A softphone lets you access your business line from anywhere with a data connection. You can often use a lot of the same features offered by your desk phone, too. Here are three ways to get even more out of your mobile softphone app.

Keep a strong data connection

Because your calls will be made over mobile data, you want to ensure that you have the best connection possible. If you’re walking in and out of buildings, you should turn off your Wi-Fi and only rely on your 4G data. As you walk by buildings, your phone tries to connect to Wi-Fi networks and will have variations in connectivity, leading to unclear or dropped calls. Instead, turn your Wi-Fi off so you have a constant data connection.

Configure call routing

A softphone provides a lot of options for how you want to handle calls. You can have simultaneous ringing, meaning your desk phone, mobile phone, and desktop app all ring at the same time so that you can pick up from wherever you happen to be. Or, if you’re usually at your desk, you might want to set calls to ring to your cell phone after 3 rings. Some choose to have calls ring to their desk, then their mobile, and then send to a separate voicemail inbox. Just talk with your customer support team to determine the best route for your calls to take.

Take advantage of features

The biggest mistake people make when using a softphone is seeing it as just a calling app. However, it’s so much more. You’ll be able to keep business contacts in the app separate from your personal contacts in your phone. And, you can conference more than one person from your business line. Best of all, some mobile softphones allow you to text your customers from your business number. Providing a new convenient line of communication is a great way to check in on customers and earn more business.

Mobile softphones are a great solution for people who aren’t always at their desk phone. You’ll miss fewer calls and be able to reach more people with the smart features included in a softphone app.

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You’ve probably heard this a lot lately. With the rise of remote work, we’re all relying more on conference calls for meetings. Conversations that used to come up naturally while passing by are now planned meetings, which changes the core of how we communicate.

People who are used to relying on nonverbal cues might be struggling with having smooth conference calls. That’s why we’re sharing the best kept secret about holding better phone conferences.

The Problem with Mute

Very often, once everyone joins a conference call, they announce their arrival and then put their phone on mute. And this is understandable – aside from keeping background noise to a minimum, it feels more likely that you’ll accidentally say something to your roommate or partner and forgetting that all can hear.

Unfortunately, when everyone is muted, you lose a vital part of conversations – the response. Often, by the time someone unmutes to make a comment, the original speaker has waited long enough that they feel that no one has anything to say and moves on. Not to mention, it feels like you’re talking to a blank wall and no one is listening when you’re talking into silence without the sounds of acknowledgement you usually get from others you’re speaking to.

And losing these small verbal cues is also what causes speakers to talk over one another. In a physical meeting, there are also nonverbal cues that someone is about to speak. They may sit up straighter, make eye contact, and even open their mouth a little to indicate they want to say something. Over the phone, you lose all of this.

All of these factors combined lead to stilted conversations, missed opportunities to speak, and certain people dominating conversations that should be more collaborative. That’s why our secret to better phone conversations is: don’t mute the mics.

How to Keep Microphones On

For most meetings, ask that attendees try to join from a quiet space and keep unmuted if possible. Be understanding that this won’t be possible for many – some have children or pets that are making a lot of background noise that you’ll want to mute for everyone’s comprehension. But do what you can to get as many microphones on as possible.

Give advanced notice that you’re expecting this to be a collaborative time, and that you will be asking for a microphones-on meeting. That will give your team time to ask other people in the home to help keep the noise down and let them retreat to a quieter room. Be open to shifting the meeting time to meet the needs of the most people.

When you have a microphones-on meeting, you’ll immediately hear the difference in how many people pitch in ideas and speak more naturally. There’s something about having to toggle the mute off that makes speakers second guess if what they have to say is important enough to unmute.

Give muteless meeting a try! Let us know how it goes. We’d love to hear how this works for your team.

The post The Secret to Better Phone Conference Calls appeared first on Vonix.

That means that even if you’re integrating live chat and email communication into your business, your phones are still incredibly important. Just as you regularly update your website and add new customer features, your business calling has to keep up with customer expectations.

How Technology is Changing Communication – and How it Isn’t

Today, customers have more avenues than ever to reach out to businesses – calling, email, social media messages, automated chat, and even texting. For younger generations that have grown up with all methods of communication, it can be annoying to have to call businesses for a quick answer. Meanwhile, older generations get frustrated with AI chat bots not understanding their needs and wish they could just call a human for a simple question.

Many businesses are relying on new communication technology to lessen their dependence on phone lines. But that’s not what your customers want.

No matter how many helpdesk articles you write or chatbot scripts you set up, you will always need to have a business phone line. Not everyone has reliable internet access or is computer literate enough to be able to navigate online support portals. And sometimes, people just want to talk to a person. To keep your customers happy and attract new business, you need to be able to proactively manage your business calling.

Business Calling Today

Many companies simply bundle a phone line with their internet service when they open a business location without realizing that all business phone services aren’t created equally. Studies show that 60% of callers placed on hold with silence for longer than 40 seconds hang up and 34% of those callers will never call back. That’s a lot of lost revenue that could have been saved with updated business calling features:

• Custom hold music: select high-quality music to give the caller confidence that they are still connected and make the hold feel less long.
• Custom hold messages: provide helpful information to the caller to either solve their issue before they connect or to keep them involved with the call
• Interactive voice response (IVR): allow the customer to choose the department they need to speak with to resolve calls faster instead of funneling all calls through one agent.
• Call reports: access reports to see call history in order to return dropped calls and reclaim lost business
• Callback: allow customers to hang up the phone and receive a call when their turn comes up instead of making them wait on hold
• Voicemail to email: get customer voicemails transcribed and emailed to you so that when you call back you can be prepared to provide excellent service

These are just a few ways that a dedicated phone company – not your internet and cable provider – can help you save lost business and provide customers with excellent service. Retain the customers you’ve earned and provide the level of service that earns referrals from your happy customers by updating your business calling.

Regardless of which additional avenues of communication you add to your business, one thing will always be constant: you need a business phone line. But more than that, you need business calling with features that help manage the calls coming in more efficiently. Customers are less patient with long wait times and you risk losing business by relying on outdated phone lines.

The post How Technology Is Changing The Way We Treat Business Calling appeared first on Vonix.