In both businesses and education, there’s a critical amount of information that must get shared both quickly, and accurately. From scheduling, emergency communications, and health concerns, it’s important information can get shared correctly and in a timely way. 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of gaps currently present in these types of communications. There are however many solutions to this communication problem. A couple of examples: There’s retrofitting, or new technology designs that are made for old systems. It’s also possible to set up an entirely new custom framework. These designs can also be created to facilitate faster communications along with higher accuracy. 

If you’re in education and need to update or install a new bell system, along with a scheduler, knowing the basics of bells, clocks, and paging systems can help you decide how to move forward. Realistically though, it’s only a matter of time until paging and bell systems will no longer be effective. We’ll explain why…

Analog, paging, and bell solutions can be static or expandable. It depends what your exact need is as well as the manufacturer. The different packages usually will include a standard number of bell schedules. They also have the ability to use software for lockdown and evacuation, if ever needed. So what is the real difference between the two system types? The difference lies in how signal is transmitted. Analog systems send information in a traditional, baseband format, while IP solutions transmit information digitally.

VoIP is the next big trend. As with the development of modern, cutting edge technology, most institutions, especially schools and colleges, are adapting to VoIP systems that include bell systems and paging systems. Companies are switching to a VoIP extension for their paging systems so that they can come out of the analog world as well. These organizations are ditching the traditional paging and bell systems as VoIP adds a layer of dimension, expandability, and reliability in communication. Also VoIP provides safety and security upgrades for businesses and schools including their ability to be in alignment with their personnel, whether that is employees, managers, students, teachers, or staff. 

With all of that said, traditional, analog paging and bell systems at this point are antiquated, not ineffective. Do you agree? We’d love to hear your feedback!

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Legal Disclaimer: Veragy is not affiliated and does not endorse the products or services offered by any externally linked site. They are mentioned for the perusal and thought provocation of the reader. Use at your own risk.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) has been one of the biggest buzz words, and industry trends, in the world over the past several years. In fact, a wide range of applications fall into this category. A handful of UCaaS services can create a massive impact on any businesses, regardless of size. 

Whatever your goal is, having unified communications will have many benefits. UCaaS creates improved customer service, more efficiency in your business, offers cost savings, and provides flexible solutions for employees working remotely to work (which, oddly enough, increases employee retention). Unified Communications can meet all of the necessary requirements to help your business communicate better.

Here are the six main benefits of Unified Communications (UC) that every business should consider:

• Mobile devices can be considered an extension of the corporate network. This lets employees be more productive wherever they are, even globally.
• United Communications enables faster access to files. This includes sharing instantly on demand and across a variety of devices including your personal desktop, computers, and smartphones. It’s as simple as making a phone call or opening an app. Many are hardware agnostic, which allows for more choices and fewer proprietary restrictions.
• Communication between workers is greatly improved with UC. A team who works together on projects that are separated geographically will see the benefit immediately. This also allows businesses to have local representation around the globe without actually establishing a local office, saving the company a fortune.
• Salespeople can easily take conversations with clients and turn them into a phone call with a single mouse click. A salesperson can also instantly start a video conference and show clients their portfolio, presentation, or other important information. UC significantly increases their salesforce.
• Call Center/Contact Center solutions, while improving your customer’s experience, drastically improve corporate metrics related to efficiencies and profitability. With the enhancements of multimedia queuing, (chat, emails, SMS, etc.), your customers have options to communicate which was limited just a few years ago. Business to consumer interaction has dramatically increased. Many of these solutions are scalable so smaller businesses can access these enhancements without breaking the bank and can get an instant ROI.
• Cloud-based solutions are the key as part of your Unified Communications package. Cloud based solutions offer a more flexible and scalable approach for organizations with numerous offices and/or large numbers of mobile workers. These also gives a massive boost to your current premise-based solutions.

Not every business needs all the features and applications of a high-end UC solution. It is important to identify the needs of your specific business, and then specify the particular service of UCaaS which will add the best value to your business. Although this makes it even more critical for businesses to find a vendor partner more aligned with numerous best-in-class service providers, it is also an opportunity for businesses to explore in the pool of hundreds of companies offering this service and choose the best fit. 

We understand that as a business owner, you want a vendor who can truly be a trusted adviser and not just a channel for the manufacturer or service provider to sell their products. We pride ourselves on providing our clients with a single point of responsibility for planning, deployment, implementation, and support. If you have more questions, or want to know how we can help your business, please reach out to us at 888-501-5432.

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Legal Disclaimer: Veragy is not affiliated and does not endorse the products or services offered by any externally linked site. They are mentioned for the perusal and thought provocation of the reader. Use at your own risk.

VoIP, short form for Voice Over Internet Protocol, is a commonly used service in businesses across nearly every industry. 

A common misconception of this service is that it is a phone system only suitable for businesses on a bigger scale. However, the fact is that this is a wrong concept. VoIP has a lot of features that small business owners can leverage!

One of the most significant aspects of VoIP is that instead of a regular or analog phone line, VoIP allows callers to make and receive calls using a broadband or dedicated internet connection. This technology converts sound into digital packets and transfers it through the internet, similar to other types of data like the email.

Because of it’s digital nature, a VoIP phone system can be set up in any way that you can imagine it. If you can dream it up, we can set it up! 

So despite the most obvious reason, why do small businesses need to get set up with VoIP? Here are four reasons why:

1. Security 

VoIP is much more secure when compared to the traditional phone connection. Having standardized encryption protocols, this modern phone system keeps your calls and data away from those who would want to intercept them. This is nearly impossible in traditional phone connections.

 2. Portability

As long as there is an internet access, your VoIP phone system will work, regardless of their geological location. The most interesting part of VoIP is that it allows you to make and receive calls from multiple devices. For example, you can receive calls on your smartphone, your desktop phone, and in software on your desktop or laptop simultaneously. This ensures more frequent and efficient customer engagement with your business since your customer can reach a business at any time.

3. Cost-Effective

The OPEX (Operating Costs) for VoIP are remarkably lower than the traditional phone companies. Here are specific instances where your organization can save money through VoIP:

• Voice over Internet Portal remarkably cuts down direct costs local and global calls. 
• An organization doesn’t necessarily need to maintain separate networks for data and phones.
• VoIP allows to a user take office extension phone anywhere they go using a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, thus reducing the company’s mobile phone costs. 

4. Clear and Outstanding Call Quality

VoIP, as an emerging technology, has expanded in a way that the caller can not tell whether you’re using VoIP or a traditional landline. Today’s VoIP phone service has even surpassed traditional landline in terms of call quality.

That’s why at Veragy Solutions we believe it makes sense for small businesses that you reduce the operating cost of traditional phone services and switch to VoIP for your business. VoIP can be a great cost saver, and a super-efficient tool to boost up your start up, small businesses, venture etc.

Veragy Solutions is proud to offer VoIP services. To get a quote or learn more about how we can help your business, please reach out to us at 888-501-5432.

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What in the world are VoIP and UCaaS?

Let’s explore the differences between the these high-tech acronyms: VoIP and UCaas.

VoIP. According to voip-info.org, “VoIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet. If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.”

In other words, VoIP is a voice service provider for inbound and outbound calls. In fact, many businesses and organizations run their phones over some type of Voice Over IP provider.

So VoIP makes sense. What is UCaaS?

As said by Nextiva, “UCaaS, or Unified Communications as a Service, is an enterprise service method for streamlining all communications via cloud-based software services. If you’ve ever heard the saying ‘everything is going into the cloud,’ then you may already have an idea of what is Unified Communications as a Service.”

A simple way to understand the difference is that UCaaS combines multiple or all types of business communications into a single or simply-managed system. This can include voice calls, texting, chatting, faxing, video conferencing, and screen sharing. Within UCaaS, VoIP is usually the chosen solution for voice services.

So why is everyone talking about VoIP and UCaaS?

1. Save Money
“The average amount of savings businesses can expect range anywhere from 50% to 75% when they switch to using VoIP instead of conventional phone services,” according to a study from ACC Telecom. One reason is because the cost of local calls can drastically decrease along with other calling fees. Another reason is because with VoIP you can easily change or update your system without the extra hassle of purchasing new hardware.

2. Every Department Benefits
With a modern UCaaS in place, all different forms of communication are available. This provides simplicity of shared analytics data across people, teams, and entire organizations. Communication in the cloud increases productivity and is easy to leverage across departments. For example a phone conversation might turn into a video screen share or video conference across multiple users.

3. It’s The Future, Now
No longer will you have to worry about your technology falling behind as it continues to advance. Although there will be software updates along the way, it’s not difficult to stay up to date. Plus, you won’t be stressing about outdated pieces of hardware that can be expensive to replace.

4. Productivity Boost
Having the proper components of a unified communication system can create a bump in productivity. Through VoIP communications employees can work remotely, if desired. Working remotely has been proven to increase productivity by 20%. UCaaS creates engaging ways for customers and employees to collaborate, along with the use of traditional VoIP communications.

5. Advanced Features
Mentioned recently by Sangoma, “Features such as auto-assistant, call routing, music on hold, presence, find-me-follow-me, and many others help smaller businesses appear more professional and capable of exceptional customer service- which always increases business.” It’s a great way that can help your business appear larger, and more established with no extra cost!

These are only a few important facts VoIP and UCaas that can help your business benefit. Veragy Solutions is proud to offer VoIP and UCaas services. To get a quote or learn more about how we can help your business specifically, give us a call at 888-501-5432.

For more interesting articles and tips like this, please follow us on social media on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Legal Disclaimer: Veragy is not affiliated and does not endorse the products or services offered by any externally linked site. They are mentioned for the perusal and thought provocation of the reader. Use at your own risk.