Another scenario when you should consider switching to VoIP is when you are moving to a new office and unsure or do not want to spend too much on cabling. Instead of running cables to each workstation for both voice and data, you can choose to only run the data cable as VoIP handsets work off the internet. This can also be true if workstations are not fixed and telephones need to move from one place to another all the time. With a VoIP handset, as long as you have an access point to the Internet, you will be able to connect your VoIP handset.

Another benefit of a VoIP system compared to traditional PBX system when making the switch from traditional analog phone systems is that with VoIP, you do not need to spend on the initial infrastructure of the PBX system which will set you back a few thousand dollars just for the backbone system. With VoIP, all you need to purchase are the handsets, which you will need to purchase with a PBX system anyway.

Finally, if your business has many international clients and is spending a lot on long distance telephone bills, VoIP is the perfect match for that particular problem. Call rates for major international destinations go as low as 5c/minute on our VoIP plan.

Getting your business ready for VoIP

As long as you have a decent broadband internet connection, your business is 70% ready for installation of a VoIP system. The most important task now is to be sure that all workstations that need a handset have a data outlet.

Next will be the broadband internet connection itself. With the availability of affordable high speed broadband internet packages, you should definitely go for the one with the highest speed to ensure good voice quality for your VoIP system.

With both the requirements taken care of, your business is finally ready to reap the benefits of the VoIP digital telephony system. Call us now to set up your very own VoIP system in your office.

Although there is much advantage of switching over to a VoIP system, it is still fair bit of money to completely change over from your traditional analog telephone system. The most significant expenses tend to come from the phone systems itself. New VoIP phones usually costs about $300 for an entry level set with support of up to 4 VoIP lines. Multiply that with the number of workstations in your business and you may come up with a prohibitively high number.

So when will VoIP be beneficial for your business?

Although the initial set up and switching over from your traditional analog phone can be expensive, there are many situations when such a change is justifiable.
We will discuss some of the problems that a VoIP system will solve, or processes that will be made more efficient with a VoIP system.

One such example is when your business has multiple offices or branches and you need to communicate daily between all of them. Traditionally you would be making a bunch of phone calls to and fro daily and besides adding up phone call charges, it is also inefficient. With your new VoIP system, you can have VoIP handsets located anywhere around the country or even around the world and because they are linked by the internet, you can communicate seamlessly among all your branches including dialing via extension numbers for free. You can even transfer phone calls to each other as though you are in the same building.

VoIP system will also be an effective option if your business model allows a good portion of your employees to work at home. Your employees will then be able to increase their productivity by cutting out daily commute time which can be huge. As long as they have a laptop or a VoIP handset at home and an internet connection, they can be part of your company’s telephone system in the comfort of their own home.

We have so far gone over the basics of a VoIP system and some advantageous scenario where a VoIP system will be beneficial to your business. In part 2 of our article, we will discuss on more scenarios as well as getting your business ready for a VoIP system.

With an 1800 toll free number, advertising campaigns that your business run will have an added marketing advantage. Your potential customers will regard a business with a toll free number to be stable and reliable. It is also a proven fact that free stuff works in marketing. People will generally be more receptive about calling your business if they know that calling you is free. The same can be said if you’re NOT running an 1800 toll free number and your competitors are. Your potential customers will be more willing to call your competitor now that a call to them is free while a call to you is not. Costs involved in acquiring a new customer is generally very high depending on industry so you should definitely get all the advantage you can and equip your business with an 1800 toll free number.

Another reason for you to get an 1800 toll free number is when you want to encourage response from your potential customers. One example of that is when you are running a telesales campaign, where every incoming enquiry has a chance of potentially turning into a paying loyal customer. Having an 1800 toll free number in this instance is often the best single thing that you can do for the campaign as nothing will increase response rate more than a nothing-to-lose free call from your potential customers’ point of view.

Finally, your customers will feel appreciated when your business provides them with an 1800 toll free number to call in for customer service. It shows that you appreciate their business and is willing to spend money on serving them even after they have made their purchase.
We all know that a satisfied and happy customer will be much more likely to make future purchases from us and even help us in our advertising with the most powerful form of advertising ever; word of mouth advertising. By taking good care of your customers, they will feel good about promoting your business and products to their friends and families so it’s a win-win situation for you as well.

Hopefully by now you would have all the reasons you need to get an 1800 toll free number for your business. If not, why not talk to us and let us answer any other questions that you may have?

The core of any businesses whether large or small, new or established is usually their relationship with their customers. Your customers buy from your business and not another down the road because of this relationship and any smart business owner will make it a key business point to take good care of this relationship. This is where an 1800 number comes in.

With an 1800 number, the very first thing your business will gain is the “instant glamour” and trust. Traditionally, only large corporations like McDonalds, Nike and Citibank have 1800 toll free numbers. Most people are thus conditioned to link 1800 numbers with a “stable, trustworthy business”. Having an 1800 now is easier than ever and will immediately mark your business up in the “stable, trustworthy business” part of your potential customers’ thoughts.

An 1800 numbers also comes with a number of additional telephony features for free that will be useful to manage your increased incoming calls. Such features include various types of routing options. You can route your 1800 number to a single point with unlimited conditional overflows so that if your first point of answer fails to connect, it will redirect the call to another point according to a list of numbers in order.

You can also redirect incoming calls to your 1800 number based on call state and region, so that a caller will be redirected to your closes branch office in their specific state or region. There are about 200 regions in Australia so your customers’ will feel like they’re getting a personalized greeting when their call is redirected to your branch in their region.

Finally, you can route incoming calls to your 1800 number based on time of day, so that you can manage important incoming calls even if your branches are closed for the night.

With your 1800 number, you can also setup an Interactive Voice Recording – Auto Attendant. You can use that handy feature to route calls based on the nature of your customers’ calls. For instance, technical support calls can be automatically routed to your centralised support center and urgent enquiries can be routed to your priority support number.

With all these benefit to your businesses and for such a small amount to get an 1800 number for your business, you should really think hard about why you haven’t gotten one. An 1800 number with us costs only $11/ month + incoming call costs.

We will be looking at even more compelling reasons for your business to get an 1800 number in the next part of our article.

You have to always keep in mind that you are only after a single good 1300 number and not ALL the good 1300 numbers. You already have a lot on your mind when you are starting or running a business. Don’t make this another needless worry for yourself. We can give you access to a very large pool of available numbers, so please ask if you have any questions.

Gold numbers? Platinum numbers?

While most 1300 number provider will provide you a list of 1300 numbers they have, some 1300 number provider will charge you a premium amount for certain selection of “gold numbers”. You can take a look at those numbers if you like, but generally, we tell our customers that it is usually only as good as the free numbers that we provide.

You will also want to make sure that the providers with the numbers for sale are not bidding against you for a certain number that you’d like to have. Some unscrupulous providers will do anything for some upfront cash!

Here at Telecube believe that our business is servicing our clients and we provide so called “gold numbers” and “platinum numbers” for you free of charge. All our numbers are free to pick with a 1300 number account with us. Since all our 1300 numbers are hand-picked ourselves, we offer a money back guarantee if we don’t have a number you like or we can’t source one for you.

Armed with all this information, we hope you are better able to understand 1300 numbers than ever before. Pick a suitable 1300 number for your business and get going today.

Picking an ‘easy’ number

Once you have decided to get a 1300 number for your business. The next step is choosing your 1300 number. Choosing a 1300 number can be a tedious process by itself as you would want to pick a 1300 number that is not only easy to remember but easy to call as well.

Most people will want to go for a 1300 number with lots of repeat numbers like, for example, 1300 888888. While it may seem like a nice number, it is often difficult and confusing to call as your customers will be guessing how many digits of the same that they have keyed in. It will sound alright on the radio if you do advertise there, but at the end of the day, potential customers often forget how many 8s that was mentioned in the radio advertisement.

It is often much easier to remember and to call a number with alternating number pairs such as 1300 11 33 11.

Picking a ‘relevant’ phone word

There is something you may want to consider when choosing phone words. If you are a new small business without much brand recognition, let’s give your new pizza business a funky name like Credos Pizza Place. Most new business owners are proud of their business name and might be inclined to pick a 1300 phone words that goes 1300-CREDOS. While this may make sense to you and people who know you, it probably does not make any sense to potential new customers, since they do not know what or who Credos is, not yet anyway. Perhaps a better phone words to choose for your 1300 number could be something like 1300-PIZZAS. That way, anyone who wants to order pizza would just need to remember to call 1300-PIZZAS.

We hope that you have gained some useful knowledge from this post and please do contact us if you have any questions at all regarding 1300 numbers. We’re only happy to assist you.

I don’t want any surprises. I want to pre-pay all my expenses including my 1300 number

It’s no surprise that since you are charged when you receive a call at your 1300 number, call costs can add up really fast if you are taking in a lot of phone calls. Before long, you may find yourself slapped with a phone bill that is beyond what you expected.

To avoid that situation happening, you should look for a 1300 number provider who is willing to bill you on a pre-paid basis. That way you can plan ahead on your phone bill and better manage your business finances.

At Telecube, we charge our 1300 number customers on a pre-paid basis and on top of that, we provide a 50% extra value when you first top up with us. Subsequently, all additional top up to your 1300 number account will have bonuses of up to 10% so you start saving as soon as you sign up with us.

I have multiple businesses using the same office phone. How do I go about it?

It is true that most business owner at some point or another will start up another business. Starting up businesses is like a drug. Once you start, you just can’t stop.

What happens when you have a number of different 1300 numbers terminating at your office phone? You’ll need to be able to identify which 1300 number a call is coming from so that you can greet your customer correctly.

What you can do when you set up your 1300 number with Telecube is to assign a custom caller ID to your 1300 number so that the custom caller ID shows on your phone when a call comes in from this specific 1300 number. This service is provided for you free of charge so you can have a custom caller ID for each of your 1300 numbers.

That wraps up our 2 part series on how to pick the right 1300 number provider and how to set it up to suit your business specific needs. We hope you enjoyed the series and give us a call at Telecube if you need any further clarifications at all.

See Part 1 Article

1. Do you just want an easily reached number that remains the same nationwide?
2. Do you need to have your calls filtered and routed by an IVR so only a call from your most important clients gets routed to your mobile?

The features of a 1300 number are endless but here is a general guideline to help you pick your 1300 number provider.

I want a 1300 number so that my business has a single, local contact number nationwide

If you are after a 1300 number for the sole purpose of receiving calls from your customers nationwide, your requirements are simple. All you needed to do is to ensure that the 1300 numbers provider that you want to sign up with provides you with multiple routing options such as state based routing; time based routing and regional based routing.

This will ensure that all calls nationwide will be routed to their local branches, before trying elsewhere. You may also want your 1300 numbers provider to have an IVR based routing system included for free within your subscription plan.

I want to filter my phone calls so that I only answer calls from my most important clients

Since you will want to filter all calls but those from your most important clients, you will need to make sure that your 1300 number subscription will have an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system for free, so that your customers can be filtered and routed to their respective points.

I want my 1300 number to take care of my faxes.

Do people even fax these days? I don’t want to buy a fax machine for that 1 odd client who insists on faxing me.

With Telecube, you can email the fax directly to our fax servers with the outgoing fax number as the name of the email such as 03xxxxxxxx@fax.telecube.com.au and we will transmit your fax to your recipient. You will need to provide us a list of approved email addresses that are able to use this service.

If you need to receive fax and have it routed to your email, you can nominate a 1300 number as a dedicated fax number so when your customers faxes a document in, we will forward it to you via email.

Check out Part 2 of our guide to pick the right 1300 number provider specific to your needs.

Unfortunately, many businesses simply cannot work without an effective fax machine. Whether it’s forwarding important documents that require a signature, or sending over large quantities of printed material, fax machines are a necessary burden. For that reason, most businesses need some sort of faxing capabilities: they cannot simply throw out their machine in order to cut costs. Besides, when you do receive an important message via fax, you may need to send it back through the machine after signing it. So, what’s the best solution?

Thankfully, Telecube’s fax to email service solves all of the above problems. By allowing customers to manage their faxes entirely from their email inbox, fax to email is revolutionizing the way people do business.

What is fax to email technology?

Instead of automatically printing out every single fax that your business receives, you can choose which ones are the most important, and which ones you can simply delete. These faxes arrive in your email inbox just like any other message, after which you can choose to deal with them in whatever way you deem necessary.

The e-mails are simply PDFs, which means that you can print them out, delete them, or send them to all of your employees electronically. So, if your business already does most of its work online, then fax to email is one of the easiest ways to keep your business running completely electronically.

How much does it cost to use fax to email?

If your business already has a 1300 number or an 1800 number, then there is no additional charge for using the service. Instead, all faxes are charged at the normal local rate of calling. When you consider that many businesses have saved thousands of dollars a year by eliminating costly ink and paper from their budget, it is truly amazing how cost-effective fax to email technology is.

If your business does not have a 1300 or 1800 number setup, then you will need to establish one before you can use fax to email service. After that, we simply enable the option to forward all faxes to the email address of your choice.

Summary

If you don’t like paying for your fax machine, but can’t afford to eliminate it from your business, then using fax to email technology is your best possible solution. It is extremely easy to set up and use, and offers substantial cost savings at all levels of your business. For these reasons, fax to email is increasingly becoming the norm in our modern world.

Who Needs 1300 Numbers?

It does not matter whether you have a small or big business, these numbers are always useful because they let your customers contact and book their orders on your number at local call rates. In present times, the use of SmartNumbers has increased many folds because of the competition among business companies, increased advertisement and marketing campaigns, and more awareness among customers. Hence, it has become a necessity for expanding businesses to use 1300 numbers for allowing your customers to contact you economically.

These numbers are also very suitable if your business has offices in different cities. In this case, the calls made from Sydney area will be routed to number in Sydney, calls made from Adelaide are routed to Adelaide number and so on. Telecube can give you a lot of customization in this regard.

Get a Better Understanding of Your Business

Unique 1300 numbers help you keep record of calls that come from your online/web advertising. You can also keep record of calls that come as a result of your offline advertisement such as TV, radio, magazine, directories, or any other media by deploying sophisticated tracking system. You just need to use unique numbers for each type of advertising to know the effectiveness of the media.

So these numbers give you a wider and deeper look of your target market and your brand demand in specific area. Keeping these factors in mind you can strategize your business, marketing and advertising campaigns and future expansion of your business.

What 1300 Numbers Bring to Your Business

1. Give more professional image to your business.
2. Let your clients know that you care about them.
3. Expand your business since Clients are more inclined to call at local call rates.
4. Relocating your business or changing your number does not need to change advertised and printed 1300 numbers.
5. These 6 digit numbers are easy to remember than 10 digit landline numbers.
6. Make your customers contact you quickly, easily and economically.
7. Give your business a more national look rather than a local one.
8. Better strategies to advertise and expand your business.

Difference Between 1300 and 1800 Numbers

1300 and 1800 numbers are almost similar with the only difference in call rates. Calling to 1300 numbers costs local charges from destination arranged, while calling to 1800 numbers costs the callers nothing.

We provide you:

1. Reliable and quality services throughout Australia.
2. The Best consultation for your telephone setup.
3. Telephone solutions which your business needs.
4. Quick response time to change requests.
5. The Best customer support service.

In short, whether you have a small business or large one, whether you are starting your business, planning to expand it, or trying to retain your market share, 1300 numbers are the life line of your business.