BUSINESS PHONE NEWS

How Do You Know Which of Your Employees Can Talk to Your Most Important Prospect Right Now?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

 Remember the old days when every credible business had a receptionist that had a huge receptionist phone covered with "busy lamp fields" (BLF) that showed which employees were on or off the phone?

She was indeed the "gatekeeper" because she always knew from looking at her BLF who within the local office could or could not take a call.

Moreover, even if someone (like her boss) could take a call, she know which calls to put through and which calls to put into "the trash" (a voicemail box where all messages were deleted without being listened to).

Well for good or bad, few businesses have receptionists anymore. But without a receptionist, how do people within a company know which other people in a company can take an important customer prospect call?

 

Say Goodby to "Receptionists" and Say Hello to "Presence"

What's "presence"?  Wikipedia defines presence as "a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner to communicate". Think "red light, yellow light, green light." 

As companies try to be more productive with fewer employees, it becomes critical to enable the sort of instant collaboration that minimizes voicemail and email "tag".

Always knowing "who can help" solve a problem "right now" and then taking advantage of that via instant collaboration via instant message or a phone call that doesn't go to voicemail is exactly how small nimble competitors often beat our their larger, slower competitors.

 

Buy Presence First - It's the Foundation for all of Your Unified Communications

At a unified communications conference I recently attended it was remarked that "every vendor wants to sell you presence" because once a vendor owned your presence system they basically became your key vendor and all other communication vendor solutions were subservient.

So if a receptionist with her "busy lamp field" phone represented "Presence 1.0" and digital business phone systems where everyone had a "do not disturb" button on their official desk phone represented "Presence 2.0", what solution represents "Presence 3.0" where every company employee knows the presence of every other company employee no matter how close or far away they are from their official "desk phone" - and which vendor should you buy your Presence 3.0 system from?

Who indeed. That's the current $64,000 question for business owners trying to stay one step ahead of their nearest competitor.

Computer Vendor, Phone Vendor, Cloud Vendor or Other? Who does presence best?

If Your Employees Have a SmartPhone and a Tablet Computer Do They Need a Phone and Computer in Your Office?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

At a recently attended unified communications (UC) conference in San Diego, I made five observations that convinced me that office computers and office phones as we've always known them will be all but extinct within the next ten years (if not much sooner).

Observation #1: At a UC conference where the majority of attendees were business phone system equipment manufacturers and distributors, most every speaker talked not about the importance of desk phones integrating with office computers, they talked about the importance of "critical business applications" working equally well on any "end point" whether that was a desktop computer, smartphone (iPhone or Android) or a tablet computer like an iPad. The main references made to office equipment was the necessity to source good office "docking stations" that employees could drop their tablets and smartphones into when they were actually working in the office.

Observation #2: Through one conference presentation after another, when I looked at the 100+ business executives in the conference audience, at any one time, at least two-thirds were quite busy conducting their normal daily business tapping away on the face of their smartphones and iPads.  They would politely look up at the speaker now and then to acknowledge an important speaking point - but then they'd go right back to tapping and swiping their keyless glass tablets and smartphones.

Observation #3: The conference attendees in the audience were all collaborating on work projects with employees back at their offices without talking on the phone. In two and a half days of conference presentations I think I only saw two people ever stop swiping and tapping their phones and tablets because they actually had to step out of the seminar room to speak with someone the old-fashioned way - with their voice.

Want to Keep Competitors From Talking to Your Best Customers? Talk to them more yourself via web conferencing!

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email 

When your best customers don't have any problems they don't want to talk to any salesperson.

When they do have a problem they want to talk to the very next sales person they think might be able to solve their problem.

And that's a BIG problem -- for you!

 

Web Conferencing Keeps Your Best Salespeople in Front of Your Best Customers

Your main and ongoing advantage over your competitors when it comes to your customer's limited attention span for "sales pitches" on new solutions or solution upgrades is that your best customers have already purchased from you and probably even like you.

While your "after sale margins" on one customer or another may not afford you the ability to have your best salespeople physically visit "sold customers" after the sale, you can achieve almost the same effect with a monthly "lunch and learn" webinar that you can invite all your best customers to dial-into via their computers or phones.

In the comfort of their own offices, your clients and prospects can see