What is SIP Trunking?

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a protocol used to establish voice connections over the Internet, namely using Voice of Internet Protocol (VoIP). Trunking is the unification of multiple channels into a single, unified channel linking various points to the proper receive on the opposite end. That being the case, SIP Trunking can be compared to “traditional” telephone lines.

The main difference is that all calls are translated into data, allowing them go through the data network, rather than the classic telephone networks. This means voice and data can and are transferred over the same network – namely the Internet.

With SIP trunking, you can retain all the functions of your regular telephone services, but all calls (both national and international) are made via the Internet.

Benefits of SIP Trunking

Switching your networks to enable the usage of offers your company a number of benefits

• Cut monthly costs up to 70%
• Call channels can be easily increased when needed
• Costs per call are much cheaper using SIP trunking services
• Free calls between your employees since it’s over your internet connection

Why choose SIP Trunking?

When it comes to the infrastructure of your calling systems, cost obviously plays a major role in the decision to switch to SIP Trunking. Not only does the switch to SIP Trunking offer simplified telecommunications channel, it also enables:

• Benefits for Convergence and Infrastructure: Rather than taxing voice and data services separately, SIP Trunking allows companies to consolidate these on a single IP network. Meaning that if you have multiple sites that already have a data connection between them, SIP trunking allows your calls to connect over the same data connection (in most cases, anyway).
• Scalability (phone numbers): With SIP Trunking, it becomes very easy to scale up or down in terms of capacity so your company always pays only for the numbers and call volumes you need.
• Multiple services through the same connection: Unified Communications (UC) applications for teleconferencing and e-mail, for example, can be connected through your SIP Trunk.

Let our trusted specialists help you evaluate your current situation and guide you to the perfect SIP Trunking solution for your organisation’s needs. Contact us, today!

Face to face meetings are not the only option when conducting business, especially during a possible pandemic. Here’s how you can continue to maintain collegial and client relationships, without travel.

Teleconferencing with International Colleagues and Clients

We need to keep up our workflows and maintain communication with our (international) partners. It is imperative if we want to maintain our economy. Now is the perfect time to (re-)implement the teleconference in your daily meetings.

Instead of cancelling already scheduled international meetings, set up a +800 number or local phone numbers so your colleagues and clients can dial-in to your conference calls. This will allow you to keep doing business as usual, despite travel and potential health restrictions.

In a local setting, it allows you to maintain communication with your direct colleagues. Perhaps your company advises to work from home. Or that only 2 people can sit together in a meeting room at the same time. The implementation of a virtual phone number allows business to continue as usual in the face of these types of decisions.

Your One-Stop-Shop Solution is… Right Here!

At TeleForwarding, we have the resources to implement free domestic or international hotline numbers and toll free phone numbers, and local phone numbers.

Our trusted specialists are happy to talk through costs and best features for the number(s) you want to implement in the wake of this Covid-19 outbreak.

There are a number of additional features available:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a pre-recorded voice menu, allowing your callers to make a selection using the keypad (“Press 1 for symptom disclosure”).
• Do you receive a large volume of simultaneous incoming calls ? The Call Queue feature allows efficient call routing, especially during busy periods. You can even add targeted messages and hold music for high volume call times.
• With Sequential Ringing you can forward your incoming calls in a certain order to different destination numbers. Is employee 1 not available? Then the call will be forwarded to employee 2, or to a standardized announcement text.

Interested in setting up a number today? Contact us with your business information and we’ll make it happen ASAP.

Check out our other articles about how hotline phone numbers, toll free numbers, and/or virtual local phone numbers can help your business through a global health crisis: Hotline Numbers for Public Health Information and Communications amidst the Coronavirus Outbreak.

On the home front

Municipal Symptom Disclosure Municipalities can set up free emergency hotlines to ensure that residents can anonymously call in and notify officials when they have symptoms of Covid-19. Call agents can direct residents to self-quarantine and/or go to the closest testing facility, for instance.

National Information Hotlines Free hotline numbers can also be implemented for residents to call in and acquire the most up to date information available from municipal, state, and federal governments about how the outbreak is being handled. Implement these hotlines for information such as risk level and in the event of a (city) lockdown.

Big Pharma, Manufacturing, and Distribution

Pharmaceutical companies can first set up Freephone numbers for their distributors to disclose any changes or delays in product import/export, since manufacturers may be in highly effected countries such as Singapore or China.

Moreover, a free hotline number for coronavirus can be set up for pharmacies to call and ask about distribution delays. Having this information is beneficial to customers asking when their (regular) medications will be available to pick up.

Your One-Stop-Shop Solution is… Right Here!

At TeleForwarding, we have the resources to implement free domestic or international hotline numbers and toll free phone numbers, and local phone numbers.

Our trusted specialists are happy to talk through costs and best features for the number(s) you want to implement in the wake of this Covid-19 outbreak.

There are a number of additional features available:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a pre-recorded voice menu, allowing your callers to make a selection using the keypad (“Press 1 for symptom disclosure”).
• Do you receive a large volume of simultaneous incoming calls ? The Call Queue feature allows efficient call routing, especially during busy periods. You can even add targeted messages and hold music for high volume call times.
• With Sequential Ringing you can forward your incoming calls in a certain order to different destination numbers. Is employee 1 not available? Then the call will be forwarded to employee 2, or to a standardized announcement text.

Interested in setting up a number today? Contact us with your business information and we’ll make it happen ASAP.

Like most companies, you are constantly evaluating your investments and efforts for efficacy and target reaching, right? Marketing campaigns are some of the most important places to do these types of evaluations. Too many times we focus only on evaluating website or newsletter data because it’s easily accessible and easy to analyse. However, studies show that the phone is not dead in marketing! Consumers still prefer picking up the phone to contact a company to get advice, give their opinion or ask for information.

Phone numbers are part of the marketing strategy

With that said, it’s important to remember to evaluate the success of incoming phone calls. When investing in toll free numbers, what you want is to analyse whether the toll free numbers are being used as intended and if it’s being done efficiently. This can easily be done by implementing call tracking in your company.

You can easily run these diagnostics with our online dashboard. Our IVR landscape allows customers to view and track call statistics to do such analyses. Different functions help to analyse the call even before answering the phone, such as where the call is coming from. Here, we’ll share the many possibilities how call tracking is beneficial to your company.

Improve call centre efficiency

Prior to taking a call, a voice recording share information about the country of origin of the call, what the caller has chosen on your touch-key menu, and/or which hotline the call is coming from. Having this information is valuable for many reasons. First, it makes it possible for your team to know in which language to answer calls, perfect for multinational business dealings. Second, your team will know precisely how to help callers with the detailed information provided. This can be especially helpful for call centres receiving calls from multiple lines. 

Improve client relations

You can also improve your relationship to your existing clients. With call tracking, the caller can be identified before taking the call, allowing you to address them by name. Moreover, the client’s data can be immediately accessed in your data system as it can be coupled with the incoming calls, saving time. This kind of personalisation is priceless when it comes to customer satisfaction!

Evaluation of customer service and phone numbers

Calls can also be evaluated after they’re done. After the call, you can access statistics such as length of the call, how long the call took, how quickly it was answered, how long the caller had to wait to be answered, and if (and/or how many) calls were missed while you were on the line. 

You want to know which phone lines and products bring in the most traffic or which country the call are coming in from? Call tracking makes this possible. With access to call tracking, you can check if and where marketing campaigns are succeeding and subsequently where you should increase your marketing efforts. In case of an emergency hotline, you can also check in which countries the hotline has been called the most.

Interesting in learning about all the possibilities of call tracking and how it can increase your company’s efficiency? Contact us today!

What is a toll free number?

Toll free numbers were first used in the USA in 1967 by large companies for special events with high volumes of incoming calls, to protect usual day-to-day incoming business calls. 

In England, toll free numbers developed around the same time while other European countries such as Germany invented them only in the 1980s. Toll free numbers are also called freecall or freephone numbers and are mostly accessible via the prefix 1-800 (for example United States or Canada), 0800 (e.g. Germany or the Netherlands) or 800 (e.g. United Kingdom or Italy), although other digit combinations exist in other countries, too. Thus, 0800 numbers cost nothing for the caller. 

So, simply speaking, a toll free number or 0800 number is generally used as an added value service number where callers can call for free within the country and all costs are paid by the organization who is offering the service line. But: While freephone numbers are always free from a landline, costs from a mobile may vary per country. Generally, these lines are used as support lines to help with substantive questions and/or complaints. That’s why, when calling their toll free numbers, a lot of organizations’ automatic call answeringsystems ask you to select a reason for calling before directing you to the right department. 

What is an emergency hotline number?

Historically, hotlines refer to direct communication lines. Pop culture has given us the idea that a red telephone exists for direct calls between important parties or countries in a time of war. Very literally you would be able to pick up the phone and be directly connected to the end user. Nowadays, a hotline number in telecoms refers to a phone number used for large scale incoming calls, often in times of urgency, without fear of a service disruption.

These days, hotlines are emergency hotline numbers commonly set up as exceptional and special events phone lines to connect people in need for specific information sources. In the case of large scale crises, like hurricanes or product recalls, they are set up as toll free numbers to ensure that the proper information is accessible to anyone who needs it.

Are you interested in more information or are you curious about how to set up your own toll free number or emergency hotline number? Contact us for more information.

In this instalment of the sustainability series, we thought it would be interesting to take a moment to take a closer look at air travel for business purposes. In the last post, we talked about the cost of carbon dioxide emissions on the environment and how its intensity seems to be growing exponentially. Here, we want to share some of our own ideas and strategies for minimizing our carbon footprint by changing our behaviour when it comes to business travel.

Business travel is a topic to worry about. It’s true that with the globalization of the economy moving as fast as it is today, there are some instances where it might be necessary to make the plane journey to face-to-face meetings. Albeit the sustainability issues, we won’t deny that, as some of our staff have out-of-country meetings which require air travel, too. For international partnerships which require crossing the ocean, we absolutely understand that it’s just not plausible to hop on the Queen Mary II to get across the Atlantic from the East Coast to fight the global climate change.

Cut back on business travel

However, there are a number of meetings that don’t require such long and difficult distances. There are plenty of times where carpooling or a train journey can take the place of a flight. Sure, it may take longer to arrive, but these alternative forms of sustainable transportation have their bonuses. Think about the time you could spend discussing the details for an important meeting with your colleagues, or simply just take some time out of your busy schedule to watch the world go by.

Currently, jet fuel, aviation gasoline as well as plane tickets are taxed very low (up to no taxes, for example in Germany) which has given the opportunity for airlines to offer lower and lower ticket prices. Moreover, many cheap airlines in Europe compete for the cheapest fares and are able to cut the prices, while railway providers (who offer green travel and a possibility for ecotourism) lag behind. As such, inexpensive air travel has become integrated into our business lives that we are so easily persuaded and addicted to traveling.

A European organization which promotes “a transport policy based on the principles of sustainable development” called Transport and Environment has created a briefing which suggests the possibility of a drastic increase in taxes in favour of sustainable tourism. In this case, ticket prices would inevitably be forced to rise. Now, for large, multinational companies, such an increase in the price of travel may not make a big difference regarding their monthly expenses. However, this could seriously damage midsize and smaller businesses who are at the core of economic growth and arguably the largest generators of today’s jobs. Even the slightest increases to their travel expenses, even if they are caused by sustainable practices, could create major budgeting issues, and even potential collapse of their businesses.

Maybe it’s not ideal or convenient to change the way we travel for business from flying to more sustainable transportation, but at the rate we are going, not only might businesses collapse under the financial pressures, but our planet, too. Changing to sustainable resources when it comes to traveling is absolutely necessary: the less we opt for unnecessary travel, the less flights are needed per day between destinations. This means that the large amount of carbon emissions from a large amount of flights can be drastically minimized, contributing to environmental protection! (In case you forgot, we suggest you reread our last article about the cost of air travel for global warming!)

Sustainable management by means of conference call services

Luckily, conference call services as we provide them can help out. In any case, making use conference call services will not be affected by a tax increase, meaning that businesses do not have to fear budgeting issues (to be honest, they are probably even cheaper compared to air travel!). Besides reduced cost, it saves every business traveller time, jet lags and offers a possibility to reduce our carbon footprint. And, last but not least, it does not produce any carbon emissions, making a huge impact global warming and climate change.

Also, corporate sustainability becomes more and more important for brands in terms of marketing and external communication. Many customers prefer sustainable companies over competitors without a sustainable strategy. By making a conference call with international colleagues instead of traveling by plane, your company makes a first step into becoming a sustainable business.

So, let’s think about those smaller, shorter trips and meetings which could be eliminated altogether. Think about the time, money, effort and greenhouse gas emissions that can be saved from using teleconferencing rather than traveling to and from constant meetings between national and international offices. Contact us today to get your toll free virtual number as soon as possible and help us save our precious planet!

A while ago digital magazine Model View Culture published an interesting article that defines big technology companies as new colonialists. As a company active and interested in the tech industry, we believe this article raises valid points every tech company should be aware of, so we’ve summarized the article for our blog readers.

These days colonialism seems far away, a thing of the past. However, according to Anjuan Simmons, author of “Technology Colonialism”, technology companies today are increasingly colonial in their actions which “can be seen in the veneer of sovereignty they seek to cultivate, how they work across borders, their use of dominant culture as a weapon, and the clear belief that “superior” technology is a suitable excuse for lawlessness, exploitation and even violence.”

According to Simmons colonialism can be defined by the following keywords: sovereignty, globality, cultural dominance and ‘being above the law’. Simmons shows that these keywords are all applicable to the big tech companies of today. We have summarized his argument by looking at each of these keywords.

Sovereignty:

Simmons defines “sovereignty” as “a right to conduct internal affairs without interference from other [nations]”. Technology companies, Simmons argues, can be compared to sovereign nations and are increasingly regarded as such by others and thus recognized as sovereign entities. CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos give speeches on international conferences, meet political and world leaders and sometimes work together with national governments (for instance when it comes to data retention and privacy). This adds to the idea that a tech company functions like a nation.

Additionally, Eric Schmidt argues that “the Internet will disappear” meaning it will become a seamless part of our experience of the world, resulting in the blurring of boundaries between reality, technology and technological companies. We will be provided with personal experiences that can only be brought to us by centralizing extremely private information. When the Internet will become invisible, the companies providing this information will also become invisible and thereby extremely difficult to detect and held responsible for their actions.

This means that, as technology companies become increasingly sovereign, they will be able to influence world politics and world leaders as they please and have the ability to “cause disruption on a global scale”.

Global Footprint:

The big tech firms of today are international and work across borders. Companies such as Google and Facebook are essentially advertising agencies and will need an ever increasing number of users to keep their investors happy.

Even though big international tech companies are present in many countries, the money coming in usually flows to their head offices, usually meaning Silicon Valley, and so does the data they collect. The central storage of data causes concerns because privacy laws are usually valid within one country only, if the data is transported to another country, who is responsible and which laws apply? With tech companies already becoming invisible, this becomes even more complex.

Cultural domination:

The tech industry with its (mainly) male leaders often displays elitist behavior. An example: although the services of Facebook, Google & Co are predominantly used by women and minorities, and their user data is sold at a great profit, it are precisely these groups that are most often blocked from working at technology companies. As Simmons state, top engineers “are rarely envisioned as women or people of color”.

Furthermore, as the products of the big tech companies are generally designed by white men for a global audience, there is little understanding of the diverse interests of end users. Even so, their products are used all over the world, the result: a loss of diversity in culture and cultural domination by a small group of tech giants.

Above the law:

The general public does not understand exactly how technology products and services work. At the same time we are becoming increasingly dependent on technological products. But it’s not just the general public that is becoming tech addicted, governments and other agents of the law also become more and more dependent on technology. Tech companies use this dependence combined with the ignorance of the general public to their advantage and get away with all kinds of activities other companies would not be able to get away with (such as disregarding copyright laws, unmonitored data storage etc).

So, if tech companies increasingly act as sovereign states, forming the almost invisible powers behind many of the technologies we use on a daily basis while disregarding the law, their activities will be increasingly difficult to track and it will be a great challenge to hold such companies responsible for their actions. This makes it easy for them to do exactly as they please: dominate the world. Just like the colonialists used to do.

What Simmons thinks of the big tech companies is clear and he urges investigative journalists to uncover and report abuse by technology companies. But what do you think? Do technology companies really abuse their power? Are they acting as new colonialists?

We’re looking forward to your comments!

With the focus on the development of mobile communication in Asia, namely China and India, WSJ D Live invited Bin Lin, co-founder of Xiaomi, and Vikas Jain, co-founder of Micromax Informatix, both producers of mobile phones. India is still a country where many haven’t used the Internet yet, but also where the phone is used as the main computer. But what is noticeable is that the vision and narrative of both companies that say they don’t sell technology, but an experience. It’s about using the smartness of the smartphone.

The learning curve is high which leads to customers buying new phones on average every 14 months. The market structure is also decidedly different to Europe or the US where carrier providers subsidise the hardware and enable customers to buy more high-end gadgets. In India you buy the hardware at the actual cost of the hardware. Companies release many models a year, similar to the car industry, all targeting their own customer segment. And users rapidly exchange their phones to match their experience, needs and income.

Also here the phone is not main communication device anymore, but merely a gateway to a bigger world. It is an enabler for an experience with the Internet, which then provides the access to all the services we would buy a phone for originally. This is also visible in China’s Xiaomi company starts branching out to other services, such as TV s or air purifiers, that contribute to a smarter home and are controlled by your phone. They see their phones now at the center of a bigger net, holding everything together, but not the only device.

The conference also shed light upon how leaders such as Facebook see the future of communication. Facebook has recently often been reproached for building a walled garden. Users don’t need to leave their environment anymore consisting of Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Now rolling out Instant Articles on Facebook this development will increase. But Chris Cox, the company’s chief product officer sees the company till to this day as a directory as well as medium to express yourself to somebody else. Recent developments are not there to change the vision of the company but to lower barriers and improve user experience. The most important thing is to enable users to see the things relevant to them. Inside or outside the Facebook environment makes no difference in strategy but only in decreasing the effort users need to make to reach their desired content.

Our platforms change, the content changes, but in the end we still want to communicate with each other.

Within their organisation, Coca-Cola found that the older generation of employees is fond of the voicemail services while their younger employees barely use it. With that in mind, keeping voicemail on your line at Coca-Cola is still possible, given you can prove “business critical need” – it is said that only 6% of workers chose to keep the service.

Just this past June, JPMorgan Chase & Co announced that in an attempt to cut costs they would also be cutting voicemail. With smartphones being ubiquitous in the workplace, and text messaging and emails taking over voice to voice communication, they found that voicemail was no longer useful. Before it’s dissolution at JPMorgan, already about 65% of employees had it deactivated, while some others found it to be an integral part of their personal business operations. An even more compelling case for cutting out voicemail: the company says they are able to save $10 per month per line.

Think about the smaller players

It seems quite clear that eliminating voicemail in both of these scenarios is an attempt to cut costs and prevent wasted time. But does the elimination of voicemail really save that much time? We spoke to our CEO and president Hans Lasonder about his view on voicemail and its current position in business commumications. He shared: “Through study I have learned that approximately 16 minutes are wasted per phone call received. So think about what happens if you get rid of voicemail and people start calling your general phone number – that means lots of calls going to unintended receivers, all of which will lose 16 minutes out of their working day by answering a call that voicemail could have picked up….”.

In researching for this article, we found that a similar statistic exists for responding to emails. The question here becomes: which is the more seamless form of communication – voice or text? Lasonder believes that at the end of the day it is the personal interactions, including tone of voice, friendly chitchat, etc., that are so important to business transactions.

Voicemail and the future

A professor at MIT says that most people don’t even listen to voicemails anyway, they just see who called and call back or send a text. The shift from voice to text seems like the natural progression as technology becomes more advanced. We asked Lasonder how he feels about this shift. He agrees that as technology changes, the market changes with it and there is an obvious push towards written communication.

Throughout our conversation, Lasonder maintained his position that voicemail still brings a personal connection which is important in business – an idea that resonates with others as well.  Moreover, Lasonder asked us to think about commuters or customers who still do not feel comfortable with writing texts or emails. For these people, it is much easier to simply dial the phone and leave a quick voice message. In other words, we need a way to connect the new text based communication with the more traditional voice based communication. Our current solution? Lasonder stands by our Voice2Mail feature. This feature sends the voicemail message as an audio file with its information to the receiver’s email, allowing them to see when they missed the call and to listen to it whenever it’s convenient. This feature is our way of making that connection between voice and text.

There are of course technologies that offer voice recognition in the making – Apple has mentioned developing Siri to be able to transcribe voicemails . With these types of technologies under way, Lasonder believes that in the near future we can create an immediate translation from voice to text thereby truly connecting global business to local people.

These days it is more and more important to increase convenience and we seem to be willing to pay a (substantial) price for this. One of the writers at TechCrunch shows how convenient the Amazon Dash buttons really are – and also how expensive, showing us that the Amazon price for paper towels is double that of Walmart. Is spending double the amount of money on daily use household products really more convenient than taking an hour out of your week to do shopping?

One of the most commonly talked about uses of the smart home seems to be in power saving technologies – motion sensored lights, remote power on/off from your smartphone, timed on/off of central heating, etc. There are many technologies out there with their own apps that gather information about your household products. However, there is a lack of communication between the devices currently dubbed as “smart” which essentially leaves the smart home not so smart after all – in the long run you still have to check each app separately to see what is going on with each different product. While SmartThings, Google, and Apple have infrastructures to connect their devices, they are not yet commonplace in the smart home market.

With that said, all the excitement about a connected home must be met with equal caution. Connectivity, as we’ve been hearing about quite frequently in the news recently, inevitably leads to the risk of privacy issues. Tripwire found some important flaws in current smart home tech that could lead to a new type of ‘smart criminal’. Tripwire warns that not only can these flaws allow hackers to disable security systems and unlock doors, they can also allow for access to detailed information from motion sensors and/or security cameras in the home – letting these potential criminals know exactly where homeowners are at any given time.

With the integration and interconnection of smart devices in the home, it will be interesting to see if our future continues to inch towards that of the Jetsons. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay