MSPNetworks Blog

With communication rising to the top of many businesses’ priorities list, it’s no wonder that Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is one of the most powerful ways to revitalize your company’s communications infrastructure. If you’re still using your old traditional telephony solution, buckle up because you’re about to find out how to ditch it for good.

A business telephone system has picked up some pretty costly requirements over the past several years. Not only does your business need to have a clear and concise calling system internally, it needs to incorporate video conferencing and remote communications. This can get pretty costly if you don’t have the right technology in place. That right technology is VoIP and it can save your business money and present options that allow your employees seamless communication capabilities.

When it comes to running a successful business, customer confidence is everything. It can make or break your business’ reputation. If you’re too reckless with your customers, why would anyone else be willing to sign on with you? Thankfully, there are plenty of ways you can build customer confidence, and technology plays a pivotal role in many of them. Today, we want to explore how you can build customer confidence through the use of business technology solutions.

Collaboration tools can be remarkably helpful for businesses, if not downright essential to their success. With the right tools that are, of course, configured the right way, you can see exponential returns on your investment as your staff enjoy the many benefits they provide. Today, we want to discuss four common pitfalls with your collaboration tool security that must be addressed.

Ensure Secure Data Sharing Protocols

It’s easy to assume that your collaboration platforms are properly securing your business’ files when you share them through the apps, but this is not necessarily the case. You want to do some research and make sure that any tools you use—particularly those that are a part of the public cloud—use encryption to keep your files and communications secure. Yes, this also means your email solution!

Do Research on Your Solutions and Providers

When you are working with providers during the initial setup of your collaboration tools, you’ll need to be extra careful to ensure that you are appropriately configuring your solutions for maximum security. It’s easy to make the assumption that what one business finds useful will work for another, but it’s simply not the case, and providers who aren’t going to help you ensure you get the most value and security out of your solution have no place being on your business’ payroll, so to speak. In other words, make sure you understand your business’ needs first, then clearly articulate those needs to your providers so they can be obligated to help you get what you need from the agreement.

Make Sure Collaboration Tools are Centrally Managed and Maintained

If you’re having your employees use collaboration apps and tools, then you should ensure that they are not finding alternative solutions that are outside of your company’s control. You can dissuade them from making use of external apps—a concept known as shadow IT—by providing them with the tools they need to effectively do their jobs. The reason for this is that you don’t want them sharing company data through third-party or external apps that you cannot control or gain access to if needed.

Make Sure Your Team is Secure, Too

How do your employees access the resources they need to do their jobs? You need to make sure that employees who work out of the office for any reason are using secure Internet connections, further reinforced through the use of a virtual private network to obfuscate your data from any onlookers.

MSPNetworks can work with your business to secure its collaboration tools, from your productivity suite to your email communications solution to your networking solutions. To learn more, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

Technology is only effective in the hands of the right—or, at least, well-trained—employees. To work toward this goal, you’ll have to ramp up your hiring processes to ensure you garner the interest of the right candidates for the jobs. Nowhere is this more true than for your IT department. Let’s go over how you can make your business an attractive employment option for skilled and innovative technicians.

Better Technology Means a More Attractive Workplace

No one wants to work for a business that refuses to upgrade its technology and makes do with substandard solutions—especially in today’s flexibility-minded era. If you want to attract and retain top talent, you’ll need to offer them options like the opportunity for remote work when necessary, or at least part of the time. Your IT department is going to want these capabilities anyway, after all, because they only serve to improve your business’ operations.

Technology Makes Recruitment Easier

Keep in mind that you’re not the only one out there looking for top talent. If you take too much time during the hiring and interviewing process, you might find yourself being ghosted by candidates who were contacted by other, faster organizations. Automation is one tool you can use to ensure that your candidate searches go as efficiently as possible. The right solution will make scheduling interviews and reviewing resumes much easier. This should not only help you attract the attention of top talent, but do so before the competition does, too.

Technology is Great for Professional Development and Education

The last piece of advice we want to leave you with is that you should always encourage your team to expand their current skill sets. Again, with IT requiring constant learning, and sometimes relearning, of various practices and principles, you’ll want to ensure that your team has time to pursue tasks and skills that enrich your business. Automation can free up more time for training by virtue of making tasks easier and less time-consuming. Plus, it also allows your team to be happier with the tasks they are charged with because they will be more impactful and meaningful than rote work. 

If you’re worried about attracting top IT talent, look no further than MSPNetworks. We can be your in-house IT department just as easily as an outsourced agency. To learn more, call us at (516) 403-9001.

Ultimately, your employees are going to be the ones using your technology to accomplish their daily duties, so it helps to treat them like customers rather than end users. If you examine industry trends to make the best decisions possible with your technology and communications solutions, then you’ll allow your team to flourish in the process.

Salesforce conducted a survey of 500 industry leaders and 6,000 customers to determine how people consume communications solutions and how their expectations have changed over time.

Online and In-Person Experiences Are Equally Important

One thing you should take away from this study is that consumers want communication experiences that aren’t exclusive to just in-person or digital. 51% of respondents preferred to do business online, while 40% wished to visit an in-person store for their communication needs. 64% claimed they visited the provider’s website over the past month, and 35% have done business both online and in-person. The takeaway here is that your employees will seek help with their communications technology both in-person and online, so you need to respond to their needs appropriately.

Your Customers Do Matter

Great customer service is crucial to keeping your business running, and it all stems from having great internal operations—at least, that’s what 90% of the survey respondents believe. 40% claim they are unsatisfied with the way their providers handle their cases. If you think of your employees as customers, you can ensure they are getting the support they need from you to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Your employees are more likely to use a good or service if they know they have support from you and they know their feedback is appreciated and valued.

Digital Transformation Is Important

Most customers might prefer to use online services, but it’s equally important for you to embrace your own use of digital services within your own communications infrastructure. You should implement tools that can be effective in both a remote and hybrid work environment. One way you can do this is by implementing cloud-based solutions. You might find that your organization benefits greatly from their implementation.

We Can Help You Make Communications Easier

Your communications infrastructure is not simple, and you need tools that allow you to stay in touch with both internal and external stakeholders for your organization, be they employees, clients, or prospects. Through the use of tools like Voice over IP, instant messaging, intranet solutions, and more, you can share your knowledge and services with your clients while also giving your team the tools they need to be successful. To learn more, reach out to MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.

Today, there is a greater focus on mental health and wellbeing than ever before, especially in the shadow of the pandemic. Do you want to improve your employees’ relationships with their colleagues, family, and other important people in their lives? The key to doing so might be remote work, according to a new survey.

What the Research Says

A survey conducted by Deloitte’s Center for Technology, Media and Communications examined 2,005 United States consumers to gain some insight into people’s use of technology throughout the pandemic. You might be surprised by the results, or you might not be. Spoiler alert: it’s overwhelmingly in favor of remote or hybrid work operations.

The survey determined that among employed adult workers with remote work experience, three-quarters of them prefer remote or hybrid work compared to commuting to the office. About half of employed adults overall prefer remote or hybrid work compared to the traditional office environment. Note the significant difference in preference for those who have gotten a taste of remote or hybrid work during the pandemic, but even overall, there is a strong preference for remote or hybrid work.

Relationships Can Flourish from Remote Work

One of the big surprises from the survey focused on the benefits that employees experienced as a result of working remotely. The vast majority—eight-in-ten employees—found that their relationships improved or stayed the same as a result of working remotely. These types of relationships included personal, professional, familial, and even their relationships with themselves, citing better mental and physical wellbeing. About half of the respondents found a significant improvement in these areas of their lives.

It is worth noting, however, that employees did not see too significant an increase in their relationships with their bosses, supervisors, or colleagues, although they did not suffer a decrease either.

Implement Remote Technologies to Help Your Team

Many businesses were forced to transition to remote work policies following the pandemic, and while most employees have returned to their workplaces by now, there are still plenty who remain remote or under hybrid work arrangements. If your business wants to expand its capabilities by offering remote or hybrid arrangements on a more permanent basis, then we urge you to contact MSPNetworks.

We can help you implement all of the technology solutions your team needs to stay connected even while out of the office, including communication and collaboration tools, security solutions, and cloud-based storage or applications to ensure operations can continue as smoothly as possible. You might be surprised by how many employees can effectively do their jobs without being on-site.

To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Communication solutions are especially important in today’s world of remote and hybrid work, and we are here to tell you that the traditional telephone solution you’ve known and loved for all these years is simply not viable in today’s business environment. Thankfully, a viable replacement is widely available, and it’s all thanks to Voice over IP technology.

What is VoIP?

Your traditional telephone solution involved working with your local telephone company to run lines and cables all over your business’ office and installing handsets for your employees to use. There was a lengthy implementation process that heavily relied on the physical setup of your office and the number of employees your company employed.

VoIP, on the other hand, uses a service you already have—your Internet connection—rather than your traditional telephone infrastructure. Through the use of smartphone or desktop applications, VoIP helps to eliminate barriers of entry for telephony solutions and instead focuses on making services accessible to all types of businesses, regardless of infrastructure or current setup. Since VoIP is a software solution rather than a hardware solution, it is more dynamic and flexible than your traditional telephone system.

What Benefits Does It Bring?

VoIP is notable because it offers comparable services to your traditional telephone system but without the limitations that come with it. Here is just a short breakdown of what you can expect from a VoIP phone system:

• All the features you know and love: VoIP is capable of all the features you use for your traditional telephony system, plus some that you might not normally get, such as video conferencing and instant messaging.
• Quick setup: Instead of running cables and knocking down walls, you just download an application and set up your accounts. Because of this, it’s an easy and efficient way to leverage telephone solutions to your benefit.
• Accessibility and flexibility: Since VoIP applications can run on smartphones or desktops/laptops, you have control over how you choose to use VoIP.
• Cost savings: Oftentimes you might encounter telephone providers who try to lump together services in an attempt to squeeze as much out of their customers as possible. With VoIP, you don’t get any of this—you purchase the solutions you need and nothing more.
• And more!

Don’t Wait Any Longer!

If you are ready to take your business’ communications infrastructure to the next level, we are confident that VoIP will help. To learn more about what VoIP can do for your business, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Nothing changes the fortunes of a business faster than having clear lines of communication, especially after operating with less-than-effective communications for a time. Today, there are options that provide businesses with enterprise-level communications without the massive price tag and commitments that they typically bring. 

Business is moving faster and from many more places, and with that, antiquated communications strategies just don’t provide the sustainable features and benefits that hosted VoIP can provide. Hosted VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a dynamic communications platform that is accessed through an app and uses your company's existing bandwidth. This means that all that bandwidth you pay for is repurposed to support your phone system. Let’s talk a little bit more about Hosted VoIP:

You know how you get all the productivity applications, email, and a bunch of other software from the cloud? Well, Hosted VoIP is also purchased as a cloud service. You don’t have to make any large hardware purchases, maintain and manage a PBX server, or any of that. You simply call MSPNetworks to get a VoIP provider and it doesn’t take long to get your whole business the crystal-clear calling and dynamic features that today’s VoIP platform offers. 

What's great about it is that each user can be added in seconds and once connected, they will be able to use their personal smartphones as a business phone. It allows companies that have  teams working remotely to have a feature-rich and reliable communications platform in a cost-effective way. In fact, you are sure to save up to 40% off of your current phone system. 

Benefits of Hosted VoIP

We’ve already outlined the cost reduction that’s possible with VoIP, but there are some other benefits as well. They include:

• Easier to Manage: Switching to VoIP eliminates your relationship with the phone company. More than that though, VoIP doesn’t need special hardware, it can use the same wiring and switches as your LAN.
• Unified Communications: Installing a VoIP platform likely means that you are able to unify your organization’s communications platform, giving your staff the option to communicate multiple ways at the click of a button.
• Functionality: A VoIP platform can integrate with all types of business-management software to provide easy access to the communication capabilities that often make a business run better. VoIP also has innovative features like Voicemail-to-email transcription, interactive voice recognition, and integrated chat.
• Scalability: When you onboard new users and need to add a line to your business, it’s as simple as a couple of clicks.

You should at least have a conversation with an IT professional about Hosted VoIP. We want you to get the best value out of your IT and Hosted VoIP is a good option. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 today to learn more.

Business has changed, so the tools your organization uses must evolve as well. One element of your business that has not only got more affordable, but also offers robust integrated features is your telephone system. Today, you can get some pretty impressive features as a part of a hosted VoIP implementation. With collaboration being more important than ever to keep costs down, having the tools you need at the ready is more crucial than ever.

What Exactly is Hosted VoIP?

Voice over Internet Protocol is a powerful business telephone system that uses the Internet to do everything (and more) that a traditional telephone system can do. Not only do you get the crystal clear calling that you demand, you can also gain a load of features designed to provide value and help spur collaboration. Additionally, since a hosted VoIP system is hosted in the cloud, you basically eliminate the need to purchase expensive hardware and time-consuming setup. Let’s take a look at some of the most useful features you can get with the modern cloud-hosted VoIP system.

Automated Attendant

One of the most useful features for any business is to have an automated answering system attached to your phone system. This not only eliminates the cost of having a live receptionist (or worse yet, interrupting your production team with phone calls), it also provides reliable call routing so that people get connected to the department or individual. Some VoIP providers feature interactive voice response which provides a certain customization to the auto attendant feature that can come in handy if your business has high call volumes. 

Call Recording

With so much of today’s business being done remotely, collaboration can be a little bit harder. With call recording accessibility, individuals can choose to record calls for use in project management, team collaboration, and quality assurance. The system works great as a tool to enrich the employee review process as well. Many hosted VoIP platforms will provide cloud storage space (often for an additional cost) so no additional setup will be required.

Caller ID and Screening

One of the best attributes of a hosted VoIP system is the ability to see who is calling and have options on what to do with incoming calls. Not only can you see the number (and if the number is saved in the account’s contacts, the name), you also have control over what to do with the call. You can choose to answer it, send it to voicemail, or decline it altogether. These features really cut down the time spent in unwanted or unnecessary calls. 

Call Forwarding and Flipping

Another set of great tools that you get with most VoIP platforms is the ability to simply forward a call to another user or transfer calls to a separate device on the same number. The former can help immensely as often calls are made that need to touch multiple points of your business. With call forwarding, this is as simple as transferring to a defined employee line. Call flipping is a feature that enhances your employees’ ability to take important calls on the go when they need to. In this process, the user will just flip from their workstation-based VoIP phone to their mobile device without dropping the call. 

SMS Text Messaging

Hosted VoIP provides the means to communicate through SMS. It’s proven that for small issues that text messaging is an important part of the business communications process and with hosted VoIP, your team will gain the ability to send text messages from their work accounts.

Video Conferencing and Bridging

Since your hosted VoIP platform is hosted in the cloud, you can get some seriously dynamic features. One of the most important is the addition of conferencing. Today, more people use Internet-capable solutions to meet than ever before, and the hosted VoIP platform can play an integral role. VoIP providers now offer video conferencing systems integrated with conference bridging that can help keep the people that need to meet on the line without having to waste time and effort. 

Analytics

Like most cloud-based platforms, hosted VoIP provides administrators the ability to see all the metrics (and assign their own) to analyze the phone system, user profiles, and more. Being able to have metrics at your disposal can help you modify your VoIP platform to the needs of your business and help you control communications costs. 

Go Mobile 

In what could be the most money-saving feature that a hosted VoIP platform provides, each account can be accessed from a dedicated mobile app. This means the days of paying for service plans for employee devices are over. Since each user can access their work phone from their individual mobile device, less calls will be missed and more can be done than ever before, for a fraction of the cost. 

Hosted VoIP is one of the technologies that we’d label “a no-brainer”. It cuts your organizational communications costs and provides you with loads of features that can help promote better business. If you would like to talk to one of our IT professionals about getting a VoIP system for your business, give us a call at (516) 403-9001. 

The average person spends hours a day on their phone. For the average business, finding a way to support this trend is extremely important. This is why many businesses have begun to do away from their traditional telephone system for the massive benefits that Voice over Internet Protocol brings. Today, we will outline four major benefits of hosted VoIP to help you understand that if you aren’t using VoIP, you are probably leaving money on the table. 

Benefit #1 - Cost Reduction

The cloud has helped millions of businesses get the technology they need without having to pay the high upfront costs that many software developers require. Beyond that, the cloud-hosted software is typically managed and maintained by the provider, further reducing the cost of running the software. For hosted VoIP, companies can get a powerful PBX platform, hosted in the cloud, with all types of advanced features that would cost them much more if they chose to host their telephone platform themselves. Furthermore, companies don’t have to spend money on additional phone cable drops for their business. VoIP-enabled phones plug right into the workstation making the hardware easy to set up and easy to maintain, or they can use your existing network cabling.

Benefit #2 - Flexibility

One of the major benefits of VoIP is the flexibility it gives a business. Not only do you pay per user per month for the service, you also are provided the ability to use the softphone app on Android and iOS-supported phones. This removes the need for registration or year-long contracts that can be prohibitive for a business’ budget. If you need to set up a new user, you simply add an account and set the phones up and you are ready to go in minutes.

Benefit #3 - Mobility

As mentioned above, each VoIP account comes with the ability to sync up a mobile device to the number. This allows users to use their own personal device for business calls from the same number they have on their office phone. Some businesses pay a premium to get their employees on their mobile platform, including buying devices, paying for service and data plans and more. With VoIP and a well-concocted Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy, each user can get a built-in mobile platform without creating new costs for the business. 

Benefit #4 - Options

One of the biggest benefits that a VoIP platform presents a business is the ability to get the communications and collaboration tools they need through their hosted telephone system. Many businesses today are leaning heavily on their video conferencing system for meetings, as many employees are still working remotely. A Hosted VoIP platform integrates video conferencing and a lot of other useful features that enhance the ability to do business seamlessly. 

Choosing to move to a VoIP platform could be one of the best decisions you can make for your business. The IT professionals at MSPNetworks can help you get set up with an enterprise-grade telephone system for your business that will change the way you communicate. Give us a call today at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about the VoIP platform we have available.

For many businesses, their telephone system can be extremely expensive, especially considering the need for extra mobility as many people are still working remotely. VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, presents a cost-effective solution for any business’ telephone needs. Let’s take a brief look at VoIP and how it can be a game changer for your business’ communications.

About VoIP

Despite its popularity for residential users over the years as cable and telephone service providers have been making the switch, VoIP is all business. It is a telecommunications platform that uses your company’s existing broadband Internet connection to send and receive calls, texts, video and more. Many popular communications tools use VoIP for their communications purposes including Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Apple’s Facetime.

In a business sense, however, you may wonder how those tools could handle high call volumes. After all, how can it be a business tool if it doesn’t support the needs of your customers and staff? Today, there are enterprise-level VoIP platforms with all the bells and whistles a business operating in 2021 requires.

What Makes Hosted VoIP Different? 

Obviously, if you’ve been using a telephone system through a telecom provider, you may think that this tool can’t possibly fit your needs. You may think that telephone systems are all the same. They are going to cost your business an arm and a leg and will cause you to make some pretty tough decisions. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are three features that make VoIP a better option for the growing business. 

Overall Cost

Dollar for dollar, VoIP systems are simply less expensive. Not only will you be using infrastructure you already have in place to fuel your phone system, you immediately reduce your recurring expenses. Apart from the platform set up and the purchase of some Internet-capable telephones, your upfront costs are minimal. What’s even more valuable is that many hosted VoIP platforms offer a softphone option that allows any smartphone to potentially be used as a business phone. This all but eliminates the costs that your business would be looking at on the mobile side of things. 

Simplicity

The simplicity of adding and removing lines from your VoIP plan makes managing a VoIP plan for several users easier. No cables, no office renovations just to get people phone lines. Simply plug your VoIP-enabled phone into a workstation and it is ready to configure (which also takes just minutes). As mentioned earlier, the softphone option makes mobile calling much simpler and takes very little time to set up.

Functionality

VoIP stands out in so many ways that you never really hear about the superior functionality made possible by using an Internet-based phone. Not only are your calls clear and crisp, with VoIP your business can add from a whole list of features that include:

• Audio and video conferencing
• Call forwarding
• Personalized extensions
• Call routing
• Call recording
• Automated receptionist
• Call queues
• Instant messaging
• Text messaging
• Integrated voicemail

...and much more.

If you are in the market for a change, and would like to cut your monthly communications costs and get a valuable tool for your business that works both in and out of the workplace, call the IT professionals today to talk about our VoIP platform at (516) 403-9001.

When we say “improve communications” you probably are expecting an article about telephone systems or which video conferencing platform works the best. Normally, you’d be right, but today we decided to briefly go over four ways that you can foster better communications between management and their employees inside of your business.

We know that good, effective communication can be tricky, but if you can set up constructive give-and-take, your business is sure to benefit from it. Let’s take a look at four ways your business can create an environment where communication actually helps your business. 

Create a Collaborative Company Culture

A collaborative company culture is one where people trust others to pick them up when they need help to produce the best products and services possible. It’s true that every business relies on the efforts of their employees. Why then are there often such efforts taken to keep them out of the loop? Sure, the staff doesn't need to know everything in order to do their jobs, but in order to build the relationships necessary to create trust, being transparent about how things are going and the goals you have for the business is a solid practice. 

If everyone that works toward a singular goal understands where the organization stands, they will not only be open to being helpful toward others inside the business, they are more likely to provide feedback that is a key resource to better business processes. 

Listen to Learn

Business is often fast-paced and doesn’t offer a lot of time for reflection. This is why when employees talk, managers have to listen. The truth is that people aren’t adept at listening. Everyone has their own responsibilities and sometimes the thought of taking more on is impossible. For decision makers, it can be difficult to listen to superfluous information that doesn’t have anything to do with getting the job done. 

Well, it’s your job to listen.

If you want to have the kind of business where communication is a major part of what you do, you better listen. Most of those superfluous gripes are not actionable, sure, but if you just don’t listen to what your staff is saying and go about dictating what needs to be done without taking any of their suggestions or comments or complaints seriously, you are going to be in for a tough time. You can’t make everyone happy, but what you can do is listen to the people you depend on if only to ascertain their perspective. 

Don’t Rely on Meetings

If you are going to make an announcement to the staff, a staff meeting is the best way to do so. You can gather everyone there either in the conference room or via video conference and make announcements. If you are looking to enhance communications, however, meetings are some of the worst settings for communication between people. Firstly, people never say what they are thinking as to not rock the boat or cause arguments, so they are much more conservative in a meeting setting.

If you want more effective communications, choose settings that will keep people from putting their defenses up. That means smaller meetings or one-on-ones. You’ll get more out of many smaller chats than you ever will out of a large-scale meeting. Managers should always encourage feedback and accept it with grace, and check in on those they manage from time to time. Your managers should also expect to be checked in on by those above them too.

Solid communications can boost productivity and the morale of your entire organization. What do you think? Do you have any other tips that can help knock down barriers and create a better flow of information within your business? Leave your comments below and reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to talk with us about finding the technology to improve your business’ communications.

Collaborative work is pushing organizations forward faster today than ever before. With the use of more dynamic and option-rich technology, your organization can benefit from the improved productivity that comes from enhancing your collaborative strategies. Today, we look at some of the technologies used by organizations that prioritize collaborative work.

Your relationships with your customers and clients are reliant on one thing more than any other: communication. In order to optimize this communication, many businesses are leveraging technology solutions, and are enjoying a variety of operational benefits as a result. Is your business one of them?

How Powering Communication with Technology Directly Benefits Your Business
Choosing the right communications is one of the most important decisions that any business can make, as the decision you make influences many levels of your operation. On the one hand, there’s the internal side of things, where the different members of your organization can keep each other in the loop. On the other, your business needs to also maintain clear communications with your clients, offering them the value they’re seeking from your services.

The technology you use can offer some assistance in accomplishing as much.

From the solutions that allow you to more effectively communicate with your clients directly, to the potential cost savings that this technology can offer (thereby allowing you to pass these savings along to your increasingly loyal clients), there is plenty of upside to augmenting your communication practices via the right technology solutions. Here, we’ll explore some of the options available for your business to utilize.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
CRM systems are a fundamental solution for any business interested in leveraging their technology as a means of improving their relationships with their clients and customers. These systems enable companies to better keep track of each of their customers and their interactions with them by centralizing all of this data into a single dashboard. This makes tracking this information far easier than if it were to be scattered about inboxes and voicemails.

Furthermore, these solutions offer integration with many other business applications that further simplify many key processes, like billing and acquiring signatures. They can even provide insight into social media behavior, allowing you to optimize your client acquisition strategy. A CRM solution can increase customer and client satisfaction by a reported 35 percent, making it an invaluable tool.

Automation
Managing your relationships with your business contacts and prospects is a formidable task, simply due to the fact that there are so many moving parts and processes when it is done correctly. It also doesn’t help that many of these relatively simple processes could potentially be overlooked, hindering your progress toward your business objective. Automating these processes can help to fix that.

Let’s consider a simple hypothetical example: let’s say that you offer a few industry-related products. Instead of having a sales representative man the phones, you can leverage automated workflows to expedite the process. Once your customer clicks “submit” on the order form, it’s possible for your sales team to be notified of what was sold, accounting to start invoicing the order, and your CRM system updated with the information… all without you needing to lift a finger. This allows you to focus more energy on your new customer, providing the highest quality service you can.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Solutions
This approach to telephony has a few benefits, but today, we wanted to focus specifically on one: its portability.

One of the keys to fostering a positive relationship with your business contacts is to be available to them. How often have you reached out to someone, only to have to wait for a response back? You don’t want to be the cause of this irritation when someone reaches out to you.

One of VoIP’s biggest benefits is the fact that it can be leveraged from anywhere an Internet connection can be made, and many options offer a mobile application. Using a VoIP solution, your calls can be directed to your smartphone, enabling you to answer when your contact calls, proving your business to be reliable.

MSPNetworks can help you implement these solutions so that you can work on your business relationships. To learn more, call (516) 403-9001 today.

It isn’t as though we haven't said this before but leveraging a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solution over a traditional business telephone system can bring your organization a few very clear benefits. Many of these benefits come from the advanced features that VoIP offers as add-ons. We’ll discuss a few of these features and their advantages.

Video Conferencing
If a business frequently holds meetings, whether they involve their clients, customers, or employees, the capability to do so with the help of video can be a benefit. We all know how difficult some people can be to read based on voice alone. Video conferencing can eliminate that challenge, as well as give your communications a more personal feel than telephony would.

Voicemail to Email
As useful as voicemail can be, it can also feature some significant shortcomings, especially if one isn’t in the habit of checking theirs. As it isn’t a very visible solution, it can be easy to miss a message, or have it slip the mind. Email, on the other hand, doesn’t offer these difficulties to near the same degree. This makes voicemail to email options so useful, as a user can receive an email reminding them to check their voicemail for the message. Similarly, voicemail transcription offers similar utility, albeit in a much different fashion. Rather than having you access your voicemail to get the message, email transcription converts the voicemail into a text-based format and sends it to your email inbox.

Conference Calls
In today’s collaborative work environment, there are many phone calls that require multiple people to participate. VoIP solutions feature the conference calling capabilities that allow these collaborative meetings to take place. The additional capabilities of VoIP also allow this kind of collaboration to be much simpler to accomplish, as well as more convenient. A participant has the option of utilizing the more convenient solution to join in, be it their mobile device or desktop workstation.

Again, leveraging a VoIP solution can provide assorted benefits to your business and its processes. Are you ready to embrace these benefits? Reach out to MSPNetworks to learn more by calling (516) 403-9001.

When we discuss our service offerings, we understand that it can all seem like a little much, especially to the small business that - up to this point - has never needed all these fancy solutions to operate effectively. However, there are a few considerations that the business this scenario applies to needs to account for. For instance, is it certain that these solutions are unnecessary?

As it happens, probably not. On top of that, these solutions will only make doing business easier for you.

Apart from size and scope, what’s all that different between your operation and that of a large business? Not all that much - which means that you both are going about business in similar ways. At least, you probably should be.

If you still aren’t convinced, we’ve assembled a few common IT-based tools and solutions and reviewed the benefits each can deliver.

Web-Based Payments
Balancing out all of your business-essential tasks, it’s probably safe to say that ‘collecting payments’ ranks pretty high on that list. Any organization that provides goods and/or services needs to be reimbursed for those goods and/or services in some way if they are going to last very long. Accepting payments online can help encourage this by eliminating the need for a patron to visit your place of business to hand over a check, potentially reducing the time that your invoices are left outstanding.

Of course, to implement this intelligently, you will need to make sure that this is implemented securely. Many security solutions integrate this requirement, so we can help advise you on the right platform to use and assist you in managing it.

Communication
Promising something to your business’ audience is one thing. Ensuring that you can pull it off behind-the-scenes is another. The right technology solutions will help your team keep clear communications with each other, whether it’s a project management system, company email account, or an internal chat interface.

You may be surprised to discover how many time-wasting issues can be avoided just through the mitigation of miscommunication, thanks to simpler and more informative referential information. Progress toward goals, potential and imminent complications, and other key milestones are all made much easier to keep track of.

Social Media
While many see social media as an activity that is inappropriate for businesses, it can actually be highly beneficial to your strategy to leverage it in some ways. Not only can it be a highly effective marketing tool, it can give you some improved insight into what your clients or customers are looking for, thereby helping you shape your strategy.

Then there’s its potential to be used as a line of communication with your audience. Someone seeking customer service would find it easy just to send a brief message to your business on social media, as long as someone is keeping an eye on the account and responding to these messages.

Being too quick to discredit social media can have an impact on a business’ success. Leveraging it to assist your operations can as well, but with a much more preferable outcome.

Cloud Computing
There are many applications for cloud computing that businesses of all sizes could benefit from considerably. The ability to securely access data enables a team to access their data and collaborate on it from effectively anywhere, a highly useful prospect for many businesses. Alternatively, the cloud can be used to host a comprehensive business backup as an ace in the hole in case of disaster.

If you’re reconsidering how you implement IT solutions in your business, give us a call at (516) 403-9001. We can help you shape your strategy to fit your precise needs.

With so many people depending on the Internet for a litany of reasons, there might not be the general acknowledgment of just how powerful the ubiquitous use of the Internet really is for businesses. From the storage and redundancy of business’ data to virtualized computing platforms to browser-based interfaces that provide access to productivity and communications software, today’s Internet is filled with solutions for the modern business.

High-Speed Data
The Internet was around a while before broadband was rolled out, but today data delivery systems necessitate that users have a fast Internet connection. With all the options that the average business has to choose from, many of them are only feasible if a company has the necessary bandwidth available to run the technology they depend on.

The strength of the Internet for today’s business is largely based on the availability of high-speed Internet. If your business lacks the bandwidth it needs to utilize cloud-hosted platforms, communications solutions, and other important business applications, it can not only create substantial data bottlenecks, it can hinder collaboration and productivity.

Mobile Data
The development of the Internet has coincided with the development and innovation of the smartphone. Today, 77 percent of all Americans have a smartphone. The main benefit of a smartphone is the development of applications (apps) that provide shortcuts to web-based platforms, and plenty of additional functionality.

The numbers suggest that more content is viewed on mobile devices than on desktop or laptop PCs today, making it extremely important that cellular and wireless Internet is readily available and fast enough to facilitate all the demand. Most of us pay twice for Internet (home and cellular), but the figures show that there are more people than ever today eliminating the cost and paying for one or the other. This has led to nearly 20 percent of smartphone owners forgoing at-home broadband service and utilizing their cellular data plans. As this number rises, it will have an effect on every device market, as well as the sustainability of affordable high-speed Internet.

Communication
Another strength of the modern Internet is the numerous ways it can facilitate successful and secure communications. Platforms such as telephone, instant messaging, email, as well as newer applications that prioritize collaboration fuel what are major changes in the way people communicate.

Today’s Internet-based communications are a major profit center for a business. While it would seem that these solutions would come without a lot of return, without them, many businesses would see their profitability fall off to a point where growth simply isn’t possible. The Internet also provides options for conferencing, webinars, and other group meetings that provide organizations the kind of end-to-end communication they need to keep business rolling.

Supply Chain
One of the biggest challenges for business is to keep a successful supply chain running. Changes in technology have provided the ability for businesses to acquire the things they need affordably improve dramatically. Internet-connected software, communications solutions, and other platforms are changing the way manufacturers and retailers handle their supply chains.

Tackling the logistical problems that typically come with a supply chain system can be one of the biggest headaches for any business. Access to resources that can be connected to the Internet, such as e-commerce, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management; not to mention the significant real-time communications options provided on the Internet, allow people to manage their procurement and distribution better, while routinely providing direct access to vendor representatives that can keep business moving faster and more effectively.

Marketing and Sales
One of the most obvious ways the Internet has helped business is by making a company’s products or services available to larger markets. Since marketing - and, specifically Internet marketing - has become a major investment for many organizations, companies have to have a dedicated plan in place that turns traditional advertising on its head.

Many organizations have invested heavily in this aspect of their business, but for those that cannot, the use of social media is another great option. With low overhead and the ability to touch hundreds and thousands of people in a short span of time, many organizations that do invest heavily in marketing also utilize their social media accounts for their benefit.

The Internet continues to be used by many organizations to conduct business. How does your business utilize the Internet? Has it been beneficial for your company, or has it been a struggle? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below, and make sure to return to our blog for more great technology information and commentary.