The convenience of a softphone app, simply explained

Calling and receiving calls with an (inter)national VoIP number.

In addition to calling via your usual mobile subscription, you can also make incoming and outgoing calls via an app on your smartphone. This is especially useful for business conversation. Via a so-called softphone, you can configure any business VoIP number on your smartphone and you only need an internal connection to use it. How exactly does it work?

Step 1; Activate your VoIP numbers
Working from home means that it must be possible to make incoming and outgoing business calls outside the office location, preferably on everyone’s own smartphone. For this, the company must have VoIP numbers, also called virtual landline numbers. These have a lot smart advantages anyway that are clearly explained in this animation.

Step 2; Install your softphone app*
Employees need to install a softphone app on their smartphone. These softphone apps are available for both Adroid and IOS and are often free to download. In the installed softphone app you can quickly and easily configure any (inter)national business VoIP number.

Limitless incoming and outgoing business conversations

The softphone simply only needs a mobile internet connection, or a local Wi-Fi connection to be online. Regardless of your location, you can now make international calls using the softphone app without restrictions and the recipient will see your business VoIP number shown in the display. On every (inter)national VoIP number installed, you can be reached on your smartphone anytime and everywhere.

What about the cost?

Transferring incoming calls to the softphone app are free of charge from national networks of the VoIP numbers, however there are transfer costs when you cross the border. Following situations are applicable;

• Receiving national calls: if you have a VoIP number in London, than forwarding all incoming calls within the United Kingdom to your smartphone is free at any location you are in the UK
• Being called internationally: if you receive calls on the London VoIP number from abroad, for example from a German caller, the forwarding costs will be charged for this
• Outgoing calls: outgoing calls on your VoIP number are calculated based on the destination you are calling to and whether you’re calling a landline or mobile number.

Finally a tip!

It’s beneficial for internationally operating organizations to have local VoIP numbers active in all countries where they do business as it improves local-to-local business conversation ensuring recurring business.

Curious about what is possible in your situation? TeleForwarding is happy to help you with your (inter)national accessibility or improving your current set of phone numbers.

* Free versions of Softphone apps usually link one VoIP number, in premium versions more than one VoIP number can be linked.

The most obvious way to keep your customers happy is to simply be available and easily accessible to them. In reality, not everyone chooses to do so which leads to far too many third-party companies offering services directing callers to a paid call forwarding service to find and connect them to the company that calling customers are looking for.

A recent Dutch study about this phenomenon found that three out of four calling customers have no idea that they are actually paying to call a call forwarding service. Moreover, an estimated USD 1.50 was spent per household on a paid call forwarding service in 2020.

Make sure your website builder posts your 800 number visibly!

When you hire a website builder for your company’s domestic and international sites, make sure you offer easy and quick access to a local 800 number. This shows you care about your website visitors and that you are a bonafide webshop in a sea of malafide webshops – a distinction that has led to more and more countries requiring webshops to provide easy access to their contact numbers and/or chat functions.

Your website builder should have the skills to build a site for each country where you have visitor and/or clients and, preferably, present a domestic 800 number that is clearly stated in the footer of on your contact page. With a clearly published 800 number, your customers won’t be forced to make use of a call forwarding service anymore.

Finally, high customer satisfaction and great client loyalty will result by making your company better and more easily accessible providing a domestic 800 number per country. Your domestic and foreign clients will close deals faster and your company could take advantage of cross- and upsell opportunities offering free of charge access for your happy clients who will come back for more.

TeleForwarding can help you make this happen with an one-stop shop telecom provider for business phone numbers in over 100 countries, all under one contract and without needing foreign addresses. We’ll make sure your customers’ experience is hassle-free, by connecting global business to local people!

It’s now just over a year that we’ve been living through the coronavirus pandemic; the largest health crisis to have affected the world, well, ever. The exponential speed at which this virus continues to grow and affect us in every corner of the world is unprecedented, and now more than ever, there is a need to have quick, efficient, and reliable lines for crisis communication. The speed of this has created a demand for a corona hotline in every country and within every organization.

In this article, TeleForwarding highlights the use and importance of a corona hotline for testing providers, testing locations, and clinical research, as well as custom corona hotline and messaging solutions exclusive to TeleForwarding. Take advantage of our expertise and experience within the clinical research and healthcare sector to help you streamline your crisis communications.

Corona hotline for testing providers and locations

Testing providers: We have clients with large influxes of coronavirus related inbound calls who have implemented a toll free number to scale-up their services nationally. This type of number can be an asset to your company, too. Having a corona hotline that is designated for questions and orders for your specialized testing kits and related products and/or services that are in high demand during this crisis, having a specific corona hotline allows you to cater to the large influx of calls without disrupting your telephone traffic on a regular business day. Alternatively, with the global scaling of your testing locations, you can set up a unique corona hotline for each country where you offer sales, service and support for your products. When it comes to questions, you can save even more time by creating custom voice recorded answers to the most frequently asked questions about pricing and distribution, among other things.

Testing locations: From scheduling and/or changing appointments, to discussing results and next steps, a coronavirus hotline is a huge and perhaps necessary asset for your testing location. Having a local virtual phone number for testing locations in different cities not only emphasises your proximity to clients, but also helps to scale your inbound and outbound coronavirus related calls. Alternatively, you can set up a single coronavirus hotline that gets redirected to the location of your caller’s choice, having one central number that you can advertise in all of your crisis communications, from marketing materials to e-mail signatures. Alternatively, you can set up a coronavirus hotline for each independent testing location so as to keep things simple for local callers and call agents responsible for handling call traffic in-house.

Corona hotline for clinical research

As it’s important to track participants experiences, potential side effects, needs, and results in wide-scale clinical research of various treatments for acute and ‘long covid’, having a coronavirus hotline is an imperative tool for your research team. You can use a coronavirus hotline for various steps and uses in your research: sign up and intake interviews, new/increased/decreased symptom reporting, follow-up appointments and surveys, and the list goes on. Due to the unpredictable nature of clinical research, the implementation of a flexible and reliable corona hotline is no doubt the simplest step to scaling your research across state, province, or country borders.

Custom corona hotline solutions

Are you looking for customised solutions for your corona hotline and crisis communications needs? TeleForwarding understands the need and is experienced with the set-up and maintenance of services for global service-windows enabling your organisation to be available 24/7 to offer your communities, customers, and employees with accurate and easy to access information. We can help you provide telephonic solutions for enquiries about business hours, visiting hours, appointment scheduling, as well as helping you offer them answers to the questions that might be keeping them up all night in relation to the current global health crisis. With the probability of your callers asking the same questions, we can offer custom solutions allowing you to create voice recordings to answer your most frequently asked questions at the press of a button using our voice response platform. Not to mention the fact that we have thorough and broad experience working with our clinical research and healthcare sector clients to create voice response from the callers’ side, giving them the autonomy to leave a message at their leisure rather dealing with long hold times. These are just examples of the types of customisable solutions we have offered clients when it comes to crisis communication, but our sales support team is always happy to think with you to create solutions that fit your specific needs.

Why TeleForwarding?

As you have read in this article, this question has actually already been answered. Specialized knowledge and skills for quick delivery of flexible, reliable, high quality connection to all countries on all continents; these are the core values upon which we pride ourselves at  TeleForwarding, especially in this extended period of the covid-19 pandemic. Our team of specialists with a combined multiple decades years of experience in the field of telecommunications understand the urgency for reliable, low cost solutions. It is our pleasure to contribute our international telecom services and to be a pillar of support for those who are directly involved in the fight against covid-19.

Think about all the time we spend these days sending threads upon threads of emails, taking calls, and attending Zoom-meetings. Days spent working from home tend to seem longer than those you spent in the office, don’t they? It’s become normal to find yourself led astray by the myriad tempting offers we find online while casually browsing and before you know it, you might have made a purchase, yet again, prompted by Facebook or Instagram ads leading you to an online store front. After just a sliver of guilt for a leisure spend during work hours, you feel the excitement of getting your new thing, be it an article of clothing or new set of pens.

No worries, it happens to all of us.

Online retail visits and sales projections

In fact, online sales have been breaking records as the number of online retail consumers, globally, in the first six months of the global COVID-19 pandemic rose from 16.7 billion visits per day to 22 billion visits per day, between January and June 2020, respectively. Additionally, it is estimated that there are over 2 billion online retail customers – that’s a quarter of the world’s estimated population!

The difference between physical goods stores and dropshippers

So it’s been a week since you’ve made your purchase. You’ve already e-mailed the seller asking for a status update and they have kindly instructed you to be patient, we’re working on it. “How long can it possibly take?”, you think, “the address says they’re just down the road”, right?

One of the biggest changes we’re seeing in modern e-commerce is the rise of companies who use dropshipping as opposed to selling their own physical goods. Whereas the latter requires the store owner to buy and hold stock of the products they are selling, the former makes it possible for the store owner to have an e-commerce store front where orders are sent directly to wholesale suppliers who send the goods directly to the customer. This means that stores who use a dropshipping model are able to offer goods at much lower prices than traditional brick-and-mortar-turned-e-commerce stores and more often than you think, your “local deal” actually comes from a few continents away.

Who are these retailers? Well, generally, the wholesale suppliers who actually send the product to the customer are based in China (usually from large scale e-commerce platforms like aliexpress or taobao). But often the face of the companies that consumers think they are buying from seem to be local sellers; leaving consumers stumped as to why their packages take so long (4, 5, even 6 weeks) to arrive.

These seemingly local stores then tend to rely on chatbots to deal with their customer service, but in some countries, such as Germany and The Netherlands, it is required by law to have a phone number connected to your website.

The customer service dilemma

Dropshipping retailers are by definition entrepreneurs, sometimes attracted to the main benefit of not needing a large investment or space to start a dropshipping company. However, what dropshipping companies don’t realise they are missing is the essential contact between the customer and the company, whether that be for sales or support.

In order to help the increase of customer satisfaction and sales, it remains a key factor for dropshipping retailers to maintain a local presence that is accessible via phone. Luckily, a physical phone or landline system doesn’t have to be the solution here.

Business phone numbers for dropshippers

Dropshipping retailers can now choose from a wide range of customer service phone numbers:

1. 00800 numbers which expand a company’s global presence and allows customers to call companies for free from 45 countries
2. 0800 numbers which home in a company’s global presence to a national level and are available to call for free in 100+ countries
3. Local phone numbers which hone in a company’s national presence to a local level and allow consumers to call companies with local area codes, at local rates

Modern telcos like TeleForwarding offer VoIP numbers which allow companies to route their business numbers through any destination number – mobile or landline – of their choice. Our additional features offer even more flexibility to give you the best use of your business phone number:

• 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”).
• Voice2Mail offers the choice to direct calls directly to voice mail, where the voice file is converted to text and sent to your company email address. This is great for calls that come in after hours so you can get to customers first thing the next business day.
• 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.

For dropshippers and e-commerce entrepeneurs, there is much to be gained and we at TeleForwarding would be glad to help you.

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

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!

Looking for quick and easy teleconferencing options? Want to set up a foolproof conference call for your teams/clients around the world without a glitch?

To help you get through your coronavirus isolation period, TeleForwarding is offering a Direct Dial In discount to make sure all your teleconferencing calls run smoothly! Contact us for more information and pricing.

What does this mean for your teleconferencing needs and how can you use it?

With TeleForwarding, you can set up Direct Dial In geographical numbers and/or toll free numbers in multiple countries. We provide a PIN code for your participants to key in when the line picks up their call. The good news is that each number can be used by several people, allowing your colleagues and/or clients to dial directly into the bridge with ease and comfort.

TeleForwarding is your one-stop-shop solution for all things telecoms!

We have modified our health and safety procedures to fit the recommendations from the government, as well as working remotely as much as possible.

Don’t worry, all current services and numbers remain operational and our team is here to respond to all quote requests and number activations. 

Still have questions? Our customer service and sales support representatives are available during regular working hours on chat, social media channels, and of course by email and phone: +800 0 SUPPORT / +800 0 787 7678

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.

Amidst the struggles of the current corona virus pandemic, your trusted telecoms specialists at TeleForwarding wanted to send out a simple reminder: in uncertain times your comms policy is important. In this article, we highlight employee comms and inventory coms.

Internal Comms: Employees

Larger companies can set up a free hotline for their employees to anonymously disclose their proximity to and/or symptoms of the novel coronavirus. This helps to keep HR and compliance teams up to date with the health of their staff. Hotline numbers can also give the option for employees to listen to a prerecorded message (via an IVR menu). Messages can have the most up to date information about health and safety policies, for instance. Or to disclose potential employee exposure to Covid-19. Global operating multinationals can have the same sort of international hotline. Extra options could include cancellation details about upcoming trainings or conferences.

External Comms: Inventory

Brands and manufacturers can also set up a hotline number for their distributors for information about expected restocking. With mass panic comes unnecessary “panic shopping”, leaving stores unprepared and out of stock. Products like non-perishable food items, medication, cleaning products, even toilet paper are the most common to sell out quickly. Having a hotline for inventory allows distributors to give the correct information to the stores they stock. Consequently, these stores can relay the information to customers looking for certain products.

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 landline numbers can help your business through a global health crisis: Hotline Numbers for Public Health Information.