Getting Started for Small Businesses (3-10 Employees)

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This guide has been made for small-but-growing businesses (3-10 employees). Note that if your business has grown beyond this stage, we suggest you use our '''Getting Started for Growing Businesses''' guide. Below you will find a complete setup guide for your business phone system including: * A few recommendations for a desk phone and a softphone to place and receive calls, * A custom toll-free number, * A voicemail greeting for your business and for your employees, * A digital receptionist (IVR), * Call flow time conditions to forward calls during and after your business hours, * Recording phone calls for your records, * Setting up your own conference bridge, and * Sending and receiving faxes through a virtual fax. __TOC__ The phone features listed in this guide are interdependent. We recommend following the setup steps in the order they are presented. =Visual Representation= (...) =Setting up Your VoIP.ms Account and Devices= ==Understanding VoIP.ms Pay-as-You-Go Pricing== You may be scared by the Pay-as-You-Go model, but it allows you to actually make '''significant savings''' and is much '''more flexible''' than traditional phone providers. Let's walk through pricing together, but keep in mind that VoIP.ms splits its pricing in two parts, inbound and outbound calls. '''Inbound''' First, you will need one (or many) phone numbers. Say that you are a Canadian-based business, a toll-free number will cost you $1.25 per month. Second, you get to pay per minute, thus you will pay $0.027 per minute. '''Outbound''' As soon as your devices are set up, you can already make calls, you do not necessarily need to have a number associated to it. You will simply be billed according to your usage with 6-second increments. From our example above, outbound calls with toll-free numbers are free of charge (there are, indeed, some rules to the game!). '''So how much is this costing you?''' Say that in a given week, you and your team speak on the phone 4 hours per day (making outbound calls to generate sales!) and receive calls 2 hours per day. That is 6 hours per day, 20 business days in a given month, that is 2,400 incoming toll-free minutes (billable) and 4,800 outgoing toll-free minutes (free!). Therefore, your monthly recurring bill would be $1.25 for your toll-free number and $64.80 for all your business calls during the month with a fully hosted phone system, which yields '''$66.05''' for 120 hours over the phone! Please note that VoIP.ms charges in U.S. dollars. While it is true that we are a Canadian company, since the company started back in 2007 we adopted the USD as the global currency solution in order to reach and satisfy as many customers as possible. '''Ready to get started? Keep on reading.''' ==Devices== VoIP.ms has a Bring Your Own Device policy, thus you may either already have something handy or may decide to buy a new device. Whatever you choose, we are ready to support you. We have technical partnerships with most flagships companies for [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Devices devices], [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Softphones softphones], and [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/PBXs PBXs]. We strongly advise to have a [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Softphones softphone] installed directly on your laptop and mobile for fully unified communications. If this is a new term for you, here's is a useful [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Back_to_Basics,_What_is_a_Softphone_and_How_to_Leverage_It%3F blog article] we wrote. ==Phone Numbers (DIDs)== Once you have your devices, you will either get toll-free or local DID(s), or transfer your current one(s). 1) To get DID(s), you may get a [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Order_a_DID_Number#Ordering_a_Vanity_Number vanity number] which consists of a '''custom toll-free number''' (e.g. 1-800-1-OFFICE) or a regular [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Order_a_DID_Number#Ordering_a_Toll_Free_Number toll-free number]. You may also order a simple [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Order_a_DID_Number#Choose_a_DID_number local DID] if you wish to do so. 2) You may also [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Porting_a_Number transfer your DID(s)] from your current provider with our portability tool. This process usually takes up to 5 business days, so one way to work around this is to ask your current provider to do a [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Call_Forwarding call forwarding] to your new VoIP.ms DIDs in the meantime. Moreover, porting local and toll-free DIDs is free with VoIP.ms across Canada and United States. ==Sub-accounts== In order to set up your devices, you will need to [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Sub_Accounts create sub-accounts]. Sub-accounts allow you to register your devices as well as to create internal extensions for all your team. Sub-accounts are free and you can have as many as you want. With your DID(s), your devices and your sub-accounts. You are now ready to build a cloud phone system tailored to your specific needs. =Building a Tailored Cloud Phone System= ==Voicemail== First of, you will need a [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Voicemail voicemail] to make sure you are '''not missing any leads'''. Here are some tips (missing!!!) from the VoIP.ms team to have the perfect voicemail prompt. We strongly advise you to take the full benefit of our voicemail system and activate the voicemail to email feature where all voicemail messages are forwarded to your email address as an MP3 attachment. You can then create a voicemail for every employees that have an extension, you can simply upload the [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Recordings recordings] directly to our portal. ==Time Conditions== While it is highly likely that as a small team you are working more than regular business hours, '''you can establish your own call flow''' with [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Time_Conditions time conditions] where you can where decide to send your calls outside business hours and on weekends. ==Ring Groups== As you start hiring more employees, now is a good time to implement our [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Ring_Group Ring Group] feature. Say that you have a team of 3 employees dedicated to answering the sales calls to your toll-free line. By setting up a Ring Group, our system would ring everybody's phone at the same time until somebody picks up... making sure that '''your call answering rate''' is at its best! ==Call Forwarding== You may be at the office, at home, or on-the-go, but you should always benefit from unified communications and therefore to '''increase the likelihood of getting all your calls''', you should activate the [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Call_Forwarding Call Forwarding] feature. If you do not pick up your desk phone within a specific delay, the incoming call will be redirected to a number where you have more chance to answer (e.g. your mobile number). ==Call Hunting== [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Call_Hunting Call Hunting] is a great extension of the Call Forwarding feature. Call Hunting can be described as a '''logical flow to enhance the call answering rate'''. Let's take our example from above and say you have a team of 3 employees dedicated to answering the sales calls. At a given time, for whatever reason, they cannot pick up the phone, you could set it up so that after 20 seconds in the Ring Group you created, all sales calls are forwarded to your desk phone. You could easily create the following logical flow: * send the incoming call to the general phone line are linked to a Ring Group (your 3 sales employees!), if no answer (e.g. within 20 seconds) * send it to your desk phone, if no answer * send it to your mobile phone, if no answer * send it to your general voicemail. Call Hunting could also be leveraged with the Time Conditions feature discussed above. Say that you have an outside business hours emergency line for your key customers, you could simply input the escalation list in the Call Hunting feature. ==Digital Receptionist (IVR)== As your team is growing and your business is starting to take off, one easy way to enhance overall customer experience is to implement a [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/DigitalReceptionist_IVR Digital Receptionist (IVR)] with [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Calling_Queues Calling Queues]. Say that you now have 5 employees, 3 for sales, 1 for support, and 1 for accounting. You could easily guide the customer to dial "1" for Sales, "2" for Support, and "3" for Accounting with the Digital Receptionist feature. The Calling Queue will allow yours customers to wait on the line for their call to be picked up. Note that you will needs voice prompts in order to set up your Digital Receptionist. If you are not sure how to approach your scripts, take a peak at our [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/The_Do%27s_and_Don%27ts_of_IVR_Scripts blog article]. ==Caller ID== In order to get the '''best answering rate''' possible in your outbound sales activities, set up a [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Caller_ID Caller ID Number and Caller ID Name] so that your potential leads and customers pick up the phone. ==Call Recording== If you wish to '''maintain recordings''' of all calls made and/or received, our [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Call_Recordings Call Recording] feature allows you to download the recordings, send them to an email address or simply store them in your VoIP.ms portal. =Setting up your Conference Bridge= You may have employees working from home, or discussions with multiple that need to be bridged altogether - this is where our [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Audio_Conferencing Audio Conferencing] solution comes handy. =Sending and Receiving Faxes with Your Virtual Fax= Finally, if you or some of your suppliers are '''still leveraging faxes''', you can definitely benefit from our [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Virtual_Fax Virtual Fax] system where you can send and receives fax through a user-friendly interface instead of having a conventional fax in your office. You may also push this feature to the next level by activating the [https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Virtual_Fax#Email_to_Fax Email to Fax] feature where you will be able to send and receive faxes directly through your email. =Support= After following this guide, you are fully ready to do business while using VoIP.ms as your business phone partner. However, if you still need help or have any question, our team is available and ready to support you 24x7. '''Technical Support''' * E-mail:[mailto:support@voip.ms support@voip.ms] * Tickets directly through your [https://voip.ms/m portal]. * [https://voip.ms/?startchat=1 Live Chat] '''Porting''' * E-mail: [mailto:ports@voip.ms ports@voip.ms] * Tickets directly through your [https://voip.ms/m portal]. '''Sales and General Information''' * E-mail: [mailto:sales@voip.ms sales@voip.ms] * Tickets directly through your [https://voip.ms/m portal]. * [https://voip.ms/?startchat=1 Live Chat] * Phone: USA/Canada toll-free 1.877.786.4767 or 1.214.615.8599 worldwide

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