Phonebooth OnDemand Business Phone System Recognized for Innovation

We are pleased to share that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named Phonebooth OnDemand as a recipient of the 2011 INTERNET TELEPHONY Product of the Year Award.

From the press release:

“We are honored to be recognized for our simplicity and innovation,” said Jim Mulchay, Senior Vice President and Phonebooth Division General Manager. “We saw remarkable growth in 2011 as we enabled small businesses nationwide with our enterprise-grade business phone systems. Phonebooth OnDemand is the future of business communication. The coming year will see continued expansion of our features and services based on the generous feedback from our customer base and our industry.”

Phonebooth OnDemand is the industry’s simplest business phone system with one low, flat monthly cost, no contracts and no setup fees. Phonebooth OnDemand provides businesses reliable hosted VoIP phone services with advanced features that can be easily customized and managed from anywhere. The cloud-based business phone system comes complete with unlimited calling, local phone numbers and pre-configured phones. Businesses can get started using the Phonebooth OnDemand phone system in just a few simple steps at http://www.phonebooth.com.

“I am happy to grant Phonebooth with a Product of the Year Award. The editors of INTERNET TELEPHONY have verified that Phonebooth OnDemand displays quality and innovation plus provides real needs in the marketplace,” stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “I would like to congratulate the entire team at Phonebooth for their commitment to advancing IP communication technologies.”

A full list of the 2011 Product of the Year winners are published in the January/February 2012 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine. INTERNET TELEPHONY has been the authority in IP communication since 1998™.

Okay, we know it’s not the new year yet, but we’ve got some new stuff we want you to check out. We’re migrating our current Phonebooth Feedback Forum into our Phonebooth User Community. We’re excited about this because our community has all the features of our current feedback site, plus a whole lot more. You’ll still be able to add suggestions, comment and vote on the suggestions of other Phonebooth users. In addition to all that, inside the Community you’ll have quick access to a host of other Phonebooth related info like discussion forums, documentation, and tips & tricks from other Phonebooth users. As an added bonus, you don’t need an extra login – just use your existing Phonebooth username and password to access the Community!

What did we do with all the Phonebooth feedback in the old forum?

We’ve already gone through the old forum and moved the most popular suggestions over into the new Community. We still want your votes and comments on those suggestions. We’ve also gone through the comments in the old forum and tried to make sure most of the content is incorporated into documents, discussions, etc. We couldn’t move it all, but we got most of it.

How do I submit suggestions now?

It’s easy, go here, login with your Phonebooth username and password, and click “Create Idea.”

What does the Phonebooth Team do with my suggestions?

As always, we love hearing from our customers, and feature-specific suggestions are a huge part of that. The best suggestions are like this: “I’d love to see feature X in Phonebooth. Here’s why…” We value all of your input, and it definitely affects what features we build into Phonebooth.

When does all this happen?

The new Community is live now, so start sending your suggestions there today. This week we’ll be changing the old forum to read-only. You’ll be able to access it until Friday, Dec. 23rd, after that we’ll be redirecting everything to the new Community.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Some important year-end tax incentives end in 2011

In the hustle and bustle of everything else going on this time of year, please remember that one of the key provisions of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 expires on Dec. 31, 2011.

Take advantage of expiring business tax incentives

Certain capital expenditures, including IT hardware like phones, are eligible to be 100 percent written-off in 2011 instead of being depreciated over their useful life. In case you learned everything you know about write-offs from Kramer on Seinfeld, here’s what it may mean for you:

Typically, a $1,000 investment in Phonebooth phones would provide $350 in total tax savings (assuming a 35% tax rate). Without the legislation and assuming a 7-year depreciation, those tax savings would be realized over an extended period of time - in this case, $50 a year for the next seven years.

($1,000 x 35% = $350 / 7 = $50)

However, this legislation allows you to receive the full tax benefit of $350 in 2011. No need to wait seven years.

Is your business eligible for this tax incentive?

To be be eligible for the write-off, the purchased equipment must:

• Be new
• Be used in the U.S.
• Have a recovery period of 20 years or fewer
• Be placed in service in 2011 (Phonebooth’s phones are plug and play)

So if you have year-end budget and you’re considering upgrading your phones, or if you’re planning to hire additional staff in 2012, now may be the right time to purchase our industry-leading Polycom or Yealink phones. If you’re interested in taking advantage of this incentive, visit Phonebooth.com or call us at (855) 692-6684.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=upifaeK0B5U

Photo Credit: Ken Teegardin
Video Credit: superawesom12

We often suggest that businesses customize their recorded auto-attendant message to be a reflection of their company, but Alabama-based tech startup and new Phonebooth OnDemand customer Platforms LLC took it to a whole different level. They recently shared their creative auto-attendant message with us via Twitter. We think it’s a pretty nifty that they auto-tuned their auto-attendant!

You can listen to it here.

Please share your examples with us

If anyone has any another creative use of Phonebooth OnDemand features, please share them with us via @phonebooth on Twitter.

Designed to meet the needs of small and mid-sized businesses, Phonebooth OnDemand is an ever-evolving business
phone system, so we love getting customer feedback on our product.

To continue to help businesses like you free your voice, we rely upon your customer input to assist us in developing our product road map.

Today, we are proud to announce that the two most requested business phone system features have become available in Phonebooth OnDemand.

With 221 votes, time-based call routing for auto-attendants was the number one most requested feature update.

The second most requested feature, which came in at 176 votes, was custom music on hold.

Time-Based Routing

This new feature enables greater flexibility and control of your call handling process. You can now schedule time-based auto-attendants to handle calls according your business needs at different times of the day or weekends.

Custom Music On Hold

You can now personalize the music options played to your callers while they are on hold. We will still offer default music on hold, but any MP3 file will customize callers’ wait time to your business.

To read more about the newest features, visit the Phonebooth OnDemand Community article.

Thank you to everyone who voted

We wanted to extend a huge THANK YOU to all of our customers who voted to help convey the importance of these features for your business, as well as to all of the Phonebooth Team (developers and engineers, customer-facing service delivery and IT). More great features are already in the works and will be coming to Phonebooth OnDemand very soon!

Today, on Mashable, our very own Chris Moody discusses some of the reasons why VoIP makes sense for small business.

1. Say goodbye to clunky phone switches

VoIP phone systems use the Internet to transmit your calls and make phone switches obsolete.

2. Get better and faster customer support

VoIP customer support models eliminate the delays and additional costs involved in on-site technician visits.

3. User-friendly interfaces enable employees to manage the phone system themselves

Web-based interfaces make using telecomm easy today’s online savvy workers.

You can read the entire article here. Phonebooth OnDemand is well-positioned to help SMBs in need of a business phone plan.

The two most popular choices for a business-class Internet connections are DSL and T-1, otherwise known as a T1. On the surface, the main difference is cost. A DSL connection will cost around $45 per month, whereas a T1 connection will start at $300 month and go up from there. Cost is but an indication of greater differences between the two data connections. But what could possibly make a T1 line cost three to ten times as much as a DSL connection? It’s all the same Internet, right?

The main factors to consider in your purchase decision are speed and reliability. Fundamentally speaking, the difference comes down to reliability. If you want reliable, 99.9%+ guaranteed Internet speeds at all times, then a T1 is probably a good bet. If you don’t require reliability, then DSL may be fine option for you.

A T1 is a dedicated, high-speed Internet connection that reliably delivers 1.5 Mbps broadband speeds. It is guaranteed to be that fast by the T1 connection provider through a service level agreement, or SLA. Virtually all T1s from Tier 1 providers are under a SLA, as well as a mean time to repair (MTTR) agreement. This means if the provider doesn’t fix your problem, they will be faced with a loss of revenue, which is a motivator to keep you up and running!

Typical SLAs provide for 99.9% up time, or approximately 2 hours of downtime per month, and some carriers go to 99.99% or 99.999% up time on their T1. Your $300+ per month is buying you peace of mind and a guaranteed speed. These factors could be a high priority if you host your own website, download/upload a lot of large files, or use your Internet connection for VoIP.

As an alternative, DSL can give you speed (some providers claim up to 20 Mbps), but you never really know what speed you are going to get because you essentially share your bandwidth with other customers who are on the same “line.” As a general rule, the cheaper the DSL connection, the more people sharing the bandwidth. It is common practice for DSL providers drive cost down by putting more and more subscribers on a single “line” connection – this is called “over subscription” and is widespread among low-cost Internet service providers advertising cheap and fast DSL.

Furthermore, your variable connection speed could be affected by the local demand for bandwidth. When you use VoIP on a DSL connection, you will probably see things like voice quality issues in the afternoon when the kids get home from school. As long as you can accept that your broadband speed will be variable, low-cost DSL may be a solid choice for your business, especially if you primarily use the Internet for email and Web browsing.

There are a few other differences to be aware of as you contemplate your decision. Upload speed and the location of your office related to your carrier’s network are also important considerations.

One of the main issues that causes confusion with DSL connections is that the upload speed is markedly slower than the download speed. Most of our customers do not even consider this fact when getting ready for VoIP. Businesses often believe they have enough bandwidth to support their office with a 6 Mb connection – not realizing that they may only have a 128k or 256k upload speed.

VoIP technology demands both fast upload and fast download speeds, since calls go in both directions. The most common call quality issue for VoIP customers is that the call sounds clear to them, but the caller reports that their voice is breaking up on the other end. The explanation for this is simple enough. There just is not enough bandwidth to support the outgoing audio for the call.

In the end, it comes down to the reliability of your broadband Internet connection. At Phonebooth, we want you to have the best phone experience possible. We recommend that businesses use a wired broadband connection like Cable or DSL with Phonebooth VoIP phone service; however, you may need a T1, depending on the size of your company. A T1 will provide dedication and guaranteed service. It might not be as fast as some DSL, but it is far more stable.

When Phonebooths Bite Back

In Petrozavodsk, Russia, a local artist is giving phonebooths a little bite! Street artist Renald has been transforming the standard blue booths into fierce shark heads using custom cut cardboard stencils and black and white spray paint so it appears to be a shark head swallowing the phone’s user. Unfortunately, the phone company who own the blue booths isn’t fond of the shark attack as much. They’ve been removing and repainting the shark booths, bringing them back to their original basic blue design. However, it is rumored Renald is in search of stronger paint that will bite back when trying to be removed. We’ll see if that keeps the shark circling around.

Book a Trip to the Nearest Phonebooth

Looking for a new read? In one U.K. town, all you have to do is stop at your local “Bookbooth” and borrow a book. In the town of Somerset, an old red phonebooth has been up-cycled into the Westbury Book Exchange, a24-hour book borrowing service complete with more than 100 great reads and holds the title of Britain’s smallest library. Since the “Bookbooth” was started, nearly 700 applications have been sent by local communities seeking to convert phonebooths to street-side libraries. So far, 350 old boxes have been doled out to parish councils.

Telephone Tree of Life

Who said phone booths can’t grow on trees? The “Telephone Tree” by 65-year-old Barry Robinson proves that with a little scavenging and imagination, you might just be able to sproout a classic red phonebooth in your garden. The installation is comprised of three red phonebooths Robinson brought home from the local British dumps and recycled into his art piece. A three-pronged metal grinder forks out at the top to create a tree-like structure where he would attach each of his ponebooths. Needless to say, the neighbors were not fond of the tree, and after a while it was seen as an eye sore in the middle of a field.

Fishing the Phonebooth

There’s little chance that you’ll walk to the nearest neighborhood phonebooth to make a can and end up seeing fish doing laps around its dial pad. That is, unless you are in France during the Lyon Lights Festival! It is tradition that every house places candles along the outer trims of the windows to create an ambient and eye-catching display throughout the streets each December as part of the celebration. But artists Benoit Deseill and Benedetto Bufalino decided to take it one step further by turning a phonebooth into an aquarium. According to the artists, “With the advent of the mobile telephone, telephone booths lie unused. We rediscover this glass cage transformed into an aquarium full of exotically colored fish; an invitation to escape and travel.” I wonder who feeds the fish and how often?

Press 1 for Beer

The Dog and Bone Alehouse had a large guest capacity. However, when the new bar closed down right after opening in Cambridgeshire, England, they moved their tap over to a red British phonebooth. Local residents demonstrated against the local pub’s closing by creating their own local pub right on the street corner, installing a single-tap inside the booth that flowed beer from a keg located under neath. The bar stayed open long enough to pour a few pints for their favorite customers who waited in line at the smallest and most clever bar in town before closing their doors for good.

For over 50 years people have been talking about what they have and what you should have, if it is novel enough to talk about. This point reinforces one simple concept:

Brands must create memorable customer experiences.

Mediocrity does not create raving fans. Being okay does not improve your customer satisfaction. This point was reinforced by Pete Blackshaw’s book, Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. Customers have always talked and will always talk. The adoption of social media simply created new platforms for people to communicate with others.

While it is much easier to broadcast an experience now, this is not new. Create experiences that will get people talking. Provide a service or product that stands apart from your computers.

What brands are you talking about?

-Clair

The Phonebooth team hit the streets of Raleigh to find out what people really know about VoIP.

Do you know what VoIP is?

We went around asking if people knew what “VoIP” is. We had our fair share of weird looks and laughs. More importantly, we had the great opportunity to talk to real VoIP customers and hear what they love about it.

See what they had to say about VoIP

To us, it is obvious why VoIP is awesome – it is cheaper than traditional land lines and offers great features.

What do YOU love about your VoIP phone system?