated in conjunction with your platform decision. As a rule of thumb premise based systems offer the most robust feature sets and integration for ACD platforms but network based service providers have made great strides in this regard and should not be ruled out. Click HERE to learn more about the contact center functionality available with EarthLink’s solution. Finally, presence management and messaging are services that can be supported best by a premise based software solution if you have users on many different operating environments, clients and mobile networks. One important note on this last point is that the software can be tied to either a network based platform or premised based. So with all the pros and cons of each solution how do you make the final decision. From this authors standpoint it comes down to determining which areas are most critical to the business and making your selection based on the vendor or platform that matches most closely with your current and future needs. EarthLink Business is unique in that it offers both solutions: a network-based hosted environment and a premise-based environment. Make your decision wisely with all these things in mind.