BCS Provides Business Phone System Sales, Installation, Support and Service

Ensuring Quality Conference Calls

Businesspeople in MeetingHolding conference calls is one of the biggest necessary evils in the business world. Clients tell us all the time how much they dislike the starts, stops and connectivity issues that go along with teleconferencing and how they wish there was a way to communicate effectively from afar.

However, there are some tips and tricks you can take advantage of to ensure that your conference call is perfectly productive.

  1. Make sure your staff knows the objective. This includes knowing details pertinent to the goal of the call, and making sure everyone knows that time is money and chit chat is wasting it. A short meeting before the call, or simply a whiteboard in the room with objectives and information displayed within eyesight can help. An informed team can effectively work together to achieve any goal.
  2. Test your equipment beforehand. Anyone in the technology sector will understand that equipment doesn’t always work properly. Screens can stay black, microphones can die, speakers can emit high-pitch interference, and internet can drop completely at times in any office building. But testing your setup a day or more beforehand can give you time to fix the minor problems you may encounter BEFORE the call with a prospective client.
  3. Find a quiet place. And we aren’t talking about meditation… a conference call that sounds like it is is coming from a coffee shop is never a good thing. It is unprofessional, and can lead to drastic miscommunication or instances of over-clarification. A secluded space, or even just a room with a door can make all the difference when trying to impress someone over the phone.
  4. State your name before speaking. Since the conference call attendees are not all in the same room, it is important for others on the line to know who is speaking so that they can better understand the context of your comments. In some cases you may also want to state your role, company, or location after your name; this is most relevant when your conference call includes people from other groups or organizations that have never met you face-to-face.
  5. Define a clear leader. Every conference call should have a clear, defined leader. The leader should be the ones that emails out the agenda ahead of the call, directs the conversation, makes sure everyone sticks to the agenda, pays attention to time, and sends any follow up action item emails or additional meeting invites.

Hospital and Medical Practice Telephone Systems

Do you handle IT and telecommunications for a hospital or a multi-location medical or dental practice?  Mitel offers solutions that work for almost every healthcare organization. Watch the video for a brief overview, and then call BCS Voice and Data Solutions and talk to one of our specialists about how we can help you make internal and external communications easier.

Our Office Phones are Down. Now What?

573_5391_5330_headset

It doesn’t matter if you run a law office, a medical practice, or a toy store, having office phones go down is a major problem for any business. Sometimes it takes time to realize that the phones have stopped ringing because calls within the building are still working. Other times, you may find out very quickly when someone tries to dial out. Regardless of how long the phones have been down, there’s always a bit of panic to get them back up as quickly as possible.

If you have VoIP, check that you have internet connectivity.  If the internet is not working, the phones will not work.  If the internet is working normally but you can’t call out or receive calls, resetting your router(s) or integrated access device may solve the problem.  If that isn’t feasible, or doesn’t work, it’s time to call your VoIP provider via a personal cell phone.

While there are many “DIY” VoIP office phones on the market, the support for such an installation may be almost non-existent.  BCS Voice & Data is a local company based in Virginia Beach with a fleet of vehicles and trained technicians that can be onsite anywhere from Richmond to Suffolk to Virginia Beach in short order (depending on Hampton Roads traffic of course).

If you find yourself in a situation where your office phones are down and you’re unable to resolve the problem, call us at 757-497-3100 and we’ll see if we can help your reach a solution.

Mobile Business Solutions

978_4691-fan1006746_uca

Not all business is done in the office. For companies with sales people, trainers, or repair personnel, on-the-road mobile phone connectivity is vital.  For companies that need mobile connectivity, Mitel Mobile Solutions offers many advantages over regular consumer cell phone plans.  Regular consumer cell phone plans have caps on data, charge extra for the use of a mobile hotspot, and mean yet another separate bill to deal with.

Mitel Mobile can support businesses of all sizes and any industry.  They offer the latest and most popular Android and Blackberry phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy models, as well as USB and wireless mobile hotspot–all for a price much smaller than other major cell phone carriers.  Plus! Mitel offers unlimited talk, text, data and hotspot use on all plans with no overage charges or data throttling.

If you’re looking for mobile phones to unify your office and wireless communications, we have the devices and rate plans that will work for your business.  For more information on how BCS can help your business communicate, call us at 757-497-3100.

BCS is a proud Mitel Exclusive Business Partner.

Telephone Etiquette Tips

 

Woman Office Worker

Good telephone etiquette should be common sense, but with so many options available for communication–email, text messages, the ubiquity of cell phone usage, etc.–the landscape of business communications has changed.   Here are some interesting statistics to keep in mind when planning how your business handles inbound calls:

  • While people are used to automated phone systems, it doesn’t mean they like them.  A recent study by a branch of the Pew Charitable Trust found that 94% of Americans find recorded voice greetings to be “very frustrating.”

Another recent study commissioned by The Telephone Doctor (a sales training company) found the following:

  • 85% of consumers indicated that telephone courtesy makes a difference when choosing which company they will patronize.
  • 65% prefer doing business with companies who have real people answering calls versus those that use an automated attendant.
  • 65% stated they are frustrated when placed on hold immediately after calling a company.

Of course it’s not always possible to avoid the use of an automated attendant, and putting callers on hold is sometimes unavoidable, but it’s best to minimize those occurrences. To ease the annoyance of the person being placed on hold, it’s important to always ask their permission first and wait for their acknowledgement.  Depending on the company, it may be best to implement a practice of returning calls promptly rather than leaving customers on hold.  This only works though if the customer service rep/tech/or sales person follows through with a call back that same day.

However your company handles inbound calls, BCS has the business phone system technology to streamline your process.  If you have questions about how your phones can work better for you, call us at 757-497-3100.

Technology Solutions for Remote Workers

What does working remotely bring to mind? Screaming kids and a sink full of dishes while someone tries desperately to work at a computer?

The reality is that remote working is on the rise. According to Forrester Research, 34 million Americans currently work from home, and they expect this number to reach 63 million by 2016 (43% of the workforce). Remote work can mean any number of things, from working at home at the kitchen table or in a home office, to working from a shared office space, to working from a coffee shop, or any combination thereof.

Allowing employees to work remotely has a number of benefits for both the company and the employee.

• You can hire top talent that isn’t able to relocate.
• Reduced expense. Less office space needed
• Happy workers. Commuting can be time-consuming and stressful.

Communication is Important for Remote Workers
It’s important that those who work remotely are able to communicate effectively with clients and co-workers. At BCS Voice & Data, we have a number of outstanding tools that enable remote workers to collaborate and communicate as if they were in the office. Mitel MiCollab, for example, updates presence information automatically, based on location, calendar, and time of day. This means managers, customers, and colleagues always know when, where, and how best to reach remote workers. Additionally, Mitel MiVoice Border Gateway ensures communication security no matter where mobile workers are or what devices they are using.

Contact BCS Voice & Data
If you have employees working remotely, or you are considering implementing remote work in your office, contact BCS Voice and Data for more information. Call 757-497-3100.

Spend Company Money Wisely

We know buying a business phone system isn’t fun.

Call us! We are experts on saving money on business phone systems. Just knowing the right thing to research can be difficult with VoIP, Hosted, Cloud, Hybrid Systems and more. We only care about getting your company the right system, not the most expensive one. We even offer warrantied used business telephone systems if that works best for you.

 

Since there are too many solutions to list here, a simple call will save you hours of research time. Call us at 757-497-3100 so we can work through your solution together.

 

We know when newer, faster, cheaper & easier systems become available and what will save your more money and time in the long run. We partner with Mitel, VMware, Panduit and more.

 

Summary
We know spending money on telephones is not fun.
We’ll make the buying process easy for you.
We partner with state-of-the-art vendors.

—The Staff at BCS Voice and Data… 757-497-3100

 

Business Telephone Systems Made Easy

Save yourself hours of research.

We constantly study telephone technologies so that when you call, we can ask the right questions and make clear recommendations with pricing. This way, you can take what we share back to your staff/partners and be the technological hero they know you are!

 

We’ll supply you with a clear list of everything you need to buy a business phone system. Call us. Once we have all the details, we’ll use our 30 years of experience to ask the right questions and save you hours of research.

 

All this reading and we haven’t heard one thing about VoIP, Hosted, Cloud, Hybrid and Call Center Solutions yet?

Yep. Most of our clients just want to know the time, not how the clock is made. You don’t have to know about all those things. That’s our job. The first step is for you to call us. The second step is for us to understand how you will use your phones before we start recommending solutions.

 

Call us!

—The Staff at BCS Voice and Data… 757-497-3100

 

Summary

30 years of experience……………………..We ask the right questions.

We know the purchase process.……………… We save you hours of research.

We give clear pricing. ..………………………….. We simplify comparison-shopping for you.

Download Our Guide to Choosing a Business Telephone System

Selecting the right business telephone system for your company can be a daunting task.  Over the years we’ve helped thousands of clients work through the process and have found there are some consistent questions and functions that need to be addressed, no matter what size the business.

As a result of our experience and expertise, we developed a Guide to Choosing a Business Telephone System, available in PDF format.  Click here to download a copy now.  If you have any questions, please contact us for a no-obligation conversation about your business phone system needs.

Ring in the New Year with a New Business Phone System

What are your business’s communications challenges?

  • Outdated phone units that don’t offer new features? 
  • Unpredictable monthly costs? 
  • Unwieldy cabling and cluttered wiring?
  • Limited and unreliable teleconference capability?

Every company is different, and that’s why BCS tailors our services and recommendations to each company’s unique needs.

For those with outdated phone systems….

As an exclusive Mitel partner, BCS can outfit your company with new business phones that allow for seamless communication. You can go with traditional wired units, cordless phones or even a desktop Softphone. Most even pair with mobile phones, so your employees never have to miss a call.

For those who live in fear of the phone system bill…

BCS offers Mitel AnyWare hosted phone solutions as the perfect alternative to traditional IP-PBX and premise based PBX systems. For one monthly fee on a per-user basis, Mitel AnyWare gives small business owners peace of mind. Even more, AnyWare grows with your business. Add users as needed and know exactly what you’ll pay.

hosted telephone solutions

For those who have no clue where those cables lead…

Hardware failure is one of the leading causes of network downtime. This is why maintaining hardware like cabling, wiring and server components is an essential part of IT operations. Entrust your hardware to our expert structured cabling technicians. They will install (if necessary), inspect and organize your company’s cabling so that a frayed wire or bad connection won’t bring business to a halt.

For those who want the whole picture…

Relying on consumer-level video conferencing apps to connect with remote employees and distant clients is fine to a point, but exceptionally professional organizations need teleconference solutions that integrate directly with their phone and Unified Communications systems. BCS sells, installs and maintains a variety of the latest enterprise level teleconference equipment and applications.

Whatever the problem is, make a 2014 resolution to update and streamline your company’s communications technology by partnering with BCS Voice and Data Solutions. We specialize in providing tech solutions like feature-rich business phones, hosted PBX service, Unified Communications suites and more to small-to-medium businesses in Hampton Roads and beyond.

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/luigi diamanti