Phone Line Use & Forwarding
When purchasing a phone system in Seattle, or any city, it is imperative to decide how many extensions or DIDs (Direct Inward Dials) that you like to forward to a specified cell phone number simultaneously or after no answer. If you don’t consider this wisely, you may end up using more phone lines than you previously thought and potentially doubling your monthly service price.
When a phone system forwards a call to a cell phone, or any out-of-network number, it uses two phone lines. One into the system and one to the other device, in this example, staff member’s cell phones. Many people don’t realize this because it is very tempting to believe that once the call has been transferred to the cell phone that it is no longer using your phone system. One day in the future this may become reality but until then, it is simply far too convenient to be true. In order for this to happen every communications carrier would need to work with each other to trade off calls on a network level. For example, when you receive a call from a Comcast customer on your phone system that is setup with Qwest phone lines and you forward that call to your staff members AT&T cell phone, (are you still following?) Comcast and AT&T would need to “re-invite” each other without Qwest being in the middle. I am not saying that this is impossible, it would just take a lot of companies working together and the only benefit would be that their customers would be able to use less phone lines than they currently use. This would lower their profits and would cost millions of dollars to merge to a standard system among all carriers. So, I would not recommend waiting for this to happen. In the meantime, you need to find a system that minimizes these costs.
If you only want to forward to one cell phone, most carriers will allow you to forward to that number after a certain amount of rings for an additional cost. The cost is usually about the price of a standard phone line. Nevertheless, if you are like most businesses, your needs can not be served by only forwarding to one specific cell phone number. You need each extension to forward to a specific staff member’s cell phone blast calls to your entire sales staff on their desk phones and their cells. You may also want multiple staff members connected on cell phones simultaneously. The only way to make this work is to use a 3rd party phone system with your service, a PBX, and let it do the forwarding to the cell phones. Since the phone system can’t distinguish what the lines are being used for, you have no other choice than to supply it with two lines for every one conversation that you would like to be forwarded. For example, with a standard PBX phone system and a traditional carrier, let’s say you want to have the capacity to be on four simultaneous calls. So, you need four lines right? Well what if these calls could not only be taken on the desk phone, they could also be taken on that staff member’s cell phone when their extension or DID is not answered? You would need four additional lines because as I explained above, you need two lines each time this happens. Your monthly bill just doubled. You need a cloud based solution like SoundLine MBX where the system and the service are combined. With SoundLine’s MBX, or Multi-Branch Exchange, you can add extension-specific forwarding to each line for an additional $5.00 a month per line. This is about 1/8 the price of a standard phone line and combined with SoundLine’s eliminated surcharges comes out to be the same price, or less, as a standard analog phone line. So, with SoundLine, you can easily expect your bill to be half of what it would with analog service by just forwarding the calls more logically and not forcing you to pay for full priced lines that are only used for forwarding.
Phone Systems Seattle – Why Vonage’s SimulRing May Not Be a Good Solution For Your Mobile Business
If you are looking for a phone systems in Seattle that can support your mobile team and are considering Vonage, think again. With Vonage’s SimulRing, there is a major flaw. To demonstrate this, imagine this example. Two staff members are in a meeting and one of their cell phones turn off or lose service. A client is tries to call him on his cell phone directly to schedule a last minute appointment and it goes straight to voicemail. So, the client decides to call the main number and the call is immediately picked up again by the out-of-order cell phone’s voicemail. This happens all too often with competing VoIP technologies, including Vonage.
SoundLine Communications MBX service has a solution. Every time you answer a call on your cell that was directed through the main number, our system will tell you who the call is from and prompt you to hit ‘1’ to answer. This way, if you don’t hit ‘1,’ it will continue to ring the other staff member’s cell phones. This also allows you to know when a call is coming through the system versus a call directly to your cell.
Unless you can guarantee all of your phones will be on and in service at all times, SimulRing will not work for your business. Vonage, and other companies, could fix this for their customers but, they have a reason. SimulRing is designed to ring up to 5 single users devices. Most people have an office phone, cell phone, and maybe another office phone so, they can make sure their own devices are on and can take out the phones that are off. Since they are their personal phones, this wouldn’t be an issue. Also, if Vonage supported this feature it would encourage users to create a virtual office, like you would like to, and use all 5 of the numbers available with SimulRing. This would not be advantageous to Vonage, since it would be too costly, so, they cripple it.
High-Definition (HD) Phone Systems in Seattle
What’s the difference?
Just as high-definition (HD) is the latest standard for televisions, it is rapidly becoming the standard for business telecommunications. HD phones transmit twice the audio that a standard phone does and four times as much audio as a cell phone. This results in ultra-clear, lifelike quality that needs to be heard to be understood.
What phone systems in Seattle are HD?
Not all phones support HD audio however, most of the new phones from Aastra, Cisco, Polycom, and Snom do. You want to look for them to list “G.722” under their supported audio codecs which basically means HD. Since not all phone systems being sold in Seattle support this, it is best to always ask your provider. It is also worth noting, that while you may be purchasing HD phones, your phone service does not necessarily support the advanced HD audio and so the phones are forced to operate in standard definition. This would be comparable to buying an HD TV and not watching HD channels. Sort of a waste, right?
What is the benefit of having a HD phone system?
There are many benefits to operating in high-definition. It will be best to make a list:
· It is easier to understand people with accents since HD audio restores 70% of the natural voice that is lost with standard phone systems.
· It saves time by not forcing your staff to repeat technical terms that sound alike since they will understand them the first time.
· A $100 HD phone w/speakerphone on an executives desk sounds better than a $500 non-HD phone making quality speakerphone experiences accessible on any budget.
· It can relieve employee fatigue on conference calls because they are not constantly trying to figure out what people are saying.
· You can save money by recording your menu greetings directly from your HD phone in stunning audio quality to give callers a clear representation of your business.
Where can we get our own HD phone system in Seattle?
SoundLine Communications in Bellevue, WA has been pioneering HD technology since 2008. SoundLine can provide all of the top HD phones and provide your monthly HD service throughout the Greater Seattle Area. The best part about going with SoundLine is that their MBX technology allows you to upgrade only your phones, not your system, and dramatically lower your monthly bills and capital investment. There is no reason to not be communicating in HD!
MBX – Always Updating For Your Convenience
So, you buy a phone system in Seattle from your typical vendor and in three years your needs change. For example, you never needed a queue to hold your incoming calls until your sales staff become available and now potential customers are hanging up when they hit your voice mail. You need a queue and your phone system may or may not have this functionality. If it does, how can you be sure it will function the way you would like it to?
You may think, “I am in luck! I spent extra to get a system with every feature imaginable so, I would be ready for this growth!”
While this may be the case, there are some other factors to consider. New features are created all the time and that is how vendors sell new phone systems. They almost expect you will upgrade every 3-4 years for this exact reason.
The system you bought 4 years ago may have queue capabilities however, since you did not review these features in detail how can you be sure that it will work for your specific application? Was it worth it to pay more for a “future-proof” system that had all the features you thought you would need at the time? What about the time it took you to research these options.
The odds of this working out are slim. The best solution is to get a system that is constantly updated (for free of course). The best way to do this is to go with an MBX, or Multi-Branch Exchange, phone service where it maintained by your carrier, like SoundLine Communications, and not by you.
This way, you get what you need- when you need it. You never need to worry about what features you may need in the future because your are guaranteed SoundLine will have them and can deploy the features to you without any added cost. Oh, and don’t forget that you don’t even need to worry about picking a system. With MBX, you just pay for the service and forget about selecting between different models. It is that easy.
Introduction to MBX Services for Phone Systems Seattle
What is the difference between using an MBX (Multi-Branch Exchange) service versus using an IP-PBX (Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange) system?
The biggest difference of using an MBX (Multi-Branch Exchange) service versus and IP-PBX (Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchange) system is that there is no need purchase and maintain a physical private system at each of your business locations. An MBX service is used to serve and connect many different businesses and this core difference creates a whole slew of benefits including cost savings, superior remote worker support, and a reduced carbon footprint. That’s why MBX comes highly recommended for businesses who are looking for phone systems Seattle!