Posts Tagged ‘voip’

An Inexpensive Fax Server

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

For the unfamiliar, ra fax server is a device that receives and routes inbound faxes via email.  A basic fax server unit can receive a fax and send it to a pre-defined email address.  The more expensive units can route a fax to different email boxes based on the number dialed.  This allows different numbers to be assigned to specific individuals or functions (sales, customer support, etc), thus forwarding their faxes to them automatically.  This is a very attractive prospect, but until now has almost always required expensive T-1 based phone service with DID numbers to work.

With the 3CX phone system, there is now an inexpensive way to implement a fax server.  The 3CX software has fax functionality built-in.  Since it can handle VoIP calls without additional hardware, it is easy to get multiple phone numbers issued for little cost.  Thus, the sender dials a number specific to the desired recipient, and the fax routes to the associated email box.

The beauty of the 3CX approach is the cost.  The basic 3CX software supporting 4 simultaneous calls is $450 plus installation.  If you install it on an existing PC or server (which we would not recommend for a full phone system, but if only used for faxing is ok), there are no other hardware or software expenses.  Basic VoIP service from nexVortex is $30 a month, and DID numbers are $5 or less per month.  The result is a very inexpensive fax server than can route inbound faxes directly to a large number of recipients.

Since faxing over VoIP is still a bit tricky, it is important to use a VoIP carrier that supports T.38, the latest standard, which ensures the best possible fax reliability using packet redundancy.

While the use of faxing is continuing to decline in the face of email, it is still used quite heavily, and is not going away any time soon.  If your organization is stuck with a large volume of inbound faxes, 3CX provides an inexpensive approach to automating the handling of them.

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Phone Systems - Getting the Cart Before the Horse

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

I am been on the perifery of a raging debate on Linkedin about which is better, a premise phone system, or a hosted solution.  For the uninitiated, a premise system involves physical equipment installed in your office.  A hosted solution involves phones in your office connected to a remote phone system via the Internet.  I will refer to both options in this entry as a “system.”

Not surprisingly, most people participating in the discussion were strong advocates for whichever system they sell.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this.  After all, if you cannot speak highly of your product, why should you be selling it?

In reality however, most systems available on the market today have very similar major functions.  There are differences, but in today’s world, these differences are getting more and more minor.  The major difference is economic - a premise system involves a larger initial cash outlay and low recurring costs, and a hosted system has a low initial outlay, and larger and continuing recurring costs.  If you do a feature by feature comparison however, you will find more similarities than differences, particularly in the most important areas.

I would suggest however that the single most important component of any phone system is the service and support provided by the vendor.  Phone systems are complicated, and mot phone users to not really want to understand the technology; they just want clear and reliable phone calls.  The best system on the market when accompanied by poor vendor support will be a miserable experience.  On the other hand, a mediocre system with outstanding support will meet your needs well.

If vendor support is truly as important as I think, then I would contend that selecting a system based on features and price first is getting the cart before the horse.  The choice of vendor should be at least as important.

Some years ago, I was a phone system customer selecting large systems for a call center and a new corporate office.  In the call center, I had the choice between a system from a vendor with an excellent support reputation, and a system with roughly equal functionality from a large, bureaucratic phone company.  Despite the fact that the phone company was also a major customer, I selected the vendor with the good reputation, and never regretted the decision.  Since I did not want to offend the large customer, I selected them to provide the corporate system, a decision I later regretted.

I would suggest therefore that you begin any search for a phone system by selecting the vendor.  Once you select a vendor, pick a system they sell.  You will very likely be very pleased in the long run, regardless of what system you end up with.

In a future blog entry, I will offer some tips for selecting the right vendor.

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DIDs and Marketing

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

I wanted to expand a bit on an article I wrote for our last newsletter about using DID numbers for tracking the success of marketing campaigns.  With the tight economy, we all must manage our marketing budgets very closely.  Using DID numbers can help assess which ad is giving you the most bang for your buck.

For the uninitiated, DID stands for Direct Inward Dial, which is a means of associating multiple phone numbers with your organization without you having to pay for a phone line for each number.  In the past, this service was prohibitively expensive for smaller organizations, but with the advent of Voice over IP service, it is now very affordable.

To better understand the value of DID numbers for marketing, imagine you are running ads in three publications, and you want to know which add is generating a better response.  You could just ask each caller how they heard about you, but at times you get inaccurate responses to these questions, and you have no way to ask someone who calls after business hours.  Instead, what you can do is to use a different local phone number in each ad.  Using VoIP, your only incremental cost is number rental, which is $5/month or less per number.

With a different phone number for each ad, you can now easily review your call logs to determine which ad received a better response.  This also gives you accurate data about the origin of leads which you can use to determine if an ad in a given publication is producing enough revenue to pay for itself.

You can take this approach a step further by providing custom announcements based on which number was dialed.  For example, the number for your ad in Acme Times might say something like “Thanks for calling in response to our Acme Times ad…”  This can really add an aire of professionalism to your call handling.  You can also route the responses for a particular ad to a specific individual in your organization, send them to a pre-recorded message with details, etc.

If you ad scope is regional or national, the same approach can working using toll-free rather than local numbers.  While the number rental is generally more, it is still usually less than $20/month/number.

In summary, if you are running ads with a phone number for responses, you should seriously consider using DID numbers as a means of tracking your response.

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