BUSINESS PHONE NEWS

Price Alert: No More Free Smartphone Upgrades From the Big 3; Is it Time for Wi-Fi First of Wi-Fi Only Cell Phones?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

Verizon Wireless recently reported that they were following the lead of both AT&T and Sprint by charging their customers an extra fee to upgrade their mobile phones where in the past many mobile customers got a "free phone upgrade" every two years or so.

Following is the widely distributed Verizon statement: 

“On April 22, Verizon Wireless is implementing a $30 upgrade fee for existing customers purchasing new mobile equipment at a discounted price with a two-year contract.  This fee will help us continue to provide customers with the level of service and support they have come to expect which includes Wireless Workshops, online educational tools, and consultations with experts who provide advice and guidance on devices that are more sophisticated than ever.  While the upgrade fee is not unique to Verizon Wireless, most devices can be traded in with our green friendly trade-in program at www.verizonwireless.com/tradein as a way to save money or potentially offset the fee completely.”

It's reported that Sprint and AT&T both are charging a similar $36 fee.

 

Time for "Wi-Fi First" or "Wi-Fi Only" Employee Cell Phones?

Now I'm no revolutionary. I understand that the CEO, the Chairman of the Board and your top salespeople (and your spouse) can have any damned expensive phone and usage plan they want and, as the company owner, you're (mostly) happy to pay for it.  

But what about all those other W-2 folks hanging around your office who claim they need "smartphone mobility" to remain a critical business asset of yours?  Do they all need an exensive monthly cellular data plan and the newest phones when they spend 90% of their waking hours inside a Wi-Fi network?

Probably not. (Time to get out the savings calculator and sharpen your pencils!)

 

What's a "Wi-Fi First" or "Wi-Fi Only" Cell Phone and Where Can You Get Them?

Well just as the name would imply, "Wi-Fi first" cell phones or smart phones use "free" Wi-Fi connectivity first over "expensive" 3G/4G cellular connectivity when trying to make a phone call or data app connection. "Wi-Fi only" phones only work for cell calls or data connections when connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Where do you get them? Let's just say that phone equipment makers are not exactly falling all over themselves to bring them to market. T-Mobile actually had a solution like this called HotSpot@Home that made smartphone calls over Wi-Fi but they discontinued the service back in 2010.

Gadget Review: "Call Mynah" Easily Records Cell Phone Calls via Bluetooth, No Expensive Phone Apps Needed!

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

If recording business phone calls is not a normal part of your day then the whole thought of recording your cell phone calls probably creeps you out. If that's the case for you just stop reading now.

If, on the other hand, recording your phone calls is actually an important part of your job description (maybe you're a journalist, lawyer, stock broker, court reporter, secret agent, etc.) then you'll be overjoyed to learn about "Call Mynah".

 

Skip the Wires, Extra Numbers or the High Cost Phone Apps

The Call Mynah device overcomes the problems inherent to other cell and smartphone call recording techniques that require a complicated advanced setup, extra cell phone numbers, expensive per minute third party phone apps or connecting extra wires that degrade audio quality. For more information about these other methods check out these links: RecordiaPro, online phone call recording app store or RadioShack.

Because Call Mynah is a Bluetooth cell phone call recorder, users maintain maximum control over the call recordings they make. Once the user records a cell phone call, the recording of the phone call only resides on the Call Mynah device until the user transfers the recording to another device using a USB connection.

Until the user chooses, the recorded phone call is never stored on the Internet or on a third-party vendor's phone call recording server where call recording "distribution accidents" can happen.

Check out the video below to see Call Mynah in action:

 

Other Office Options to Consider and How to Choose...

The Call Mynah device is produced by Intelligent Recording Limited (Philip Hill, CEO) and distributed out of the U.K. and California.  Check out their website for a long list of every conceivable type of office phone recording solution for single phones and home offices all the way up to VoIP phone servers and IP call centers.

What's right for your business call recording solutions? Give us a call.

Call recording is one of the most popular options that businesses are after when switching from their old phone system to a modern VoIP business phone system. But if all you're really after is call recording, dumping your old phone system for a new VoIP phone system might be your most expensive option.

Let us spend a bit of quality time sharing with you what all your call recording options look like and which ones our other customers have tried to failure or success! 

Gadget Review: Plantronics' CT14 Headset Phone Connects Your Home Based Call Center Employees For Less

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

One of the big cost-saving benefits for businesses when switching their phone system to a VoIP based solution is they can instantly allow their "desk based" call center employees to work from a home office.

This saves the company the overhead of maintaining an expensive office cubicle and opens up the potential labor pool to a whole lot of qualified U.S. based call center employees who are glad to "do a quality job for less" so long as they can work from a home office.  

This single benefit is one of the biggest reasons many businesses are bringing off-shore call center jobs back to the U.S. that had, in past years, been outsourced to India, the Philippines or some other far away land where they "kind of speak English" but not completely -- and not to the satisfaction of your upset customers calling into your call center.

 

Do Home-Based Call Center Employees Need an Expensive VoIP Phone? No!

The big purchase decision question for businesses trying to properly outfit home office employees so they can tap into the new VoIP enabled office phone system is "How expensive of a phone do home workers need?"

Well if the home-office employee is the CEO of the company, then the most expensive phone that Polycom sells. But what about your call center employees that don't have stock options?

Many VoIP and SIP phone vendors will tell you that you don't need to buy your home-office workers a phone at all, saying "the beauty of our VoIP phone solution is all your home office people need is our 'soft phone' that appears right on the screen of their computer".

Well, in theory, soft phones work just fine -- until the soft phone user has opened up 27 browser windows on their computer or you get confused about using the keyboard and mouse for both their phone call and order fulfillment on their computer at the same time. 

Combining your computer and phone keyboards or trying to get your computer to be a phone is really a recipe for inefficiancy and "angry at the IT guy" home office employees.

 

Split the Different for WAY UNDER $200!

The most important phone feature for your at-home worker is the ability to work hands free. Whether your home-based employee is a call center worker keying an order into their computer or your highest paid sales person just needing to wave his or her hands while giving an empassioned sales pitch, you'll likely not find a "work at home phone" that better splits the cost difference than the Plantronics CT14.

Eliminate Business Phone System Wiring Nightmares with New, Static-Free DECT 6.0 Wireless Technology

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

If your business empire includes locations that can operate with four total voice phone lines or less (this describes almost every small, customer-facing retail business on the planet) then there are new wireless business phone systems available that you should look at if you're in the market for a new phone system.

The best thing about these new business wireless phone systems is they operate just like regular phone systems with incoming phone lines in hunt or roll-over, have intercom, auto-attendant and voicemail but largely need almost no wiring.  Because labor to install phone wiring can be very expensive, wireless business phone systems can save business owners a great deal of money.

 

Removing Voice From Your Data Network Solves Expensive Problems

A decade ago every business had two separate wired communications networks in their office that they had to pay to maintain; a phone wire network for voice communications and a data wire network for computer communications. Then someone (I can't remember who exactly) had the great idea of eliminating the cost of the phone wire network by connecting their office phone system over the data network.

That was a good idea in theory but it really didn't save small businesses much money and actually created expensive problems. The biggest problem created was poor voice phone call quality for small businesses that could not afford QoS ("quality of service") upgrades to their data networks to ensure that phone calls always got priority of data transmissions.

 

New DECT "Static Free" Wireless Technology Reinvents Cordless Business Phones

Most everyone that still has a landline in their home accesses that landline dial-tone with a cordless phone and understands the shortcomings that older cordless phone technology can bring to a phone call. Static, disconnects, interference with WiFi devices and "dead-zones" are just a few of the problems associated with the older 2.4 gHz, 900mHz and 5.8gHz.

Business phone system manufacturers seem to have selected DECT over other wireless spectrum technologies as evidenced by the AT&T SynJ^® line built for small businesses and PolyCom's KIRK Wireless Solutions build for any sized business.

The DECT technology wins over older technologies due to increased range, call clarity and extended range when using DECT repeaters.

 

How Will Your Business Incorporate DECT Wireless Phones?

The technology is built to be a modularized solution that augments your existing PBX phone system or it can entirely replace it.  If you have an existing business phone system that you'd like to get a couple more years out of contact your equipment provider to see what cordless phone option they have to offer.

New FCC Smartphone Database Cuts Thefts in Six Months But We help You Today

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

 The FCC is announcing that they have decided to partner with the likes of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, t-mobile and other wireless carriers to create a national database to help thwart the theft of smartphones by making them all but unsellable after a theft.

Uh ... that's good, right?  

Sure it is when the newest smartphones cost upwards of $500 or more. 

But the real cost of smartphone loss is the loss of the data ... and the person stealing your phone may be only after the data ... and the new FCC smartphone database won't do anything to prevent a thief from stealing your phone if all they want is to steal your data.

 

Don't Wait for the Feds!  Here's How to Secure Your Phone Right Now...

1. Put a password on your phone.

Sure it's a hassle to type in the name of your Aunt's dog into your phone several times a day.  But how much more trouble would it be for your friends, relatives, enemies, competitors or the government to be able to access everything on your phone from the moment they "find" it until the moment you realize it's gone?

2. Make sure whatever's on your phone is already in the cloud.

Remember this Google+ commercial from awhile back about the dad who lost all his baby pictures because he lost his cell phone? Your phone (and your desktop computer for that matter) is not meant to be a secure storage device. It's meant to be a simple endpoint to collect data and then get it instantly to a safer place.

3. Use software that "finds your phone or fries your phone"

For as little as three bucks or as much as twenty bucks you can access any number of smartphone applications that can do as little as find a lost phone in vibrate mode, turn a phone into a coldwar-type spy device and/or turn your phone into a useless plastic brick.  GadgetTrak, SeekDroid and Webroot are just three of multiple companies that specialize in giving you control over lost phones.

Is Your AT&T Phone Bill Paying for $107,000 Per Year Call Center Reps?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

When it comes to how business customers feel about having AT&T as their phone company -- it seems that they fall into one of two categories.

They either love AT&T or they hate AT&T.

In the news this past week I learned another reason it might be the "hate" category.  It seems that AT&T phone customers are supporting call center representatives that earn a total "wages and benefits" compensation package of over $107,000.

Network technicians, the folks who show up and install services on site at your business earn a compensation package eclipsing $133,000.

Wow! That's a lot of money. I've got friends with college degrees and every Microsoft and Cisco certification you can name who are unemployed and who would be happy to get a job earning half that.

 

Over Paying AT&T or Verizon for Phone, Internet and Data Service?

Now I'm not saying that people shouldn't get paid what they're worth but hey, business customers have choices.

When I fly, I fly economy, even though I know I could pay double (or more) to fly up front in the first class section. But after a five-hour flight coast-to-coast, the good folks flying in first class only get off the plane about four minutes before I do.