Month: February 2016

3 Ways Cloud Telephony Rescues Education Sectors

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It would be no exaggeration to say that the cloud telephony has brought a revolution in the education sector. If you own an education sector and wondering what purpose these numbers would solve for you, here is a quick look at how this technology has proved to be a boon for the education sector you run.

Gathering of Information Gets Unorganized During Admissions:

Admission time is the peak time and handling of calls & queries require a lot of manpower. Not only during the admission time, the same thing happens at events like declaration of results. That apart, manpower is error-prone and can result in the accumulation of unorganized information.

Heave a Sigh of Relief. How?

With the help of cloud telephony, the whole process can be automated. This results in yielding the reports and analysis which can provide really helpful insights. Not only all your calls will be answered efficiently but your institute would also be projected as an institute that endorses state-of-the-art technology.

Difficulty in Conveying Information to the Patrons:

This is one indispensable task for any educational institute. Patrons need to be conveyed information regularly whether about the presence, progress etc. of their ward. Sometimes the staff also need to communicate among themselves.

Heave a Sigh of Relief. How?

Cloud telephony facilitates the subscriber with Bulk SMSes and also make the posting of these SMSes easy & affordable. Apart from that, you would get the facilities like:

  • Generation of a comprehensive report.
  • Content archival
  • Analyzation of responses automatically.

Deluged With Queries During Peak Periods:

There are certain peak periods like result declaration, admissions, seminars etc. when you are likely to deluged with a large number of inbound and outbound calls. Most of the queries are customary and you need to employ manpower for answering those queries repeatedly.

Heave a Sigh of Relief. How?

Growing smart with technology is a better option. Make your callers interact with a voice response to answer the common queries. This way no real person is required and the calls are handled more proficiently and professionally. Besides this, cloud telephony services are provided on a subscription basis and hence the plans can be modulated as per the needs of your customers which is impossible with the conventional telephone.

Most importantly, this is a hosted service and therefore there is no requirement of infrastructure. The numbers that you are provided with are virtual and can be activated on your existing landline or mobile number.

Evolution of Toll Free Numbers: Born as a Necessity and Emerged as an Indispensable Tool!

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Do you know Toll phone numbers which are primarily used by the start ups today were once considered as luxury contacts meant for multinational companies and multi millionaires?That was a time when 1800 numbers were considered as a daydream because subscribers to this numbers had to pay for all the incoming and outgoing calls as well, apart from the exorbitant set up charges.

An Amazing Fact!

The super rich corporations which were using these 1800 numbers used to believe that these free phone numbers justify their investment. Despite being pricey, those millionaires appreciated the benefits of these numbers. They applauded the fact that these numbers have helped them to expand their customer base and strengthening their relationships with them.

What Happens With the Passage of Time?

As the time passed by, the costs gradually went down and these numbers become more affordable. Spurt in the number of toll free phone service providers resulted in the price coming down drastically apparently due to a stiff competition. Today, 1800 numbers means an affordable deal with no set up charges, tons of attractive features and monthly expenses that do not cost you much. Some dealers also offer 30-day trial period absolutely free of cost.

When Did Toll Free Number Start? Which Company Started it?

It was in the year 1967 that AT&T launched this product and it was known as “Interstate INWARD WATS.” It was a mere idea and the company did not have any idea that the service would grow by leaps and bounds and would be popular among the business community. Indeed, these numbers were considered more like a solution to the shortage of operators and named them: “Automated Collect Calling.”

But, the free phone numbers appeared in the UK in 1960s and Post Office used to run such a facility. Later on only, AT&T in the United States during used these numbers as a tool to collect calling. Never had AT&T realized that after two decades of its initial launch, 40% of the calls  on AT&T’s long distance network would be toll free.

Here is the quick look at the significant facts about the toll phone numbers.

  • 1967: Inbound WATS was introduced by AT&T.
  • 1994: Toll free numbers become portable.
  • 1997: International toll free service was launched.

Today, perhaps nobody knows the modest beginning of toll free numbers. Hence, what has started as a necessity about 5 decades ago is more like an indispensable marketing tools for all businesses whether big or small.

3 Ways 1800 Toll Phone Numbers Solve The Problems of Tours and Travel Industry

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Whether it is about booking a holiday, a hotel room, a flight or hiring a car, contact numbers on the booking sites are hard to find. Numbers with a STD prefix keep the callers at bay because travel industry is one such industry where you expect customers from far and wide. More customers calling you for myriad purposes apparently means more business. Here are the 5 ways your travel and tour business see a boom when you subscribe to toll phone numbers.

Call Management is Difficult During the Holidaying Season:

With more and more people viewing holidaying and leisure as a way to be stress free, tours and travel industry is thriving like never before. Needless to say, a huge customer influx is accepted at such a time. How do you manage such a large number of calls in the holidaying season?

Need Not Worry!

When you are subscribed to free phone numbers, you are provided with a CRM Panel that can let you track each and every incoming calls. Your callers never get busy tones because several channels run simultaneously and you can handle at least 6K calls at a time. Moreover, you get all the details of the calls missed, can forward them to your executives that are not present in the office.

Customers With No Net Access Cannot Book Online:

You tend to lose customers from the areas where there is no net accessibility and customers think twice before calling you because of the pricey prefix of your phone number.

Need Not Worry!

With the 1800 prefix your customers can be free of any tension of being charged for booking hotels or tickets. Net inaccessibility do not matter to them.

Your Staff Tends to Remain in Field and You Cannot Monitor their Efficiency:

Travels and tours is one such business where the staff needs to be on their foot to generate leads. Though your staff remains in field but you cannot monitor what they do and whether they carry out their work effectively.

Need Not Worry!

Yes! true..you can track all the leads they have generated, clients they have met, can forward calls to them and much more with the help of CRM Panel.

9 Free Business Productivity Tools For Start ups

As a start up entrepreneur, you tend to come across several hassles and budget constraints make things worse for you. Isn’t? At a time when you face a rough whether and trying to establish your foothold in the market..how about getting free tools that can enhance your productivity.  Bcoz Ziffy cares for your business as much as you do…Read here

What Value Added Services You Get With Toll Free Numbers?

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Keeping customers at the heart of corporate strategy is a sure-fire way to thrive. A regular feedback from the customers is no lesser than a boon for you. Whether it is about generating leads or serving customers better by listening to or responding to their needs, businesses all across the world make use of toll free numbers.

You exempt your customers from being charged and earn their goodwill in turn. They can make you call free of charge from far and wide all across the nation. Let us see what all you get along with a toll free number that help organizing your business better.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response):

More popularly known as Virtual Receptionist, IVR directs your callers to the designated departments. This value added service saves manpower (you can do away with telephone operator/real receptionist) and it is twice as effective to the error-prone manpower. Not only this, it also creates a positive brand image of your business having multiple departments even if you are virtual with hardly any physical existence.

Missed Call Alerts:

With the help of this value added service you cannot miss a single lead and get all the details of the calls (which are shown in the CRM panel). You can track those calls then.

CRM Panel:

CRM Panel is the soul of any toll free number as with the help of this panel you can track, monitor and analyse all the incoming calls. With the help of this panel, you can know at what particular time of the day, maximum number of clients are reaching you. This helps you in boosting sales. You can also check all the billing details on the panel.
Call Forwarding and Call Logs:
Regardless of the fact that your staff remains in the office or in the field, you will be able to forward calls to them using this feature. With the help of call log feature, you can keep track of all the unanswered, answered and missed calls.In short, you get all that is required to manage call influx efficiently. This in turn, saves money, resources and you would be able to organize your business better. Subscribing to a toll free number means, owning a number that gives you the best value pay for.

How to Make the Optimal Use of Toll Free Numbers You Own?

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You spend time, efforts and money on marketing techniques and have added a toll free number to make the maximum number of customers reach you. But, are you sure that you would be able to manage all the incoming calls and get their optimal value in the form of incessant leads? Here are certain tips to make the optimal use of toll free number you own.

Organizing All the Calls:

With the help of online account manager, you can monitor the inbound phone leads easily and effectively. There are features like voicemail, notification settings, caller ID, call forwarding, blacklisting, white listing etc. By viewing the call history, you can analyse the calls based on their volume, origin and talk time. This will help you track your callers, where are they from and how long they have been in conversation with.

Chalking Out the Strategy:

A hard-core sales strategy does not work. You should try nurturing your relationships with the customers. A welcoming IVR and the subsequent call forwarding to the respective departments make things easy and convenient for them. Moreover, for them you are always available no matter your employees are in the office.

Trashing the Junk and Cold Calls:

One of the biggest problems that you come across when you exempt call charges is that you get tons of junk calls and have to pay them also. You can avoid wasting your money and time on junk calls by blacklisting those numbers.

Most important of all, before you subscribe to a toll free number you should know your requirement and budget because the plan can be subscribed accordingly.

 

6 Common Real Estate Problems Solved by Toll Free Numbers

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Owing to the rising demands for shelter, real estate is booming like never before. Needless to say, the competition has risen in the same proportion. So, trying new strategies to retain and manage customers gives you an edge in the market. What if you would be able to lessen the call drop rate, track missed calls and manage database efficiently? With the help of toll free numbers and IVR service you would be able to sustain in the market that is deluged with real estate service providers.

With the help of Advertising You Are Flooded With Queries But Missing Leads……

Now what? ….

You Get a Nationwide Number That can Handle 6K Calls at a Time:

With the help of a single toll free number which would be able to handle 6000 calls at a time. The calls are absolutely free for the callers and these can be forwarded to hundreds of different people which means you never miss a single call.

Your Callers are Reaching You and Getting Irritated by Busy Tones:

Now What?……

No busy tones..get multiple channels

This is the problem with the traditional PBX which irritates the customers and keeps them at bay. With the help of toll free numbers you never get any busy tones as there are multiple channels and therefore calls are answered immediately.

You Lack Manpower and hence missing calls.

Now what?

IVR and Call forwarding solve this problem.

If you lack a real receptionist or your staff remains on field then you tend to miss leads. With the help of IVR and auto attended, all the calls are attended automatically without the presence of a real person and then these calls are forwarded to your the staff of the respective departments on field.

You Cannot Track Calls and Have Difficult Time Promoting Yourself:

Now what?…

With real call logs you can collect all the database and use it for re-marketing.

CRM panel does it all for you. With the help of this panel, you can monitor all calls you receive. The real time call logs helps you to monitor and analyze all calls and can make use of it in re-marketing.

Your Agent/broker, customers annoy you.

Now what?……

Call records is a rescue

You can record all the calls held between agent/broker and customers for future reference which would leave no scope of contention.

In short, CRM solution provided with toll free numbers are tailor made to automate the complete real estate process.

How Can You Track Toll Free Numbers and Stop Paying for Junk Calls?

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Does exemption of charge for the callers can sometimes prove to be a real pain in the back when you get deluged with junk calls? With the help of 1800 number directory, you are traced by those who love to while away their time and then the worst thing is that you end up in paying for those prank calls.  You can avoid footing bills for cold calls if you know how to trace a toll free number. Here is a quick look.

What is Reverse Phone Lookup Service?

Millions of people like you Spam calls especially on the toll free numbers. With the help of reverse phone lookup service or gray pages you can collect all the details of customers. In the standard 1800 number directory where customer’s details are used to retrieve his number. In the reverse phone lookup service, the telephone service number of the person or business can be used to track all the details so that the number can be blacklisted and the calls from that particular number can be stopped.

How This Works?

Basically, these numbers were used by intelligence and emergency services but since the cost of the calls are bore by the toll free number owners and this is the reason why an increasing number of toll free number subscribers are using this service.

If on tracking your CRM panel, you see a trail of missed calls and wonder who is this particular Mr.X is at 234-666-1767, who is the particular person and which location this particular code belong to. Reverse Phone lookup service helps you trace this details and lets you blacklist the number if it is junk.

Toll free numbers are meant for your convenience and helps you in multiple ways but do not let others take the advantage of yours making them call free.

 

7 Frequently Asked Questions About Toll Free Numbers

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Question 1: How would i know that my business needs a toll free number?

You have just set up a business venture and want to invest in priorities. The very obvious question that comes up in your mind at once will be do i really need a toll free number? Though these numbers should be owned by every business for the purpose of organizing calls but it becomes more like a necessity if:

  • You are a virtual merchant.
  • You want to start a business that deal with the customers nation wide.
  • You indulge in marketing campaigns often and depend on phone numbers for that.

Question 2: How much i need to shell out for buying it?

Cost of toll free numbers depend on a number of factors.

  • The plan you choose.
  • The number you choose (Vanity numbers are expensive)
  • The vendor you are making purchase from.
  • The minutes you consume per month.

Question 3: Are these calls free internationally?

Callers to the toll free numbers are exempted from charge when they call anywhere from the within the country. International calls to a toll free numbers are not free and charged more.

Question 4: How do these numbers benefit me?

There are multiple benefits of these numbers owing to which there is an spurt in their demand. With the help of these numbers, you can:

  • You can track, monitor, analyze all the incoming calls which means a better organization of business calls.
  • You are able to give a positive brand image of the product/service you offer.
  • Most importantly, they are useful in making more customers reach you with their feedback which means customer retention and satisfaction.

Question 5: What is IVR? How would this help?

To put it in simple terms, IVR or Interactive Voice Response is the interaction of machine with humans using DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency) technology. With the press of buttons, you are directed towards your designation which means that you do not need a real receptionist and available to the clients 24X7 because you can track all the calls coming in the odd hours too.

Question 6: What is a CRM panel? How can it be used?

CRM or Customer Relationship Management Panel is the soul of a toll free number you buy. With the help of this panel you can manage all the incoming calls, can analyze them, can come to know at what time of the day you are getting the maximum calls, track the missed calls and do much much more. However, it is not easy to use and you would be provided with a training from the vendor you purchase the toll free number from.

Question 7: Where should i purchase the number from?

Though the market is deluged with a number of vendors and direct operators. However, doing a little bit of market research can help you get the best deal. Compare the plans and the facilities you are provided with. Avoid buying them from a direct operator as you would not be able to get value added services and IVR.