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So, my old day job (that I still sort of work at) has a horrible phone setup. Being that it's 2013, I feel like there must be a better option for us, I just haven't found anything that looks great via googlefu. Goons know, so I ask - I do work for a non-profit management company. Part of what we do for our non-profits is give them a phone number and a mailing address so they look more professional. It's (my old boss's, let's call her sarah) job to answer whatever line that rings with the appropriate greeting - and each number has to have its own voicemail message. Right now, we have 5 lines, and it's a nightmare of cobbled together nonsense that doesn't really work well. We are very mobile and half the employees don't even come into the physical office, so we need to be able to get calls on a cellphone for these lines. It's all just sort of fallen on Sarah, and she doesn't mind answering 5 lines, she just can't tell who is calling half the time, and other stuff. The setup is complicated. Line #1 - One of our nonprofits has a hosted PBX service, and one of the extensions of that service forwards to Sarah's cellphone number. She sees the caller ID of the person who is calling, so she can't tell where the call originated from. Line #2 - Is a Google Voice number. You can set up google voice to forward to a cellphone, and show the number that was dialed instead of who is calling - so we have a contact set up for Line 2's number in her phone. She can tell what line is ringing, and she's happy with this setup. Line #3 - Is a google voice number. Unfortunately, you can only have one google voice account tied to one cellphone number, so we have this number forwarding to line # 4, which.... Line #4 - is an ATT Landline. It should be its own line that needs to be answered, but it only rings on its own like 2x a month, so we have call forwarding on this line going to Sarah's cellphone (which catches the calls from Line 3 as well) Line #5 - Is also an ATT landline, which we have forwarded to Sarah's cell. We are needing to add a 6th line, and at this point we're just thinking we're going crazy. Some of the other staff want to divy up some of the lines to take everything off Sarah's plate, but we don't know the best solution since we're all mobile, and technically all need access to these lines. I manage the PBX service through Intermedia for line 1, and it seems nice enough. You can set up extensions, do a 'find me follow me' thing where the line will ring sequentially at different extensions/phones if it's not answered in X amount of time, you can do voice menus - but you can't do things like we do with Line 2 where the caller ID shows the number that was dialed. That's really ideal, and key - we don't care so much about who is calling as much as the line that's ringing. Anyways, so I'm thinking some sort of hosted PBX thing would work, but we need one - I guess - with like a smartphone app or something where it's a virtual 6 line office phone. Which Intermedia doesn't do, so I'm thinking there is a better option. Or something oh god I'm driving myself insane. Please some goon save me from insanity and tell me how we should sort out this headache and support our business as we grow.
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| # ? Jan 28, 2013 23:25 |
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chickencheese
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| # ? May 18, 2013 07:14 |
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You can do all of this with Twilio, it won't be a whole lot of work but it isn't a prebuilt solution either. You can use any number for outbound caller ID by verifying that you have access to it.
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| # ? Jan 29, 2013 02:53 |
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twilio looks amazing, but I think it's a bit outside of scope. I'm the only technical person, which means I'd have to learn their API and script up all this stuff myself - which as kind a person I am, I don't really want to take that on as an unpaid job for my ex-boss. Not that she's unwilling to spend money on untangling her mess - it'd just be weird to ask for her to pay me. I'll google around and see if I can find any twilio partners or something - it seems like they have a really solid framework, so I'd be surprised if someone hadn't built a more turnkey service on top of their API...
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| # ? Jan 29, 2013 05:29 |
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It seems like Vocalocity would take care of most of your problems. I use it in my office (though to be honest I'm switching to OnSip purely for cost reasons). It lets you tag incoming calls based on the number that was dialed. You have a billion different options for call routing/call groups/etc. The only downside is that it's bandwidth hungry.
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| # ? Jan 29, 2013 06:43 |
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I took a look at both Vocalocity and OnSip, and to be honest, Onsip looked like the more expensive option - can you detail some of the cost savings you're looking at? Still, at ~$30/line, it's not bad for a PBX service, so totally within our price range. I went ahead and signed up for an onsip trial, it's looking promising, and they support SIP softphone apps for android and iphone. I think a setup like this would work if I ported all our numbers over to them, but I don't have any experience using VoIP softphones over other carrier's networks. I'd be a bit worried about calls dropping/call quality - anyone have any experience with this? Also, I've been searching for a SIP softphone that supports multiple lines - and seen only vague overtures in product descriptions. Is that even a possibility?
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| # ? Jan 29, 2013 18:23 |
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mindphlux posted:I went ahead and signed up for an onsip trial, it's looking promising, and they support SIP softphone apps for android and iphone. I think a setup like this would work if I ported all our numbers over to them, but I don't have any experience using VoIP softphones over other carrier's networks. I'd be a bit worried about calls dropping/call quality - anyone have any experience with this? Also, I've been searching for a SIP softphone that supports multiple lines - and seen only vague overtures in product descriptions. Is that even a possibility? Have you thought about hosted lync? The softphone client is very easy to use and you get android/ios apps for it.
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| # ? Jan 29, 2013 19:46 |
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BaconBeast posted:Have you thought about hosted lync? The softphone client is very easy to use and you get android/ios apps for it. Hmm, no I hadn't. Last I looked at lync it was just the 2010 version, and seemed like an internal messaging / video chat application. The Microsoft 2013 site claims all this enterprise PBX-replacement stuff, but I can't seem to find anything about it on any hosted provider's site. I'm an intermedia partner, and they have all these press releases about being 'first to market' with lync 2013, but there aren't any sales materials or setup instructions on their portal. Will look into it further though, thanks for the tip.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2013 21:15 |
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There's also a pretty simple to use windows based PBX called 3CX I'm running it for 50+ users. It supports any SIP based softphone, has an autoattendant and can forward to cell phones/etc. It runs on pretty much any Windows Client or Server machine, so you shouldn't have issues there. Supports a ton of VoIP providers as well including skype. You can also set it up so you have different autoanswers for incoming numbers or route the call to someone based on number dialed. I also believe it's free for up to 10 lines. monkeybounce fucked around with this message at Jan 30, 2013 around 21:52 |
| # ? Jan 30, 2013 21:49 |
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mindphlux posted:Hmm, no I hadn't. Last I looked at lync it was just the 2010 version, and seemed like an internal messaging / video chat application. For what it's worth, I use Lync extensively and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't support it though, so who knows if it's a giant pain or anything.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2013 21:59 |
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Falcon2001 posted:For what it's worth, I use Lync extensively and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't support it though, so who knows if it's a giant pain or anything. It's a giant pain if you're supporting a local installation. If it's hosted, it's easy.
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| # ? Jan 30, 2013 23:44 |
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monkeybounce posted:There's also a pretty simple to use windows based PBX called 3CX I'm running it for 50+ users. Cool, thanks for the tip. If nothing else, I like the 3CX softphone for windows/android/iphone, so that helps solve a problem regardless of who I use for my actual SIP/PBX service. I'm not sure if setting up an onsite 3CX server is the answer for us just in terms of bandwidth/uptime/maintenance - so I'm still trying to evaluate hosted services. Onsip looked great, but it's a 5 user minimum. We'll have 5 users eventually, but I think we want to get our feet wet with just one or two until I can convince the lady VoIP will solve her problems. and not implode the universe or whatever she is afraid of. Anyone used Jive? (http://www.getjive.com) - their demo video looks pretty awesome and easy to manage, but they don't really have a site set up you can play around with.
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| # ? Feb 12, 2013 22:20 |
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I run IT for a Call Center with 30-35 agents. I've been trying to replace our aging NEC 2000 phone system for the past couple years, but I haven't been able to get the owner to commit to any sort of investment in technology. Recently, I've been talking to two hosted phone providers, inContact and EvolveIP. inContact seems to have a very advanced software package with reporting, call monitoring, and integration features to rival modern PBXs from Mitel and Avaya. However, their per agent licenses (with monitoring) are expensive and it sounds like they still charge a per minute few for domestic calls. EvolveIP doesn't have quite the same featureset as inContact, but it is still much better than what we're currently using, their per agent licenses are much more reasonable and there are no additional fees for domestic calls, so their solution could end up being quite a bit cheaper than the traditional voice T1s and phone contract that we currently have. Does anyone here have experience using inContact, EvolveIP, or similar services? What was your impression of the quality of calls, quality of services, and the features that they offered compared to a traditional PBX? I noticed that some people in this thread mentioned onsip, so I contacted them and will try to get a better sense of what they offer and how they compare to the other services that I am looking at. Priorities for me are call quality, call recording, database integration, CTI, call forecasting, reporting, and the ability to have remote agents. I guess those are all pretty typical concerns, but I'd like to drag our call center into the modern age.
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| # ? May 10, 2013 18:56 |
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Aniki posted:inContact seems to have a very advanced software package with reporting, call monitoring, and integration features to rival modern PBXs from Mitel and Avaya. However, their per agent licenses (with monitoring) are expensive and it sounds like they still charge a per minute few for domestic calls. You've never priced out an Avaya system have you? Hell we pay something ridiculous like 8K a month just in support contracts for our Avaya setup. Throw in the cost of our Verint monitoring system and I bet inContact has a very nice price without the capital expense. I don't know what their pricing is like, but I can tell you from working in IT for our two call centers this poo poo is mega expensive.
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| # ? May 10, 2013 19:34 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 07:14 |
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skipdogg posted:You've never priced out an Avaya system have you? Hell we pay something ridiculous like 8K a month just in support contracts for our Avaya setup. Throw in the cost of our Verint monitoring system and I bet inContact has a very nice price without the capital expense. I don't know what their pricing is like, but I can tell you from working in IT for our two call centers this poo poo is mega expensive. I looked into Avaya as part of a package with Zeacom software. I really liked what Zeacom had to offer, but their software alone was initially quoted in the $80-100k range and presumably the Avaya system would have been another $25-40k and there was just way I was going to be able to get that approved. With call monitoring included, inContact started out quoting $115 per month per agent license. I am sure they can come down from that, but the bigger issue is that we'd still need to pay for domestic calls. I need to calculate the total cost of both solutions and see how inContact responds to EvolveIPs rates. If they can come down enough, then I'd prefer their setup, but I'm open to ideas at this point.
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| # ? May 10, 2013 20:19 |
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