MANAGED SERVICES

November 2006 
Communications News

Service provides virtual phones for SMBs

Alternative to costly hardware solutions provides numerous functions for offsite employees.

by Siamak Taghaddos

Today, many small businesses are increasingly mobile and virtual, with co-workers sometimes going days or weeks without seeing one another. While the lack of a physical storefront means lower overhead for small companies, the tradeoff is that employees can be harder to reach when they cannot be found at a single address or one main telephone number.

Consignworks–a four-person Massachusetts company that handles estate sales and antiques, operates several online marketplaces, and acts as a broker between antique buyers and sellers–is one of those companies that needed its staff to be reachable at all times.

“We have a sales nexus west of Boston in Wellesley, warehouse and sales offices in different locales in the central part of the state, and an antiques mall,” says Tana Scouras, president, Consignworks. “So at any given moment, we really could be anywhere–with clients, buyers or sellers. In short, if folks need to reach us, we’re not in our office. We needed a phone system that could reach us anytime, anywhere.”

This is a common problem faced by today’s increasingly mobile small and midsize businesses, where relatively few employees perform a multitude of tasks in a variety of locations. Even real estate professionals, who have long relied on cell phones to remain in touch with clients while showing properties, are looking for ways to streamline communications with customers and prospects without having to publish their personal cell or home phone numbers.

Staying in touch while projecting a professional telephone image is also crucial when competing with larger companies. One option for small businesses that cannot afford in-house private branch exchange (PBX) systems is virtual phone services that offer such functionality as customizable main greeting auto-attendants, multiple extensions, dial-by-name directories and “follow me” call-forwarding capability.

Scouras brought a telecommunications background to Consignworks, and prior to coming on board as president in 2006, she had consulted with the company to establish its e-commerce infrastructure. In doing so, she sought out a reliable and cost-effective communications solution.
She chose a hosted phone service from GotVMail that is customizable for one or 20 employees, works with any phone–including office phones, cell phones, home office phones, even voice-over-IP phones and PDAs–from anywhere, yet requires no additional equipment or software.

“With a virtual phone service, everything feeds into one system,” Scouras says. “So we have our local numbers in Wellesley, local numbers in Webster, Mass., and an 800 number for our nationwide clients. And all the calls go through one system. Because we don’t need all those land lines, we actually save quite a bit of money.”

The GotVMail service is “pay as you go,” with a base monthly plan price plus usage, much like a cell phone. “So, if we’ve got 500 or 1,000 minutes a month of usage, it’s charged accordingly,” Scouras says.

Unlike a traditional PBX, there is no expensive hardware to purchase or maintain.

“It would be a waste if we had an onsite phone system for three or four people,” Scouras says. “It really wouldn’t do any good to have your handset light up to tell you there’s a call if you’re not in the office to get it. Since we’re pretty much on the road using Wi-Fi and cell phones, we actually program our virtual phone service depending on our schedules, so someone is always reachable. It can find us at whatever number we’re at and wherever we are at.”

According to Scouras, the GotVMail service also converts voice messages to MP3 files and delivers them by e-mail. “Some types of messages we like to save for confirmation of a trade or a buy,” she adds. “We just save them to our server in case we ever need them.”

A benefit for any growing business is that you can keep the same phone number as your company grows and moves. “We’re actually looking at getting a warehouse somewhere in metro Boston, and we won’t have to change our phone numbers,” Scouras says. “That’s huge for us. And we can even add another number. If we expand to Boston, we can pick up a local number and feed it into the virtual system. There won’t be any issues for us in terms of changing phone numbers.”
A virtual phone system can make four employees seem like 40 if you direct incoming calls to various departments–customer service, sales accounting, for example. Additionally, “listen-only” extensions allow a small business to provide information about the company and its products and services, such as store locations, office hours and daily specials.

“One of the things we especially like is the reports,” Scouras says. “I can take a look at the call history reports and always dial a number back if we want. Also, we can see who’s calling us and from what area.”

Siamak Taghaddos is co-founder, president and CEO of GotVMail Communications, Weston, Mass.

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