I thought I would share this testamonial from a new customer of ours that we recieved via Email today.

Jim

“Hi Jim

We just wanted to send over this e-mail to say thank you for all your recent hard work in setting up our phone systems here at

Scott Trawlers (Plymouth) LTD.

You have communicated with us fully throughout the set up process, and have remained patient and courteous throughout…

even when we have had to digress onto our normal work tasks when you have been in the office, and we are very grateful for this.

You and your team have gone that extra mile to make the set up of the system as uncomplicated and stress free as you can ensuring everything

is running smoothly and to spec. The staff training you provided on the systems were clear and concise and you covered all aspects of any issues we may

or may not occur.

So once again many thanks to you and the team at Cobalt for your excellent service.

Kind Regards

From all the Admin Team at Scott Trawlers”

Your voice starts out as an analogue wave or vibration. Remember the telephone you built as a child with two cans and a string. The bottom of the first can vibrates; this vibrates the string, which then vibrates the bottom of the second can. In a traditional telephone these same vibrations are used to modulate an electrical signal transmitted over a wire which replaces the string.  In VOIP communications your voice is converted from an analogue wave into a series of “Data Packets”, this process is known as “Packet Stripping”. These data packets, which share the Internet with email, web page transmissions and file transfers, are then transmitted from one computer to another where at the destination the data packets are converted back into a sound wave you can hear.

The process of digitizing sound is well understood and as in the case of DVDs can be very high quality. In fact many DVDs are better quality than traditional analogue recordings.   Unfortunately, unlike high quality DVDs, which have the capacity to transport a large amount of data, the Internet has limited bandwidth (speed). Therefore when we digitize voice for transmission over the Internet we compress the data significantly more than the music on a typical DVD. This compression reduces the quality of the sound.

There are many standards for the compression of voice. However, in a typical engineering trade off; the more we compress the voice transmission, the more conversations we can transmit over the same Internet connection. The other side of this tradeoff is that the more we compress the voice the worse it sounds.

The vast majority of telephone calls today, even the calls made on your traditional home phone, are digitized. The traditional telephone companies use a compression standard called PCM or G.711. In fact VOIP telephone services that use G.711 sound just as good as traditional telephone calls.

Unfortunately this is not the whole picture. If your Broadband connection is not of sufficient quality or you are using a connection to also carry your Emails and you Internet connection then you will also start to see other issues.  And finally some VOIP providers use a “Voice Activity Detection” algorithm to reduce the speed they need for your calls. V.A.D. attempts to listen for silence between the sentences in a telephone conversation and stop transmitting packages when no one is talking. If the V.A.D. algorithm is inappropriately tuned the ends of your words will be clipped and overall voice quality will decline.

So whats the answer?  Aside from its limitations there is no question that this is the future of Telephony and should not be ignored when you are looking to invest in your company’s future.  Instead do your research on the providers you choose and above all else get some advice from somebody you trust to give good honest advice.  If you take the potential issues in to account and design the correct solution then you will be able to improve your communication with your customers while reducing your overheads.

If you have any questions then please give me a call and we can talk through your solution.

Jim

Customers expect more today from customer service than ever before. Businesses must ask themselves some telling questions to ensure they’re providing the best possible service to their customers.

• How does your customer service compare to your competitors?
• How many of your customers would be willing to refer others to you?
• How consistently are you able to provide an experience that not just meets, but exceeds your customer’s expectation?

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE

What the customer wants is immediate satisfaction. The phone rings, and the customer is greeted with a simple set of choices. One request later, and the customer is speaking with a human being. Within minutes, your Staff answer the customer’s questions, and the call is completed. Fast service and appropriate answers create a positive experience—and a satisfied customer. Everything that goes into creating this positive experience can be achieved with the right mix of strategy and technology. Satisfied customers and a competitive advantage—that’s what we are all striving for.

When a customer contacts your company, you must manage that customer interaction accurately and intelligently. A poor customer experience has a negative on customer satisfaction. Over time, poor customer service increases your costs, by forcing multiple interactions with multiple employees; it decreases potential revenues, by losing valuable cross-selling or upselling opportunities; and it forces your customers to consider dealing with your competitors.

Noted customer experience expert Seth Godin says,“more than 90 percent of customers change their opinion of a company based on the manner in which the company deals with them on the phone.” An exceptional experience, however, can change an ambivalent or negative perception into a positive one—and win a customer for life.  Customers who are delighted with the experience they get from your business become repeat customers, and not only purchase more over time but also recommend your company to their peers.

So how can we help you to deliver this?

• Help to provide consistency – By using Direct Dial numbers you can ensure that the customer gets through to the right person or department every time.
• Focus on serving the Customer via whatever their preferred media is; Voicemail, Telephone, Email.
• Integrate self-service as well as human interactions.  (Speech technology is an excellent way to capture customer information.  For instance if you are running a business selling commodities then an automated service allowing customers to order a brochure will not only provide a simple and easy customer experience but will allow your staff to dedicate their time to more valuable opportunities.)
• Strive to deal with your customer’s enquiry during the first call.  (Not only will this deliver a higher level of customer satisfaction but it will save your staff time in the long run and save them having to call the customer back later, this will save both time and money.)
• Ensure effective management of your team: The old adage of “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is very true.  Consider employing a good Call logging system, this will provide four benefits:

1.  Allow you to see who within the team is the most proactive and reward their actions.
2.  Assist you to see who needs training to maximise their skills.
3.  Provide an element of competition between staff to boost productivity.
4.  Allow you to measure the success of your team.

I have an excellent questionnaire which can help you assess your status and help to prioritise what’s most important to your firm.  Please contact the Office and we will be pleased to provide you with a free copy.

Jim

In my opinion, most start-up businesses get the entire process wrong from the very beginning which further down the line can cause problems when they need to expand or upgrade. Incorrect advice or hasty decisions often leave businesses suffering further down the line and I would like to offer my side of the argument to why Business should truly consider a Telephone System from the outset.

Have you been sold Feature Line?

When I talk to businesses about their Telecoms, Feature Line is a product very often mis-sold by your average BT Sales Advisor. Typically the average start up business will order a Feature Line which will incorporate both broadband and a voice service and hence providing your average Joe Bloggs with a functional phone line to start trading.

From afar, this seems like a cost effective starting point for your business but in reality as the business progresses and starts to see an increase in voice traffic Feature Line will begin to crack and show its severe limitations.

Why should my Business avoid Feature Lines?

Although Feature Lines work for some customers, many will notice the disadvantages very quickly which include:

1  You will be tied into a 5 year Contract – A high percentage of Feature Line Customers will be tied into a 5 year contract which will restrict the capability of moving to a more suitable supplier anytime in the near future. Do you want to tie yourself down for this long?

2  You will need 1 x Feature Line for each Member of staff you employ who needs a Telephone- That’s right, If you want to access even basic features such as transferring calls you will need a Feature Line for Each Member of staff. Typically this means a quarterly line rental of £240 + VAT for a simple setup with 4 telephones.

3  No Advanced Features – Feature Line is a basic product which is controlled by the BT Exchange. Only a Business Telephone System can provide your business with a cost effective and feature rich platform.

4  Broadband / Main Telephone Number Problems – Usually, Feature Line will be sold to you with Broadband attached to the line.  Whilst you may not think this is a problem, this WILL cause you major headaches further down the line. Broadband Service requires a single line to work so what do you think will happen when you need to expand your business? You now have a situation where your broadband service is attached to the line running your main Telephone Number. Now you have a situation where In order to expand the Business and have extra lines fitted into your premises, the broadband service must be removed from the line and re-installed on to a new line causing long delays and an an-necessary headache.

Why should we look at a Telephone System?

Ok, now lets get down to business!

A Phone System does NOT have to be expensive. For a startup Company you can rent a Telephone System for around £30 per month including installation, training for your staff and a full 12 month maintenance package. Is there a better way to spend your start up budget?

This will provide you with:

A Full Telephone System Setup to Receive, Make, Hold and Transfer Calls

5 High Quality Telephones for your staff to use

Voicemail for Day and Night Modes and Individual Voicemail Boxes for your employees

Automated Attendant ie, press 1 for sales, press 2 for customer service.

Full Support for 1 Year & Full Training

Bear in mind that Its not just about the price. You are looking for a Business Telephone Company who you can work with not just now, but as your business begins to grow. The right telecoms advice could make or break your business as its often your communications that provides your potential customers with a compelling reason to buy from you.

Choosing the Right Partner

1  Make sure the sales person who answers your calls is knowledgeable and honest

2  Do not buy anything you are not comfortable with. Often Sales People will try to up-sell you to a system you do not need.

3  Make sure that the system you are buying suits your budget and that it is flexible enough to handle your requirements if your business booms and you need to grow rapidly.

4  Choose someone with local presence or a national communications company large enough to look after you.

I wish you all the best with your Business Telephone System decisions. If you need any help or advice please not hesitate to get in touch.

Jim

So, what do we do about this? Apart from taking pain killers the majority of people do nothing, some may visit Osteopaths and Chiropractors and I have even heard of some people needing surgery as back and neck pain has been severe. This can all be avoided for the future by wearing a headset.

As extensive mobile phone users, most of us wear a mobile Bluetooth headset so are used to getting good quality calls but having our hands free when driving or walking down the street. We also use these devices to listen to music on our mobiles so why not use the same technology in the office?

For the past 10 years I have been lucky to be using a cordless headset and my visits to the Doctor and Chiropractor are no longer needed.  I believe this has made me more productive for the following reasons.

1.  I no longer have to take a message to call people back as I can walk around the office to get files or to refer to other members of staff.  This also means that customers are able to get hold of me first time without needing a call back, a sure win situation saving the company money on our phone calls.

2.  I can be contacted wherever I am in the building – no getting back to my desk and seeing “Post-it Notes” all over my Desk! So again being able to deal with the call straight away makes me more efficient and productive.

3.  Long conference calls are no longer giving me pins and needles in my elbow trying to hold the handset to my ear for and I can multi-task easily by typing or writing notes at the same time! A lot of suppliers now use “Webinars” as a way to train members of staff.  Headset are really helpful as these webinars are sometimes up to an hour long; a cordless headset can also mean you can make a cup of tea whilst still listening to the speaker!

4.  Headsets are proven to reduce neck and back strain by up to 31% and therefore staff take less time off work!

Speak to us now about increasing your Staff’s productivity by supplying them with a headset – it will save you money!

Wendy

As a self proclaimed Networking addict I often get asked why I devote so much of my time to it.  First of all it’s worth noting that this is by no means the only way that I market my business but one piece of the jigsaw that you need to have in your arsenal to build a successful business.  We spend a lot of time and effort in getting the message that we deliver to our customer’s right and communicated in the right medium for that particular client and only one element of this is Face to Face Networking.  I am often asked how I find the time to do this; firstly the most effective networking is done out of office hours. 

A lot of my Networking is done over Breakfast or Dinner.  There is a plethora of networking groups across the country and each of which cater for a different type of business and different types of individual.  Some are very structured and target based while at the other end of the spectrum some are more of a social gathering.  What all of these have in common is a group of Business People who are passionate about their business but who also understand that if you rely on your customers coming to you then you are missing a lot of great opportunities.

With the uptake of Social Networking the art of meeting potential customers face to face is as important as ever, each business has its own way of showing its product to the market.  If you just rely on social media then you are again limiting your market.

So down to the nitty gritty; is it worth the time you will have to invest in it? 

To date most of the business I have written has not been down to phone bashing but instead building relationships with clients over a period of time, building trust and being seen as a trusted business contact.  This has been nurtured over several years but now I have a successful business built on solid business referrals with clients who trust me and want to do business with me.  This means a that my customers do not put me in a pot with three other suppliers to see who gives them the best price but value my advice and trust me to do the right thing by them for a reasonable cost.

Face to face networking is a powerful tool to have as part of your Networking Mix and should not be overlooked as something that takes too long.  You need to commit to building this part of your business over several years but the end result stronger customer loyalty, improved margins and a feeling that you are doing business with people that I view as friends and not just customers.

Jim

 A busy local aerial company is operating more efficiently after equipping its vehicles with Cobalt real-time tracking.

 The company employs four engineers and has two of its four vans connected to the company’s Pay As You Go plan – is also using the online system’s optional Google mapping facility.

 Director Bill Flitney is particularly impressed with this feature. He said: “We install and repair aerials on blocks of flats throughout the region. The Google mapping on the Cobalt system not only identifies the whereabouts of each vehicle but can also give assistance to our engineers attending the flats.

 “I can see the work required on a particular building and assist the engineers form satellite dish locations by simply zooming down via the internet.  He added: “The advantages of this are enormous and can also be beneficial for locating access etcetera.  “On any building I can actually see possible dish positions and the actual size of the blocks we are working at, and this is crucial to assessing the size and possible difficulty involved in ensuring safe access.

 The system is also aiding customer relations.  “Customers are always asking ‘where is the engineer’ or ‘what time can we expect them’ and at last I can immediately give them an accurate time of arrival”.  “This is a brilliant customer care advantage: I would highly recommend the system, especially linked to the Google option.”

 The Cobalt system is also helping them operate more efficiently in many other ways. “If an engineer passes a job you may need to send him back the next day. However, by seeing where an engineer is you can prevent this, cutting down on travel and getting peace of mind,” said Mr Flitney.

Give us a call and we can discuss how this can help your business regardless of the size.

 Jim

Samsung is now the third largest Global Business in the world and has an excellent reputation for providing cutting edge technology as reasonable prices.  With a name that is recognised worldwide it provides a degree of confidence to the small to medium business owner.  The Samsung Telephone offering is a modular system.  This means that a business can buy a Telephone System today to provide connection for say 10 users but this can be expanded in the future to up to a maximum of 400 users without the need to replace handsets or throw away redundant circuit boards.

The biggest benefit to your business is the ability to provide Flexible working and Home working to staff.  The Samsung range provides the easiest to deploy IP handsets that I have come across.  While most other IP Telephones require configuring as well as often needing an IT company to configure a fixed link (VPN) between you and the office, the Samsung phones can simply be posted out to the end user who then simply plugs the handset in to a Broadband connection.  Some companies even choose to simply give the member of office staff a desk phone but the office staff know that if they need to work from home they can simply unplug the phone on their desk, take it home and plug it in to the Internet there.  Once connected the remote user can work as if they are in the office.  They can see who is on the phone in the office, answer calls that come in to the office from the outside world, hold, receive and make calls.

Wilfred Wood (Senior Product Manager from Samsung said:  IP telephony makes it easier than ever for businesses to implement more efficient working practices, such as remote working, conferencing and unified communications, whilst also delivering lower call costs through SIP trunks that route calls over the internet.  For multi-site organisations, it has the added benefit of unifying disparate offices with a single point of contact for customers, a unified extension numbering plan and the ability to make or transfer calls between sites at no cost.

Samsung can deliver all these benefits from the outset as part of a fully converged IP telephony system – an option that is especially attractive for businesses that are moving into new

premises or completely upgrading their network infrastructure.  But Samsung are also the perfect choice for the vast majority of businesses that still have separate voice and data networks

and envisage a more evolutionary transition to IP telephony and new ways of working. With support for traditional and IP telephony, the modular systems allow customers to add functionality and applications as their needs change or budgets allow, whilst preserving their investment in existing equipment.

Jim

Business demands high-bandwidth these days. Files are getting bigger, designs are increasingly image-heavy and an upsurge in the use of hosted applications, VoIP and VPN technologies demand higher speeds in the office.

Superfast broadband is certainly coming – and the roll out plan gathering in intensity, but for many areas, the use of superfast fibre broadband is still a way away. So how do businesses outside of the fibre-enabled regions stay competitive in a speed-hungry workplace?

The answer is Bonded DSL

*Up to four times faster broadband

*As much as 70% cheaper than Leased Line solutions

*Available anywhere with access to standard ADSL broadband

Cobalt Connect Plus Bonded DSL will offer businesses suffering even the slowest internet connections, dramatically improved speeds: both upstream and downstream. Bonded DSL binds together two, three or four standard ADSL broadband lines and offers greater resilience and reliability coupled with faster speeds to any premises.

Cobalt Connect Plus Bonded DSL could be for you if your business is:

1.  Suffering slow speeds due to a rural location

2.  In an area low down the list for superfast broadband enabling

3.  Unable to budget for the huge costs of a dedicated internet access connection

How Bonded DSL will benefit your business

• Faster broadband speed – both upstream and downstream

By aggregating the capacity of two, three or four lines, you can potentially achieve two, three or even four times your current performance. These multiples are just as true for uploading speeds, as downloading. Increased upload speed gives your business the opportunity to use VoIP or videoconferencing technology far more easily.

• By eliminating the disadvantages of being far from an exchange

Distance from the exchange may be limiting your current broadband speeds, and there’s not much that can be done about that. But opting into Bonded DSL gives you multiples of that current speed, always based on the highest performing line, providing you with the best potential performance. What’s more, as Bonded DSL uses current infrastructure, there’s no big installation bill – even if you’re miles from the nearest exchange. All you need is a phone line for each broadband connection you wish to bond.

• Offering greater reliability and resilience

No business can last long without an internet connection before taking a financial hit. One line, and one connection means just one fault, and your internet goes down. Businesses can lose a lot of money waiting to get reconnected.

With Bonded DSL, you’re now connected to the internet on multiple lines. That means if one goes down, you have your other lines as a safety net – they will continue to perform, giving you an unbroken connection even in the event of one line failing.

• Bonded DSL won’t break the bank

As the Bonded DSL solution makes use of the ADSL lines already installed to your business, you avoid the huge upfront investment needed for alternative solutions such as dedicated connections. With no custom-installation and no physical disruption, ordering Bonded DSL is a much simpler process. It’s also easier to budget for as you’ll only be paying for what you use. The costs are very transparent: you pay for each line you bond (each of which requires a phone line) and then additional usage as you need it. What’s more, you can scale according to your needs – perhaps start with two bonded lines and increase when you have the budget.

• It’s quick to order and install

Some dedicated solutions not only cost an arm and a leg – but you can be left waiting for months for the install to be completed. Bonded DSL is a much more instant fix, taking just 10 days from order to installation, once phone lines are in place – compared to a typical 72 days for a DIA solution. It’s so simple to install, you’re able to get on with business, whilst the technical stuff is done in the background.

If you would like to know more then give me a call and we can talk it through!

Jim

Best of all Skype can be connected directly in to our Telephone Systems!!!

It has been announced that the £5.2bn take over of the Internet Telephony giant Skype has been agreed by the boards of both Microsoft and Silver Lake, the leading firm in the investor group that picked up a majority stake in Skype in 2009.  Also eBay, who bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6bn and retained a 30-percent stake when it sold the service off in 2009.  The Skype network currently has around 170 million users and carried over 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010.

Microsoft said in a statement on Tuesday that its acquisition of Skype would “increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and generating significant new business and revenue opportunities”.  “Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. “Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world.”

It is planned that by the end of 2011, Skype will become a Microsoft business division called the Microsoft Skype Division. According to Microsoft, Skype will “support” various Microsoft devices.

This means that in the near future we will start to see not only Skype on the PC but also on Xbox Kinect, Windows Mobile Phones, Microsoft Outlook, Lync and other communities. Apart from the Windows version, Skype can be downloaded for Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone and Symbian, and is also integrated with TV sets from manufacturers such as Panasonic and Samsung.

Jim