In an era dominated by smartphones and digital communication tools, the question often arises: do desk phones still hold their ground in the modern business ecosystem? At Towner Communications, we believe the answer is a resounding yes. Desk phones, much like the classic vinyl record in the music industry, have evolved rather than become obsolete. Let’s delve into why and how desk phones continue to be an indispensable asset for businesses.
Key Takeaways:
Desk Phones Maintain Relevance: Despite the digital revolution, desk phones remain crucial in the business communication ecosystem for their reliability, clarity, and user-friendly features.
Unmatched Reliability and Clarity: Desk phones offer superior sound quality and fewer dropped calls, ensuring effective communication in critical business operations.
Simplicity and Efficiency: Desk phones ensure simplicity, boosting workplace efficiency and accessibility for everyone.
Advanced Features for Modern Businesses: Modern desk phones offer conference calls, CRM integration, and robust security, empowering businesses.
Security First: Desk phones provide unmatched security, safeguarding business communications from digital threats.
Towner Communications’ Innovative Solutions: Towner Communications delivers secure, reliable business phone solutions blending traditional and modern tech for dynamic enterprises.
The Future is Integrated: By leveraging the strengths of both desk phones and digital communication tools, businesses can enjoy a comprehensive, future-proof communication strategy with Towner Communications.
The Unwavering Value of Desk Phones
Despite mobile devices, desk phones excel in efficiency, reliability, and professionalism for businesses.
Reliability and Clarity
In the bustling environment of a business setting, clarity and reliability are non-negotiable. Desk phones ensure clearer, uninterrupted calls with superior sound and fewer drops than mobiles.
Ease of Use
For all the advancements in technology, simplicity remains king. Desk phones provide a straightforward, user-friendly interface that is accessible to all employees, regardless of their tech savviness. This ease of use is crucial in high-pressure situations where quick response times are vital.
Feature-Rich
Modern desk phones are not the clunky devices of the past. Equipped with advanced features like conference calls, call transfer, and CRM integration. These features enhance productivity and streamline various processes within a business.
Security
In today’s digital age, security cannot be taken for granted. Desk phones provide enhanced security over mobiles, making them safer for sensitive business talks.
Towner Communications knows success means adapting with effective tools that deliver consistent results. We provide advanced business phone solutions blending classic reliability with modern features.
Our solutions prioritize your needs, ensuring unmatched reliability, clarity, and security for seamless, safe communications. Our options seamlessly integrate with current systems for a smooth upgrade in communication strategies
Embracing the Best of Both Worlds
Navigating future business communications shows desk phones and digital tools as allies, not foes. Towner Communications merges both strengths, offering comprehensive, future-proof solutions for business success and growth.
Despite evolution, desk phones remain reliable and effective, trusted by businesses. At Towner Communications, we’re here to ensure that your business harnesses the full potential of these invaluable assets.
Stay ahead of the curve with Towner Communications—where tradition meets innovation in business communication.
Ready to level up your communication game? Picture this: it’s 2029, and you’re still rocking your ShoreTel system. Sounds cool, right? Well, not quite. The clock is ticking, my friend. Mitel’s end-of-support is looming on the horizon, and it’s time to make moves!
But fret not! Towner Communications, your trusty ally in all things Mitel, is here to save the day. With years of expertise under our belt, we’re primed and ready to guide you through this transition.
Mark your calendars for April 4, 2024 – a day of enlightenment awaits! Join forces with Towner and Mitel as we unravel the mysteries of migration. Imagine Dan Nemechek, the VP of Americas Sales Engineering at Mitel, sharing his wisdom with you. It’s going to be epic!
Don’t miss out on this golden opportunity to future-proof your business. Secure your spot now and let’s embark on this exciting journey together. Time’s ticking, but with Towner by your side, success is guaranteed!
See you on April 4th, fellow Mitel aficionados! Let’s make history!
Is your expanding business aiming for enhanced credibility and customer responsiveness? Acquiring a business phone number is the key!
With seven decades of experience, Towner Communications has assisted more than 500,00 companies in improving their connectivity through a comprehensive range of communication solutions. Explore the possibilities of obtaining your business phone number today.
Key Points:
Businesses of every scale require a dedicated work phone number to uphold a polished image in the market and efficiently cater to customer requirements.
Opt for a business phone service that encompasses toll-free, local, vanity, and international phone numbers.
Gain access to advanced functionalities like call recording, auto attendants, and call forwarding through your company phone number.
Ensure a dependable phone service by partnering with a top-tier provider offering award-winning support and state-of-the-art security.
What is A Business Phone Number?
A business phone number serves as a dedicated line for customers, vendors, and partners to connect with your organization. This dedicated line ensures the protection of your personal phone number and promotes a balanced work-life dynamic.
Contemporary business phone services have shifted to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, moving away from traditional landlines. VoIP enables you to maintain a team business line from any location, not restricted to your office. These business lines contribute to enhancing security and establishing a strong brand presence.
Are There Different Types of Phone Numbers?
Business numbers do not adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on your specific requirements, you can select the most suitable phone number for your business from the options below.
Toll-Free Numbers:
If you’re prepared to extend your presence across multiple states or the entire country, toll-free numbers prove to be an excellent option. This is because customers using landlines can contact you without incurring any charges. Additionally, toll-free numbers signify a well-established company and serve as an effective marketing tool.
Local Phone Numbers:
A local presence holds significant value in certain industries. For instance, a florist or catering business may aim to convey a hometown identity that feels more personal than national corporations. You have the flexibility to choose a business phone number with various area codes across the country, regardless of whether you have a physical branch in that specific location or not.
Vanity Numbers:
Have you come across those memorable phone numbers where the digits convey something about the brand or the keypad letters spell out the company’s name? These vanity numbers not only make for easy recall but also serve as excellent marketing tools. It’s advisable to seize the opportunity when such numbers are available.
International Phone Numbers:
Expand your business presence beyond the United States. Capture the attention of international clients by acquiring an international phone number at competitive rates.
What advantages come with having exclusive business phone numbers?
When potential customers are prepared to interact, they often turn to the phone. Although a website and an email address remain crucial, research indicates that 60% of customers prefer reaching out to local businesses through phone numbers.
A primary motivation for having a business phone number is to establish credibility as a legitimate company with real people. Moreover, customers often perceive phone calls as a quicker means to troubleshoot or resolve issues.
However, an increasing number of individuals now seek alternative forms of contact. If you opt for a traditional analog phone setup, accessing text messages, faxes, and email integration may require additional services and expenses.
Setting up an on-premise private branch exchange for team connectivity poses even greater challenges. Such systems are intricate, costly, and challenging to integrate with remote or mobile workers.
By leveraging Intermedia’s expertise, you can swiftly establish a VoIP line and achieve full functionality by the end of the day. Furthermore, your lines remain accessible anywhere through various devices, catering to remote and hybrid work needs.
Additionally, by consolidating all company conversations within your communication solutions, you ensure both security and accessibility. This level of security and compliance is unattainable when employees use their personal phones for professional communications.
How Do You Get A Business Phone Number?
You might be pleasantly surprised by how straightforward it is to acquire a business phone number. No need for a technician to visit your location! With just three simple steps, you can secure your own business phone number.
1. Pick A Provider
The quality of your business phone service depends on your communications provider. Contract with a company that appreciates teamwork and transparency.
For example, Intermedia insists on keeping our team accountable for giving you top-tier service and has helped thousands of organizations since 1993. With award-winning onboarding, support, and reliability, you can trust our brand to provide you with a cost-effective business phone line.
2. Buy A Phone Number:
Work with a representative to determine which types of the previously mentioned business phone numbers you need. If you have an existing number, porting it to work with your new vendor is straightforward and quick.
3. Set Up Extensions and Other Features:
For team members, assign individual extensions on your business phone number to enable callers to reach them directly. There’s no need to stress about perfect accuracy initially. Through your user-friendly admin portal, you can easily add or modify extensions and features later.
Even as a solo operation, you may choose to establish distinct extensions. By creating unique extensions for various departments, you can discern caller intent as soon as you answer.
The Cascade Hotel, a stunning new addition to Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza. It has recently opened its doors to the public. Drawing inspiration from the city’s numerous fountains, the hotel boasts a beautiful design that captures the essence of the locale.
As an integral part of this exciting project, Towner Communications is proud to have contributed to the hotel’s launch. Our involvement encompassed several essential tasks in the preparation for the grand opening. This included the installation of data racks on every floor, ensuring a seamless network connection throughout the hotel.
In addition, we provided a sophisticated Mitel MiVoice Business hospitality phone system. This advanced system not only integrates with the hotel’s property management but also incorporates room-specific voicemail boxes upon check-in. It also enables housekeeping functionalities. Allowing staff to input codes into the room phones signaling the room’s readiness for new guests.
With nearly 200 room phones installed across 10 floors, our integration extends to the front desk having the ability to control outside door access using the Mitel system, adding an extra layer of security and convenience.
In addition to our contributions, the Cascade Hotel offers a range of premier amenities. Featuring a food hall, a fitness center, and a convenience store. For more information about Cascade Hotel, check out this article from the Kansas City Business Journal or this one from The Kansas City Star.
Are you looking for ways to optimize your phone service costs? Managing essential expenses efficiently can be a daunting task. Towner’s Elevate Cloud Savings Calculator is here to simplify the process and help you save big on your cloud expenditures.
Calculate Your Cloud Savings with Ease
Towner’s Elevate Cloud Savings Calculator is a powerful tool designed to assist businesses and organizations in gaining insights into their cloud spending. Whether you’re using Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or any other cloud provider, this calculator will provide you with valuable information to make informed decisions.
Key Features:
1. Real-Time Insights: Our calculator provides real-time data analysis. You can track expenses, identify areas of savings, and make adjustments.
2. Multi-Cloud Compatibility: Analyze spending across cloud platforms, ideal for any provider or complex infrastructure.
3. Customized Recommendations: Uses patterns and costs to recommend cloud resource optimization.
5. Budgeting Assistance: Efficiently manage your cloud budget to prevent overspending
6. Cost Visualization: Visualize your cloud expenses with clear, easy-to-understand charts and graphs, making it simple to communicate your cost-saving strategies to your team or stakeholders.
How It Works
Visit the ServerData Elevate Pricing Calculator website: Go to CLICK HERE
Select Your Cloud Provider: Choose the cloud provider you use from the dropdown menu.
Input Your Data: Fill in the required information, such as your current expenses, usage, and any additional details specific to your organization.
Generate Insights: Click the “Calculate Savings” button to generate real-time insights, recommendations, and cost predictions.
Act on Recommendations: Implement the suggested changes to your cloud infrastructure and budget to maximize savings and improve efficiency.
Expertise: Towner and Intermedia are trusted names in cloud technology, both known for their expertise in helping businesses reduce telecommunication costs.
User-Friendly: The calculator is user-friendly and requires no technical expertise to operate, making it accessible to all team members.
Cost-Effective: Using this calculator is cost-effective compared to hiring expensive cloud consultants to assess and optimize your cloud spending.
Results-Driven: Our calculator is results-driven, helping you see immediate cost savings and plan for the future.
Constant Updates: The calculator is regularly updated to reflect changes in cloud pricing and industry best practices, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve.
Don’t let telecom expenses eat into your budget. Take control of your spending and start saving today with with Towner’s Elevate Cloud Solutions.
[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]HEY! Did you know that the industry average for upgrading or replacing your business phone system equipment historically has been every 5-7 years? In today’s world of urber newness, that’s like 75 to 100 in tech years! I don’t know about you, but when I hit that age, I’m going to be on a beach sipping cocktails! How long has that phone been sitting on your desk? Here’s the first hot tip that your, phones checked out to South Florida sipping mojitos…It has paper faceplates covered in whiteout! COME ON it’s mean to make Grandma work that long!
We get phone calls every day from business of all sizes that are still relying on equipment that is 10 years or older. It’s really embarrassing for them. Think Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell (insert Urban Dictionary definition HERE)…Not a good look huh? While every business is interested in watching costs it is a devastating mistake to continue thinking that you will deal with it when it breaks. This puts your business in crisis mode where the decision is based on “I need it now!” not is it what is best for my business. 2020 gave us enough crisis mode let’s start planning for our best business future.
Three steps to get started planning for a new phone system
MAKE A LIST: What are my current pain points? Are there things your old technology just can’t do, or things you’ve heard of you want to know more about? Shake your head yes because there are.
PUT SOMEONE IN CHARGE: Who is detailed oriented that can help gather all the info needed? This person should also be keeping the new information
CALL TOWNER: We can help get you started evaluating your business needs. Evaluation is FREE. You have NOTHING to loose but that old dinosaur!
Towner Communications’ Julie Towner on Staying Relevant in a Changing Industry
Acquisition and a willingness to embrace new market opportunities have been the keys to growth for third-generation, family-owned Towner Communications. The company started as a television repair company in 1965. Today it is a thriving B2B telecommunications company. Tune in to hear Julie’s story and her advice for growing your business.
Why Your Contact Center is Your Key Competitive Advantage (Video)
In this video blog, Mitel’s General Manager for Contact Center Brian Spencer discusses how mobility and big data are influencing customer experience, and how to transform your traditional contact center into a customer experience center for a sustainable competitive advantage.
Video transcript:
I’m Brian Spencer, the General Manager for Mitel’s contact center business, and I’d like to share with you our vision for the contact center as it evolves into the “customer experience center.”
Today’s consumers – they’re different. They’re not waiting until they get home to pick up the telephone and call into an organization to handle personal business. They’re working in real time. They want instant access to services – how they want it, when they want it. They’re typically going to start on a mobile device using a mobile app or a mobile website, some sort of digital tool. And, often, they’ll complete an end-to-end engagement and access the services they need autonomously, completely on their own.
Think about how you may engage with mobile banking. I know when I engage with mobile banking, I handle everything through the mobile app or the web app. In fact, I can’t remember the last time that I interacted face to face with a teller at the bank. That’s how consumers want to access goods and services, and that’s going to permeate businesses of all shapes and sizes moving forward – even yours.
So, my vision of the future is taking myriad contact centers and converging them into a center of excellence – a customer experience center – that is focused relentlessly on driving positive customer outcomes to create customer retention, loyalty, and long-term, lifetime customer value. How is that going to happen? Think about the customer journey. Your customers will engage through the mobile or digital tool of their choice. They’ll be on a mobile app and they’ll hit a point where they need to interact with a human. Today, there’s nothing more frustrating than getting 80 percent through accessing a service, having to stop, place a telephone call and start all over.
In the future, they’ll be accessing that service, they’ll hit the point where they need to interact with a human and, right through that mobile app, natively, they’ll be able to start a communication channel – maybe text-based, maybe voice-based, maybe video-based or using some media we’re not even thinking about today. But, in any case, it will come into that center of excellence, hit the right person at the right time – someone who’s relentlessly focused on pleasing them, who knows exactly what they’ve been through already and is able to pick up that conversation, creating a seamless transition from the digital tool to live assistance. They’ll be able to handle that sophisticated or more complicated requirement that couldn’t be handled through routine automation.
All of the data from that interaction will be captured, and business analytics will be used to allow management to constantly adapt the tools and the customer experience center processes and technologies to optimize the interfaces that customers want to use, increasing the level of service available through automation and also increasing the sophistication that the workers have in their ability to satisfy more complex tasks when engaged. They will be able to use that information to create a sustainable competitive advantage for your business, because you will be pleasing your customer better than your competitor down the road.
That’s our vision for contact centers transforming into customer experience centers in the future. I hope you share that vision and come along for the ride with Mitel and Towner Communications.
Google “business collaboration tools” and you’ll get 58 million results. Suffice it to say, there’s a proliferation of collaboration tools out there, especially over-the-top (OTT) applications to help your business.
Some tools are for chatting, some for conferencing, some for screen sharing, some for file sharing, and so on (to the tune of 58 million results).
Most organizations use a large number of tools for communicating, collaborating, and sharing, so it’s easy to understand how workers can feel overwhelmed by the different collaboration tools used between departments and vendors.
The company might have an official collaboration tool. But your department uses the free version of another tool for convenience. Another department is running an inexpensive version of the latest, flashiest social/mobile group chat platform. Several people use screen share software from a new startup they just heard about while your vendors are using the old standbys, and somewhere, somebody is still trying to use AIM.
That means your users’ desktops and browsers are cluttered with collaboration tools. The minutes wasted just figuring out which tool to use and updating to the latest version at the beginning of meetings begin to add up to hours, days, weeks of lost productivity. And security is probably a distant pipe dream. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can tame the overload.
Here are eight steps you can take to get your company’s collaboration tool situation under control, pare down the number of applications in use, and start standardizing across your business to increase productivity.
Step 1: Identify current tools
When you run out of space on your smart phone, what’s the first thing you do? You identify the applications that are on your phone and take a hard, honest look at what you do and don’t use.
When employees run out of the capacity to handle the deluge of collaboration applications in use at your company, the first thing that needs to be done is similar—take an inventory of the tools users have on their systems.
You’ll probably find multiple applications for chat, video-conferencing, file storage, file sharing, etc.
Make a consolidated list of all the related applications you find and make notes about the primary functions of each.
Once you have a complete inventory, you’ll have laid the groundwork for step two.
Step 2: Identify your business needs
Now, it’s time to understand what exactly everyone is trying to accomplish with the different collaboration tools they’re using.
Ask yourself, your employees, your vendors, etc. what exactly they use each tool to accomplish, and why they prefer the tool that they use.
Some common functions include chat, group chat, file sharing, video calls, video conferencing, screen sharing, simultaneous file editing, approvals, and task/workflow management.
During this exercise, you’ll be able to see not only what collaboration tools different groups prefer, but why they use each tool. You might be surprised to learn that workers value one chat tool when you thought they preferred another. Or you might discover that they place more value on file sharing than they do on video calling. It may turn out that employees engaged in shadow IT are using a different tool simply because it offers a better user experience. Maybe the most important feature isn’t an application or communications channel in itself, but rather a capability—like a persistent experience across mobile as well as desktop.
The more data you gather, the clearer your company needs will be.
You may be able to gather a lot of this data by scanning employee devices, but some sort of direct employee engagement will be required. Employees are typically happy to fill out surveys to indicate their preferences, especially if the survey itself is intended to help make their lives easier.
If some employees are nervous about sharing, it may be important to assure them they won’t be disciplined (if you have company buy-in for this) for answering honestly. Some workers may be concerned that using things other than company purchased and/or approved collaboration tools will get them disciplined. But if you don’t create a safe enough environment to have an honest conversation about your company’s tools, you’ll never get a true view to help you get tool overload under control.
Step 3: Map needs to tools
Remember the application inventory you gathered? Now’s the time to bring it back.
Map the needs you’ve identified to the current tools you have. Which tools are offering the most collaboration capabilities based on the feedback you received? Which tools are under-utilized? Which tools are rarely utilized?
Take careful note of what you have, what you need, and be honest with your responses.
This step is for analysis only: don’t jump the gun and start cutting out applications. There are other consideration factors than the most popular applications for your employees (although that is absolutely important).
Step 4: Understand integrations
Here’s where your careful evaluation in step three will come in handy. Knowing the collaboration tools worth keeping depends on more than how certain tools map to certain needs: it’s also important to know how these applications interact with other applications, other collaboration tools, existing software—including, but not limited to—CRM, ERP, CMS, etc.
Is it necessary for your collaboration tools to be platform agnostic? Mobile-first? Easily scalable?
Different businesses have different needs, which is why so many collaboration tools exist in the first place. Different tools integrate with different vendors, software and APIs. Be picky—your employees will thank you for it.
Step 5: Consolidate tools
You’ve identified your current tools, specified your needs, mapped your needs to existing tools, and ran through your integration needs. Now’s the time to head to the chopping block.
See where you have overlap between tools. Look for opportunities to consolidate multiple functions into fewer tools if possible. Cut the applications that do not meet your needs or have insufficient integration capabilities.
It’s up to you if you wish to have multiple application tools to use if that works for you—otherwise cut the collaboration application dead weight.
But remember, it’s important to ensure that your final list of tools serves your workers’ needs.
If you cut critical capabilities when you cut out tools, you’ll find yourself right back where you started—with workers embracing shadow IT and unapproved tools to fulfill their needs.
If you’ve done your analysis thoroughly, your collaboration application list should shorten dramatically. If it hasn’t, it may be time to repeat steps one through five again to maximize the benefits of this exercise.
Step 6: Establish collaboration tool standards and policies
One of the reasons team collaboration tool overload exists in the first place is that companies haven’t established standards for preferred tools, that they fail to provide/approve tools that meet specific worker needs, or that they don’t enforce existing standards and policies. It’s never too late to lay down a concrete foundation for company-wide tools and applications.
If you don’t have standards and policies in place, this is the time to create them.
If you already have existing standards and policies in place, review them to make sure they’re up-to-date, especially with the company-wide collaboration applications now in place. Communicate your standards and policies far and wide within your company ad nauseum—it’s crucial to get your message across the multitude of messages your employees deal with every day.
Lastly, empower your IT staff to enforce these policies, whether it’s blocking certain applications from downloading, or performing daily/weekly/monthly scans for unapproved applications. If you find violators, be sure to understand why. They may help you uncover an important gap in your standards.
]Step 7: Provide adequate training
After you have the tools you need, and standards in place, make sure you provide training sessions so your employees know how to use your chosen tools and feel comfortable with them.
You can have the best collaboration tool out there, complete with chat, conferencing, calling, storage, and sharing features, with mobile-first design.
If your employees can’t figure out how to use it or access it from their devices, adoption and usage will suffer.
Then they’ll download the collaboration tools they are comfortable using, which will result in multiple applications across your company, and before you know it—you’re back to collaboration tool overload. Train your employees, provide support templates, enable your IT staff to answer any questions, or provide vendor contact information for product support.
When collaboration tools that meet your company’s needs are used effectively, productivity soars.
Step 8: Monitor and adjust
Keep an eye on usage to gauge what’s working and what’s not. When you catch something that isn’t working, make adjustments to tools, policies, standards, or workflows as necessary to get your employee collaboration back on track. There’s no reason to stick stubbornly to a standard or policy if it’s simply not working.
Kiss overload goodbye
Collaboration tool overload is more common than you think, but you can tame with this simple eight-step process. Making sure you understand the “why” that created the overload environment is key to getting it under control. And when you do, workers will benefit, your company communications will benefit, and overall company productivity and efficiency should benefit as well.