Disaster Recovery

Even with all of the new technology made available to businesses in this day and age, there is nothing that can prevent phones from occasionally going down and not working.  Every business owner knows that every minute that goes by with no phones working not only feels like an eternity, but equals the loss of business.  So, as we in Wisconsin enter into the season of storms and flooding and tornadoes, what do you do when the inevitable happens and your phones go down?
You could turn off your system, reboot and hope for the best.  You could call a technician that just got about 100 other frantic calls at the same moment, because, let's face it - the chances of you being the only one with phones down is just slim.  You could try to reach your service provider to see if they know anything about this and how to fix it.  Truth is, all of those are things that people who aren't fully prepared have to do.  You are far wiser than that though, so you got yourself a disaster recovery provider and your phones will experience minimal down time and your customers (or potential customers) will have no idea that your system is even down.
The way it works is very simple...  You get yourself a provider of disaster recovery services who will let you knwo how to set up your main voicemail box and everyone's private voicemail box.  From there, you set everything up in house so that when phones go down your customers will get the previously set up system when they call in.  There is an Automated Attendant in place that offers them the option to be connected to anyone with whom they need to speak.  Once they make that selection of who to speak to, the call gets forwarded to that person's pre determined number at which they can be reached (this is usually a cell phone number).
All it takes to activate the disaster recovery system is to call your phone service provider and ask them to forward all of your calls to the designated number that the automated attendant is connectied to.  It is just that simple and the disruption to the flow of calls and business as usual is very minimal so you don't have to lose business over the loss of your phone service in your office.
For more information on disaster recovery please contact Phones Plus at 262-784-2311 and speak to one of our sales representatives to answer any questions you may have.  Have a great week everyone!

Hosted IP PBX

Taking advantage of a hosted environment will not only give you the benefit of utilizing new internet telephony technology, but it will offer you a host of valuable features. You can take advantage of such features as “under one roof” functionality which makes multiple locations appear to be all under one roof with extension dialing, call transfer between locations and several other features. Another great feature of a hosted system is the built in disaster recovery which is automatic with a hosted system because of the way it is put together.

Some additional benefits of a good provider of a hosted system are that your monthly phone bills can go down by about 40-70% per month. That means that if you wanted to get a whole new phone system with a hosted provider, the system will be paid for out of your monthly savings in no time flat! There are also bundled calling plans to fit every business’ needs including plans for international calling that include 34 destinations now and that are growing all the time. Perhaps the best part of having a hosted solution with a Phones Plus partner is the fact that their customer service is based in the US. No more calling and talking to someone who isn’t even in the country – we all know how frustrating that can be!

Since this is still a relatively new technology in telephony (even our partner for hosted systems has only been working with them since 2001) lots of people have concerns about call quality. It is amazing what can happen in just 9 short years. This technology started out as a great idea that needed a lot of tweaking, but has become a very reliable source of great call quality with very few interruptions to your service.

Some other important features of a hosted system are Internet faxing and conferencing capabilities, making it even easier to communicate with customers, other offices or prospects. All of the features I have spoken about can be scaled up or down to fit the needs of an office with 2 people to an office with 2,000 people. This is a great solution that is easy to use, quick to set up and offers a great variety of features to users. For additional information on hosted systems please contact Phones Plus at 262-784-2311 or check out our website at www.askphonesplus.com.

Why hosted VoIP is a good choice for small to mid sized companies

Advancements in Technology & Cost Reduction Is Driving Demand for Popular Business Communications System


NEW BERLIN, WI — May 27, 2010 — Phones Plus, an industry leader in unified communications, announced today that hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is experiencing tremendous adoption by small to mid-sized businesses. A number of distinct benefits such as superior quality of service, reduction of cost, flexibility, built in business continuity and advanced applications are driving the demand for hosted VoIP technology.

Unlike a traditional phone system, hosted VoIP requires no on-site PBX hardware. Instead the technology uses VoIP service to place and receive calls using the Internet. This service is frequently hosted remotely by a 3rd party VoIP provider. As a result, an end user’s communication via VoIP service is handled by redundant enterprise servers offsite. In addition to the profound upfront cost savings this presents, hosted VoIP technology enables one’s phone system to be completely scalable and flexible. An organization can add or remove phones on a hosted system any time.

Hosted VoIP serves the needs of entrepreneurs and enterprises alike, by delivering powerful features such as improved call quality, valuable disaster recovery tools, and applications designed specifically for telecommuters and remote workers. Included in the system are advanced features such as unified messaging, automatic call distribution, auto attendant, call recording, call flow reporting as well as traditional PBX features.

The U.S. business hosted IP voice services market is expected to grow from 828,350 seats in 2008 to 4,910,499 seats in 2013, a CAGR of 42.8%, according to Interactive Data Corporation (IDC), a market research firm specifically focused on the IT segment. “The SMB marketplace has started to really embrace hosted VoIP because it dramatically increases their profitability and gives them a competitive advantage,” said Thomas Sodemann, Vice President of Phones Plus. “For many customers off premise communications technology is preferable. In a hosted environment, companies can take advantage of flexible technology knowing that if a disaster occurs, whether a power outage or natural, the system will remain up without interruption.”

“After we understand our customers’ strategic business objectives we recommend the right technology to support all of their needs and in many cases that means a hosted solution,” added Mr. Sodemann. “Hosted VoIP is quickly becoming more than an acronym, it’s raising the bar for Unified Communications providers, while giving businesses the edge they need to compete in today’s marketplace.”

ABOUT PHONES PLUS, INC.

Since 1981, Phones Plus has committed to establishing lasting business relationships with our clients. Phones Plus offers innovative voice, video, and data networking solutions that increase our clients’ profitability and gives them a competitive advantage in their marketplace.

Phones Plus recognizes the critical need for a communications company that combines leading technology with top-quality service and support.

Our mission is to provide exceptional value through managed services that eliminate technological obsolescence, ensure a fixed cost for our business partners, and maximize the profits, productivity, image, and competitive advantage of those partners. Highly trained and motivated professionals give you measurable results.

An Update

Just to keep everyone up to date, I wanted to let you know that we have unfortunately had to cancel our SIP trunking lunch and learn.  We plan on rescheduling it, we just aren't totally positive when that will be just yet.  So, keep on checking out our social media pages and we will be sure to keep you posted on what is happening with that event. 
Thanks very much and have a great day!

Zultys MXIE Demo

This week, we are trying to really focus on learning all we can about Zultys products.  It was fairly recently that we became a Zultys authorized dealer and we want to make sure that we are experts on their products as we start selling more of them.  These products are designed to be very advanced and cutting edge - they are designed from SIP up.  Also, these systems are designed to give you as many features as possible with minimal licensing so that once you buy the phones and all of the equipment you will not have to make a huge investment to get the features that you want. 
You can pretty much get any number of users on a single system - these systems will get really big if you need that, or you can get a small system for a business that has plans for growth.  The MXIE is the Unified Communications solution offered by Zultys - it would be the Zultys equivalent of Toshiba's Strata Call Manager (NetPhone) and it is extremely easy to use once you get the hang of it.  Check out the video above and you will see how MXIE can increase productivity by offering a very simple format for call handling and voicemail options.
If you have any questions regarding MXIE or any other Zultys product, please feel free to contact Phones Plus at 262-784-2311 and we will be happy to answer whatever questions you may have.  Have a great week everyone!

Transparency – Just a darn cool tool

I am sure that there are a fair few people out there who have no clue what network transparency means or how it can be used to make life much easier in businesses with multiple offices. What transparency does is make many physical locations appear to outside callers to be under one roof, rather than spread about in different towns, cities, or even states.

Transparency is a great tool because it makes life easier in offices that work closely together even if they are not geographically close together. Say we have a building in Milwaukee and another one in Chicago where management has to work together on a deal. When they need to ask questions of one another, the manager in the Milwaukee office can simply dial the extension of the manager in Chicago to whom he wishes to speak and they are connected. No call had to be placed, no secretary had to pick up or transfer the call – it was all done as an interoffice page.

The same holds true with transferring calls and conferencing in additional people who need to consult on what is being discussed. An example is that a call comes into the Chicago office but the person actually needs to talk to someone in the Milwaukee office. Rather than having that customer hang up and call the other office, Chicago can just transfer the call to Milwaukee with no disruption to the call. It makes the flow of business very smooth and seamless. Another example is now that the caller is talking to the right person in the Milwaukee office, they need to ask some questions of someone in the Chicago office. The person in the Chicago office can easily be conferenced in to the call so everyone who needs to be in on the conversation is there and contributing.

Having this tool makes life easier for everyone – especially your customers. Just think of how frustrated you get when you call to try and get something taken care of and you are told to hang up and call this other number for another department. It is frustrating and in this day and age, totally unnecessary for businesses to have to function that way. Transparency is a tool for not only making your life easier as an employee, but makes life easier for the people you need to survive in business… Your customers. That is really the key to the whole thing - giving your customers the easiest solution to communicating with the people they need to reach in your company. It will make your business much more productive and your customers happy that they don’t get the runaround when just trying to get things accomplished.

Understanding Your Phone Bills

It seems that these days, service providers make our bills as confusing as possible so we won’t keep a close watch on what we are being charged and why. It is very true that a lot of people look at their phone bill, get frustrated with the way it is laid out, and give up on trying to figure out what all of those charges are. This is how people end up with third party billing charges and unnecessary service charges for insurance among other things.


The best way to stay on top of your phone bills whether they are your own personal bills or the ones at work is to occasionally call your service provider and talk to them. It is hard to get through and frustrating to spend what feels like a month on hold every time you call, but it is well worth the time it takes when you see your bill not getting out of control. I will usually call from work when I need to talk to a service provider because I know it will be a quick conversation to just touch base with them and I can put the call on speakerphone while I am on hold so I can do something else while I wait.

Once I (finally) get a real, live person on the phone, I will ask them any questions I have about my bill and make sure that I am getting the lowest rate for my service plan. Surprisingly, if you haven’t spoken to them in a while, usually the person will tell you right away where savings are available without you even having to ask. Taking the time to call and speak to a person at the phone company will give you the chance to make sure that you know what you are actually getting charged and what those charges are for.

Some phone companies will try to sell insurance on your cabling in your building which is generally pretty unnecessary. If you feel better knowing you have it, go ahead and pay for it, but it won’t help you if you have a problem – the phone company will send someone out who will tell you there is a problem and leave without doing anything to fix it. Then, there is the third party billing. You can generally tell when this is taking place because you will be looking through your bills and suddenly the logo at the top of the page will change. That is because all of the charges on that page are coming from a third party and really have nothing to do with your service. These are easy enough to cancel and usually you can even get a refund for the entire time you were being charged for that bogus service. Just hang onto those bills so you can prove when it actually started.

If you are willing to invest some of your valuable time into making sure you look over your service provider bills carefully each month, you can save a lot of money in the long run. It is very important to let your service provider know that you would like slamming insurance and protection against third party billing. These are free account guards that will protect you from getting charged for bogus services that do nothing for you. You also need to make sure that your service provider knows that you look carefully at your bills and that you will call them about anything that looks different or strange. Quite often, the tactic is to call later in the afternoon or evening to catch a part time employee who doesn’t know any better and get them to authorize adding unnecessary service to your account.

If you are smart and proactive about your service provider bills, you can have great success in saving money and time both at home and at work, so make that call and start saving!