Voice

October 12, 2015 – What if you were challenged by your CEO to hire a significant number of new employees within the next 6 months?  He would want you to find the right talent that will do the jobs exceptionally well and meet the demands of your growing business. As a senior manager, you know that finding employees with the right stuff will require you to look outside of your current office locations.  Your goal is to find the right people – location is no longer critical.  And, you need to remain close to the new team with fewer layers and more attentive communication. Of course each new employee will have a personal smartphone they can use remotely, but you know that business calls are better conducted on a private line that provides more reliable call quality. You need your team to be efficient and professional as quickly as possible. How will you ensure you have a phone system for the new remote employees that will enable them to be productive right away?  You know your current on-premise phone system may limit the efficiency and capabilities of your off-site staff.

On-Premise Phone Systems May Limit Remote Employees

Generally, the benefits of on-premise phone systems are about reliability, caller identification, and voicemail functionality. Businesses that have onsite systems want to maintain control of their technology, have concerns about data privacy and often have international locations. Modern cloud phones systems, on the other hand, allow employees (including remote workers) to:

• Quickly set up new phone lines
• Take advantage of click-to-dial technology
• Implement detailed call analytics
• Easily link their phone to CRM and ERP applications
• Get live help directly from their phones without engaging IT

If you’re growing, hiring and building a business that leverages remote staff, then an on-premise phone system without cloud functionality might be limiting their productivity.

Is a Cloud Phone System the Solution?

With cloud-based VoIP technology, you no longer have to deal with these challenges. Onboarding a new remote employee is as simple as purchasing a phone, connecting it to the Internet and downloading some software. Gone are the added setup, management, maintenance costs and headaches. Your employees have immediate access to the exact same functionality as your on-site employees. And perhaps best of all, cloud phone providers ensure your phone system is constantly upgraded and protected. All these changes provide your company improved uptime, call reliability and customer experience. In a word, a cloud-based phone system just makes things simpler. If you’re looking for a more effective way to sync remote workers to your company’s network, then you may want to consider moving to the cloud. Your remote employees — and their customers — will thank you for it. If you’d like to examine cloud phone system options for your company, contact us and let’s determine what makes the most sense for your company’s situation.  

Voice

It’s the first day of a new quarter, you’ve just wrapped up a series of planning meetings with your team, and you notice an email from the CEO of your company. He wants to sync up with you on his vision for growth over the next 12 months, a plan that he says will involve the addition of several new management roles. Easy enough, you think. The company’s phone systems are already set up in each of its regional offices, which means adding new employees should be relatively simple. But then the CEO hits you with this caveat: The new managers won’t likely be working in those offices. Because the CEO wants to hire the very best talent for these new roles, he doesn’t want to be restricted to hiring people who only live in (or are willing to move to) cities where the company has offices. This means these new managers may very well be home-based — and the CEO needs you to ensure the business is capable of meeting that requirement.

Is Your Phone Infrastructure Responsive and Flexible?

Unfortunately, most people don’t consider the scenario above (or any number of other possibilities) until their backs are up against the wall. The problem with that, of course, is that most legacy phone systems aren’t capable of delivering the responsive, flexible service that modern businesses require. Just think about these common challenges:

• If your company suddenly went into acquisition mode and added new offices around the country, would your phone system be able to quickly respond to those changes?
• If your company experienced a seasonal spike in call volume and usage, would your phone system scale to that demand?
• If your company went on a hiring spree, could those employees intuitively activate and self-service their phones, or would you need to do all of that work for them?

If those sound like extreme circumstances, consider this true story. One IT manager recently shared with us that to set up a new employee with a phone, he had to send an email with a request to add the new employee. He then had to wait for a response confirming that the employee would be set up. He’d receive an email to confirm the information he’d already provided, then had to submit his changes to the information. Once everything was final, he’d receive the phone for the employee. The whole process took two weeks — all to add just one new employee.

3 Arguments for World-Class Cloud Phone Systems

In today’s fast-paced world, very few businesses can afford that kind of delay. The good news?  That kind of disruption is completely unnecessary thanks to the innovation of world-class cloud phone systems. These systems are responsive and intuitive, and they provide three key areas of agility that IT departments need to support evolving businesses:

1. Ability to quickly add and remove employees no matter where they’re located in the United States. The benefit of cloud systems isn’t just phone service connectivity to remote or home offices. It’s also user experience consistency and company-wide productivity. After all, the easier it is to connect to the system, the happier and more productive you – and every other employee – will be.

2. On-demand training that allows every user to maximize phone system capabilities. The very best cloud phone systems offer training so that every user (new, old, technical and non-technical staff, etc.) can extract maximum value from basic features and third-party applications, such as Salesforce.com integration.

3. Options to turn phone system management over to a trusted third-party provider. While some IT managers or executives prefer to have control over their phone systems, others no longer have time for that task as their responsibilities increase. World-class cloud phone systems give you the option to choose how much or how little you manage, and also offer 24/7 system support.

Ultimately, many people overlook the phone system as a critical business tool, but they wouldn’t be able to conduct business without it. Further, it’s not enough to simply have that tool today — it must also be flexible enough for every employee to have access to what they need, where and when they need it. Of course, providing this capability falls squarely on your lap, which begs an important question: Is your company’s existing phone system prepared to help you deliver it?

While your here check out ShoreTel Connect, the brand new revolutionary phone system release from ShoreTel. 1 Platform, 2 Delivery Choices, 3 Deployment Options (Onsite, Cloud, Hybrid)

Voice

For all of the benefits of cloud phone solutions (and there are many, including scalability, flexibility, and mobility), there’s no avoiding the fact that many people remain somewhat skeptical of the cloud. Typically, those business leaders’ concerns revolve around a handful of key issues: reliability, security, control, and risk. The truth, however, is world-class cloud phone solutions have largely eliminated those concerns, turning them into myth more than reality. Below, we’ll cover each fear and explain why the very best phone solutions give their customers a clear advantage rather than expose them to risk.

Fear #1: Cloud phone solutions are unreliable

The last thing any business needs is its phone system to go down when the sales team is working on a big deal or customers’ are trying to call in with questions. By using an on-premises phone solution, most executives believe they can avoid this problem altogether.  Why reliability isn’t a concern: Today, world-class cloud phone solutions have built-in redundancy and reliability at every level — from the circuit, to the data center, to the phones and the many different carriers. Whether it’s a catastrophic event or simply a downed circuit, the best cloud phone solutions have methods in place to proactively deal with issues before they have a chance to impact your business and are capable of surviving just about anything.

Fear #2: The cloud isn’t secure

When most executives consider switching to a cloud based phone solution, they initially start to picture everything that could go wrong. Outsiders could steal a phone and use it to hack into their network. Someone might listen in on their calls. And the biggest worry of all: Someone may tap into the system to make international calls, which would cost the business dearly. Why security isn’t a concern: Sophisticated cloud phone solutions have firmware built into their phones that have unique digital signatures. These signatures can’t be re-written, which means nobody outside the network can hack the system to place, listen to, or disrupt calls. Additionally, they use SIP to encrypt signaling information. This means hackers can’t get authentication information from the call signaling to make their own calls or disrupt the VoIP service of the call.

Fear #3: Surrendering system control to someone outside the business

If something goes wrong with an in-house phone system, it’s usually the IT manager’s job to rectify the situation. Most IT managers like it that way because they can make changes when and how they choose, and proactively manage issues as they arise. Why control isn’t a concern: While it might seem like a good thing to have total control over your phone system, passing off phone system management to a trusted third-party provider can actually save you — and your business — a significant amount of time. World-class cloud phone solutions give you the option to have total ownership over the phone system or to offload every step of phone system management to someone you trust. This means you can still manage tasks like adding new users, restricting access, or viewing call flow in real-time. If you’d rather not do those things, leading cloud system providers also offer exceptional total management support.

Fear #4: Am I making a bad decision?

This one is rather simple, but it’s a very real concern for many managers and executives. After all, if they make the decision to move their phone solutions to the cloud and it fails, then their reputation (and maybe their job) could be on the line.  Why failure isn’t a concern: Typically, companies approach cloud phone solutions with a misconception that a hosted solution will save them money, so they look for low-cost providers. This mistake is what often leads to failure. While it’s true that world-class cloud phone solutions won’t necessarily save you money, they will increase staff productivity, deliver deeper business intelligence, protect revenue streams, and ensure that you don’t lose your job over the decision to invest in them. So maybe world-class cloud phone solutions do save you money – in ways you didn’t anticipate.

Feeling better about the cloud?

Truth is, all of the concerns above are legitimate — but only if you opt for a budget cloud phone solution without an established track record. Simply put, those low-cost providers aren’t able to deliver the features that businesses require. A world-class cloud phone solution, on the other hand, will provide everything your company needs (security, reliability, and control) and countless other features that make it simple to extract immeasurable long-term value.

Voice

Using email to conduct important business always starts with the best intentions – saving everyone time. Just think back to the last time you used email to solve a significant business issue or answer detailed questions from an important customer. But sometimes email creates a disaster of miscommunication. Tone, intonation, and emotion get lost in translation. Messages and ideas are misunderstood. Nothing really gets accomplished. So, what’s your obvious next step when email isn’t working? A meeting in person, or a quick conference call. Unfortunately, those communication methods can create a whole new problem. In an increasingly mobile business world where teams, employees, and customers are spread out over multiple remote offices, work-from-home setups, or field operations, it can be nearly impossible to get everyone into the same place at the same time.

Tethering to the mothership: The lasting value of a virtual phone system

Web conferencing has helped mitigate the problem above. But the fact that many businesses lack the communication and collaborative tools their team’s need — regardless of where they work — is the bigger issue. For example, even with web conferencing, many remote or work-from-home employees still rely on personal cell phones that aren’t connected to the company’s main phone system. That’s problematic for couple of key reasons:

• With personal landlines and cell phones, it’s significantly more difficult for remote employees to access antiquated company systems for voicemail, call forwarding, and conferencing.
• Without a true company-owned connection between the corporate office and the employee, the relationship between the two feels more like a contract gig than a full-time job — hurting employee engagement and stickiness.

Thankfully, there’s a relatively simple way to solve that problem: Implementing a new company-owned communication system that’s flexible, mobile, and collaborative. The reality is that voice communication is still a far superior — and much more immediate — way for team members to connect with each other. It typically leads to richer, more sincere, and more empathetic communication, which in turn amplifies productivity. Think of these tools like a tether to the corporate mothership. They’re a lifeline that allows everyone to feel connected to their colleagues and customers, but in a way that aligns with the mobility and functionality that today’s remote workers need.

Why many businesses are moving to the cloud

Of course, the image of a desktop phone doesn’t exactly convey a sense of mobility. And it certainly doesn’t solve the problem of being able to connect from any location. That’s where cloud-based phone systems can help. Cloud-based phone systems allow team members to receive company calls, access corporate voicemail, and setup virtual conferences from a basic Internet connection. When employees step out of the office, calls can be forwarded and certain features can be accessed from their cell phone. Traditional phone systems, on the other hand, often hinder remote workers’ communication effectiveness because of their limited mobile capabilities. This often results in lost money, lost productivity, and big headaches. Even worse, businesses often pay more for traditional phone systems in the form of equipment maintenance and outages. Virtual communication systems create an overall communication experience that makes people feel like an effective part of the team, wherever they are. No more emotionless email exchanges. And no more awkward, disjointed conference calls. At the end of the day, that’s good for your team, your company, and, most importantly, your customers.

Voice

When the London Business School hosted its annual Global Leadership Summit in June 2014, the school surveyed attendees about a variety of modern business issues and challenges. While the results of that survey covered a variety of topics, one of the really interesting findings was that respondents believed that half of their employees would be working remotely by 2020. Think about that for a second. In just six years, 50% of your organization may be working from somewhere other than your business’ corporate or regional office. That figure may sound like a stretch, but a recent New York Times article revealed that telecommuting grew by 79% between 2005 and 2012 — and that number is expected to rise even more over the next decade. So, what does this mean for the future of business? For starters, it means that organizations must find ways to empower their employees to work effectively and efficiently from any location. Thankfully, cloud-based technology is making that a reality — allowing employees to access virtually any file, application, network, or communication service from any place with a secure Internet connection.

The challenges of modern communication with traditional equipment

Modern phone systems are critical to making sure remote communication operates functionally and effectively – be it an employee working from home and feeling connected to headquarters, or communication across multiple office locations. Imagine for a moment that you operate a healthcare system with teams of physicians who operate out of multiple offices and hospitals. In order to effectively manage patient care and billing, those physicians and their staff must be able to easily communicate with each other (and their “main” office), regardless of where they are or what equipment (landline, cell phone, etc.) they’re using. With traditional on-site phone systems, creating that kind of network connectivity and flexibility would be incredibly challenging. And even if you managed to make it work, it’s very likely that you would still deal with a handful of other issues.

• Quality of service: While it might seem like on-premise phone systems would be more reliable, the issue is with the quality of the equipment and network across all remote offices. If the “pipe” from one remote office to the corporate headquarters isn’t big enough, it can lead to significant call and system quality issues.

• Cost of service: Over the life of your phone system, on-site solutions cost just as much (if not more, when you factor in long-term maintenance costs) as cloud-based managed phone solutions. As a result, you often end up paying the same amount to set up a less flexible, less feature-rich network. Meanwhile, your competitor will be paying less to flip a switch and tap into a VoIP solution with much greater functionality and system integration.

• Scalability and flexibility of service: Every time you open or expand an office, onsite phone systems require significant investments in additional hardware and installation services. And if staffing levels change, traditional phone systems often aren’t flexible enough to adapt on the fly.

Traditional communication systems deliver fewer features and less flexibility, but can cost you more when you factor in the equipment needed for each remote office, and the support costs of setting up and managing each of those private networks. Regardless of the vertical your business operates in, that math doesn’t makes much sense.

Cleaning up the way modern businesses communicate

From a data and communications infrastructure perspective, there’s little doubt that cloud-based phone systems can improve the speed and capability of your company’s remote offices. There is much less effort required, and, ultimately, much greater functionality available to your staff. And while all of that will no doubt lead to greater organizational efficiency and effectiveness (not to mention fewer technical headaches), it’s important not to forget that 50% of your workforce could be remote in six years. To prepare for that possibility, your company’s systems, processes, and applications must be incredibly scalable, flexible, and reliable. If those aren’t words you’d use to describe your existing phone and communications systems, then it might be time to consider making a change.