Why Are On Hold Messages So Significant for Modern-Day Businesses?

Good communication is the bedrock of any business or any strong relationship. Strong communication ensures that the information is shared well between individuals and companies, and this information sharing maintains long-lasting loyalty. In some odd industries, it is not possible to provide information instantly to customers and clients, and some industries also experience high call volumes. In this situation, the customer care executives have to keep the caller on hold and to make sure that the caller does not disconnect the call, they have to rely too much on on hold messages.

Benefits on hold messages customer connected

These messages can be of different types, like simple music, or verbal advertisements and much more. All of them aim to boost sales and keep the customer connected. These on hold messages come with several benefits, and we have covered them in this post here.

Stop Callers From Disconnecting The Call

No business wants any consumer to go away, but this is very quickly possible if the caller is made to hold the call for too long. In this situation, on hold messages can be very useful, as they will keep the caller interested and diverted from hanging up the call. Complete silence gives the impression that there is no one to reply to their call, and a repetitive on hold message easily frustrates anyone. But this can be prevented very easily by using on hold messages and verbal phone messages or music, etc. These messages give an impression that the company is still connected to you and responds to your query after relevant research.

Prevented very easily by using on hold messages – Ariatech

Market Your Business Easily

On hold messages and phone messages are very very powerful tools for businesses in their marketing and promotional efforts. They can be assumed as “word of mouth” promotion, as the caller will constantly hear your advertisement about your products and services. Since, they will hear the promotional message again and again, it will be recalled very easily at the right time.

Business to seek some crucial information

On Hold Messages Help In Providing Useful Information

Some callers reach out to a company to seek some crucial information and these phone messages can be very instrumental in this. They will help in sharing the relevant information without involving any human or customer care professional. All the questions related to the services or products offered by you can be answered simply through on hold messages, phone messages and through interactive voice response or IVR. You just have to ensure that the option of contacting the customer care department is present on every step of contacting through IVR or on hold messages. This will improve customer satisfaction and reduce valuable human hours.

KSU, PBX and VoIP – Which Office Phone System Is Best For You?

Businesses can choose from different business phone solutions based on their requirements, budget and preferences. There are so many options ranging from KSU to PBX and VoIP. However, the most advanced is VoIP, which offers advanced functionality with all the features present in Key Service Utility systems and Private Branch Exchange systems. VoIP is a cloud-based solution, and this feature makes it more powerful, economical and versatile.

Determining The Best Office Phone Systems

KSU, PBX, and VoIP are all the most powerful telephone systems for small businesses. People have no clue which one to choose, as they all come with power-packed features for small businesses. It is recommended to research all the options and choose the most versatile, modern options that are full of features. Let us briefly understand these three options in this blog post.

Power-packed features for small businesses

Ksu Or Key Service Utility System

Key service utility system is the most straightforward phone system available for offices and businesses. It is a landline-based solution to handle a limited number of phone lines. These systems have basic features like call hold, speakerphone, intercom and paging. The drawback is that it is an expensive option and has minimal features for offices and small businesses.

Minimal features for offices and small businesses – Ariatech

Pbx Or Private Branch Exchange

Another very versatile option for business phone solutions is PBX or on-premise private branch exchange. It has more advanced features and functionalities than its previous contender, KSU, and hence, it is more popular than the former. The top features to expect in PBX office phone systems are conferencing, auto-attendant, music on hold, dial by name, directory, etc. A major advancement compared to KSU systems is that one PBX line can handle several business locations and regulate more lines. It comes with the facility to make and receive calls, and other top features include call routing, call queuing, conference calling, auto attendant, music on hold, etc.

PBX office phone systems – Ariatech

The drawback is that it is more expensive than KSU due to the physical hardware requirements. Moreover, a fully dedicated IT team is needed to control, maintain, and handle your office’s PBX system.

Voip Or Voice Over Internet Protocol

Voice over Internet Protocol technology is also called hosted or cloud-based PBX. It has some out-of-the-box benefits like being very easy to use, improved privacy, automatic call routing, and, most importantly, it is less expensive and a more modern system than KSU and PBX. VoIP phone systems offer several features, and businesses can take advantage of them based on their requirements and preferences. A detailed list of more than 40 features of VoIP phone systems is present below.

• Advanced Call Management
• Call Routing
• Anonymous Call Rejection
• Auto Attendant
• Business Text Messaging
• Call Analytics
• Call Forwarding
• Call Notify
• Call Park
• Call Presence
• Call Pulling
• Call Queues
• Call Recording and Rating
• Call Screening
• Call Transfer
• Conference Bridge
• Custom Music on Hold
• Custom Ringback
• DND
• Extension Dialling (number change)
• Find Me/Follow Me
• Free Local Phone Number
• Hot Desking
• Instant Messaging
• IVR
• Mobile App
• Number Porting (keep existing phone numbers)
• Online Fax
• Priority Alerts
• Push to Talk
• SIP Trunking
• Softphone
• Speed Dial
• Three-way Calling
• Toll-Free Number
• Upgrade Options
• Voice Calls
• Voicemail
• Voicemail Forwarding
• Voicemail Greetings
• Voicemail to Email
• Voicemail to Text
• VoIP Caller ID
• Video Conferencing
• VoIP Switchboard

The Most Common Types of Cyber Threats for Small Business Owners

Compared to a decade ago, people today take cyber threats more seriously and are always proactive about handling them. The reason is that with these cyber-attacks, people and software attempt to maliciously steal your data or cause disruption in your business functioning. 

It is because of these reasons that the popularity of cyber security software has increased incredibly, and people are making them a priority when it comes to handling or managing a server or a network. There are different types of cyber threats for small businesses, and in this post here, we go through the most commonly seen threats from phishing.

Phishing

This attack usually targets users directly through email or other forms of communication like text messaging. In this type of attack, the attacker disguises himself as a trusted contact and attempts to victimise you by sharing your personal data, such as passwords and OTP’s. Small businesses can use checkpoint software to make sure that phishing attempts and phishing scams are diminished right in the beginning.

Watering Holes

Till around five years back, this was not the most common type of cyber-attack, but its use has increased incredibly over the past some years. In this attack, the cybercriminal targets a specific group of individuals or businesses that share the same interest. They will infect one website that is visited the most by those individuals or companies, and here also, social engineering is very effectively used.

Drive By Downloads

According to the cyber security software solutions vendors, this cyber-attack occurs when a user downloads software into the computer. This software is malicious, and once it is in your computer, it will perform the following –

Spy on activity, such as recording keystrokes to capture passwords

Hijack the device by exploiting security flaws

Infect the device by downloading even more software or files that ultimately render the device useless.

This cyber-attack is more effective when the operating system is not updated, and small business owners ignore the security patches of the software.

How Is VoIP Technology Used In Modern-Day Offices and Homes?

VoIP is a technology, and VoIP phones are physical devices that allow you to use this technology to communicate. This could be anything like your mobile phone or the phone on your office table. It is a simplified and economical option used for communication that has several exciting features like call transfer, call hold, conference calls and so on.

Voip Phones

Currently, there is a wide variety of VoIP phones available in the markets, and there are IP handsets, ipecs handsets, as well as digital handsets available with advanced features to help you in using this technology to its best.

What Is A Voip Phone?

Phones used in VoIP technology are designed to convert sound into digital data. This data can be transferred via an Internet connection to the receiver, and when it reaches there, these digital packets are again converted into analogue signals and so on. There are mainly two types of IP phones currently prevailing in the markets. One of them is hardware-based, while the next is software-based.

Types of Ip Phones

The hardware-based phones can be further split into categories like office desk phones, cordless phones, and reception phones and all have their unique set of features. Then, there are software-based phones, also known as softphones. They are applications installed on a mobile device or computer. They have all the functionalities in the hardware phone, but the difference is that they are more affordable, free of physical desk space and can be moved wherever you want. To use softphones, mainly a headset and microphone, are required to make and receive calls.

Headsets

To use VoIP technology, some essential products are required, and the most important of them is the headsets. The benefit of these Dect headsets is that you get both hands free to work on the computer. Along with digital handsets, a wide range of headsets are available in the market. There is also an option of getting wired or cordless headsets with Bluetooth technology. For seamless performance, experts recommend wired headsets as they are more affordable and reliable.

Must-Have Features in a Video Calling App

Several statistics, data and researchers have shown that video conferencing platforms can be the most-effective communication tool for any business. But only a plain video calling software or app would not be enough for companies and businesses. There should be some inbuilt features to enhance the user experience and get the best out of the time spent during video calling. There are some key features that every video-calling software should have and we have discussed the main ones in this post today.

Screen Sharing

To make video conferencing more interactive and webinars more communicative, screen sharing is a vital feature that every app or software should have. With this feature, you can share your entire screen and apps on your desktop using these online collaboration tools. This makes it easier for the host to communicate his message to participants better.

Photo:- online collaboration tools, Ariatech

Multiple Webcam Capabilities

Any video calling app can be called an advanced one, if it has multiple webcam capabilities. With this feature, a video conferencing solution will allow you to use this feature where everyone can be seen and understood during the meeting. This becomes important for businesses that have lots of remote workers and they have to attend meetings regularly.

Photo:- video conferencing solution , Ariatech

VoIP

No video calling or video conferencing software is complete without VoIP feature integrated into it. VoIP is ideal for remote teams, as it allows people to connect with the business using their phone handsets. Communication will become seamless and it would be easy to switch between voice calls, video calls and group meetings.

Chat Features

These solutions should also come up with “chat features” or capabilities to allow participants to share messages including text, emojis and others. A robust chat feature ensures that the meeting is more interactive and participants can share their concerns during the meeting via these chat messages.

Photo:-StarLeaf app, Ariatech

Other features that should be there in your video conferencing software are unlimited recording and ‘high-definition video’ feature should also be there. Then, branding features and dynamic presentation features followed by performance reports are some other things to look for while searching for a good quality video conferencing app.

Office Phone System Features to Prioritize

The technology in the field of communication advances every 5-7 years and this is why it has been observed that businesses too upgrade to new phone systems every 7 years. But this trend has seen a slight change after the advent of VoIP based business communication because now they just have to upgrade the technology in the form of a software update and periodically, upgrading VoIP phone handsets as well.

Photo:-LDP-9240D, Ariatech

Modern-day business communication solutions have advanced a lot and they advance on a very regular basis, leaving business with an old and outdated system. In this situation, this post here would be very useful as it gives you an overview of features needed in the office phone system that could meet the requirements of your workforce for several years to come.

Photo:-Ericsson-LG, Ariatech

Office Phone System Features You Should Prioritize

• Automated Attendant
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
• Voicemail
• Conference Calling
• Contact Centre Capability
• Multiple line support
• On-hold music
• Announcements

These are the basic ones, but depending upon the brand or the cost, the features could increase or decrease as well. This means that you can find other features too in your VoIP technology based business phones and the names are –

• Screen type, size, and colour
• Buttons, ranging from 2-12 buttons with varying functions
• Bluetooth support to support headsets
• HD audio – high definition sound

Photo:-LDP-9224DF, Ariatech

What Is The Best Small Business Phone System?

According to the experts, the best way to choose the right phone system is firstly determining your needs and requirements that arise in a business and those too that might arise in future. Based on this and then, also on the budget you can choose from the options available and most of them come with basic features such as call waiting, holding, transferring and speed dial.

Useful Methods Related To Cyber Security in Your Business

With the advancement of technology, the threats on the cyber world too are increasing with every coming day. These threats have become way more serious than what they were a decade back with the advent of malware like PEGASUS and hence, a cyber security software has become mandatory for every business. These softwares work exceptional well but apart from them, with a little smartness and sharp presence of mind, you can minimize the risk associated with these threats and attacks. Here in this blog post, let us have a look at some of the top steps that a business phone set-up should take in association with these cyber threats.

Use a Passphrase to Create Strong Passwords

Check points software work really well when they work in combination with a strong password because both are extremely crucial for cyber security. Cracking passwords is now programmed in these different malwares and when they work, they can crack almost any kind of password from even the most secure servers. Therefore, experts recommend using a different approach regarding setting up these passwords and this mainly involves using phrases that only you could remember.

Then, you can also use tools like OnlineDomainTools to see how strong your password is.

Manage Your Passwords

Setting up a strong password is job half done because the remaining part is managing these strong passwords and this is useful because this management will allow you to manage the passwords from one central location. This management is no longer limited to using a sticky note on the desktop and includes so many other things like –

• Use a Password Management Site
• Use a Secure Spreadsheet
• Use a USB Security Key

Apart from these three options, a very handy and useful method is using a USB key like Google’s Titan Security Key.

Apart from these, there are other useful methods as well like not delaying at all in resisting phishing attacks and staying extra cautious and careful while working on public networks.

Especially for businesses requiring features such as a VPN, firewall security, user management, Quality of Service or others. This requires replacing the basic ISP supplied router with one of business grade routers we supply. The role of machine learning in unified communications security is expanding rapidly due to its utility in performing security processes which would previously have required human intervention.

Understanding Video Conferencing Solutions and Their Advantages for Businesses

In the past some years, video calls and video conferencing both have slowly become the foundation stone of businesses across the globe. These technologies have not just helped businesses, but also people in general in meeting their friends, families, relatives, etc., with the help of a smart phone. There are so many untouched topics related to these video conferencing solutions and we have covered some of them here in this write-up.

What Is Video Conferencing? – Definition, Advantages, Etc

Definition

A technology that can help you talk to the opposite party and view them at the same time on your mobile or computer screen is given the name of video conferencing. This kind of meeting can be organised in what part of the world, these two parties are situated and even if they are on two different poles, they can connect face to face via this technology.

According to those offering services related to life-size video conferencing solutions, depending upon the hardware used by you, the quality would differ a lot. In case, you have better technologies and solutions, you will enjoy better video calling and if not, there would still be a good quality experience. Modern day service providers have very sophisticated systems that provide real-time communication using live HD video, high-quality audio and tons of collaborative features of digital handsets .

Advantages

The first line mentioned in this post is basically the result of so many features and advantages that this technology has and we have covered some here in this blog post.

Saves Time and Resources

They are a cheaper and more effective way of communication and because of this, huge amount of time as well as money could be saved.

Increases Productivity of the Employees

These technologies and even video conferencing solutions have made internal communication easier, faster, and more convenient. It is because of this that businesses now find it really easy to improve their overall internal communication solutions.

Lots of Intangible Benefits Too

With these solutions, there develops the sense of unity, togetherness and harmony inside the office.

Two Reasons Why Cloud-Based Phone Systems Are a Great Investment

Customer engagement is the top priority of most of the modern-day business owners and for this, constant communication is what they need. This constant communication calls for good quality as well as affordable business communication solutions or highly advanced phone systems in other words. Amongst, all the top technologies used by businesses in the context, cloud-based systems have proved to be the best because of various reasons. The “simplicity in use” as well as “affordability” happens to be the biggest features contributing towards the popularity of this concept.

Affordable because this kind of office phone systems uses the Internet to conduct calls with the help of data packets. There are a number of other reasons why veterans say that investing in cloud-based systems is a great idea and we have covered some here in this post.

Cloud Phone Systems Are Cost-Effective

According to the experts, cloud-based telephone systems are much more affordable and cost-effective because of certain reasons and one of them is that they require no addition connection for functioning. They run with the help of the Internet that is present in every modern-day office these days. The good thing is that as compared to normal telephone connection, the Internet is much cheaper, thereby contributing to the economical availability of cloud-based small office phone systems.

Another reason is that this technology does not ask for any additional hardware or dedicated staff members to manage and run the system. This also contributes enormously in the affordability of this modern technology.

Less Maintenance

Because no dedicated hardware or server system is required for this, one thing becomes visible, i.e. less maintenance and this feature is another USP of cloud-based office systems. Since the entirety of the system is online, your business phone service is maintained by your vendor. You have no responsibilities regarding maintenance and this saves time, hassle as well as money. Moreover, you will not need additional staff for maintenance and bear the expenditure.

How Businesses Can Get Benefitted By Video Calls?

After the advancement of this Covid-19 pandemic, video calling as well as video conferencing both have emerged as the most useful solutions for businesses. The fact is that these two solutions have helped in keeping millions and trillions of businesses alive, active and generate profit, when the entire world was fighting for every single breath.

There are numerous benefits of these two solutions and when performed high quality video calling equipments, these benefits or advantages can multiply manifold times. Some top reasons have been discussed here in this write-up.

More Engaging Than Audio Conferencing

There is no doubt about this fact that as compared to other kinds of virtual meetings, this one, i.e. video conferencing is more engaging. The reason is that all the users can see each other and since, they can see each other, they stay focussed towards the video call rather than multi-tasking that becomes common during audio conferencing.

Apart from this, since users can see each other, they are forced by their inner consciousness to use their communication skills in a better manner.

It’s Efficient

As compared to office meetings, this video conferencing or video calling is a much more efficient option because the participants don’t have to move to a common place for meeting. This helps them save a good amount of money as well as time that would have been consumed in pre-meeting preparations and post-meeting follow-up.

NOTE – A study conducted by students found that driving to a meeting one hour away uses the equivalent electrical power as 1,000 hours of web conferencing.

It Saves On Travel Money

This is what we had already discussed above that with the help on communication solutions on video call meetings and video conferencing, users can save a good amount of money that they would have invested in travelling from their places to office. This money imparted as travelling allowance by a company can be used elsewhere for business’s welfare where there are priorities.