VoIP PBX Solutions

Fonality is updating its software to Version 5. Here are some of the highlights.  Please contact me with questions.

Back end is now Asterisk 1.6 – this means a faster, more efficient call processing engine that can take advantage of newer multi-core and multi-threaded processors.  In addition, there are new codecs available to us that open up a lot of opportunities for future enhancements.

Extensions / users:

Users – we realized at Fonality that more and more often, users have multiple extensions, so now, rather than having an extension assigned to a user, we have users who have one or more extensions assigned to them.  This allows us to do some more interesting things in HUD and creates a more cost effective way for a user to have multiple extensions.
Add user wizard – because of the new user based model, we now have a wizard for adding extensions.  This allows you to (list out options).
Extension Status – FONscore
Fonality Professional and Enterprise – pick and choose your version
Toll restriction – The ability to only allow certain dial plans to be dialed by certain users.
ACD improvements:
Queue autofill – rather than one call being distributed to an agent at a time, we can now pass calls to agents as they come into the queue, completely bypassing any music on hold if an agent is available.

Queue priority – The ability to prioritize one queue over another.  This allows you to set up 'priority’ queues for special customers.

TTA SLA – How many calls were answered within X number of seconds?
Reasons – You can now create reasons for your agents that they have to choose when logging out of the queue.  These can now be reported on.
ACD reports – new reports: Reason reports, SLA reports, export to CSV
Other CP stuff
Call quality reports
Phone settings – download config via LAN or via Internet
Enable firewall

HUD
New supported OS’s – Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Windows 7

Linked HUD is here!  Allows you to see call status, barge/monitor, view and join conference rooms, retrieve parked calls, add linked extensions to a queue, etc.
New permission to block chat on a per user basis.
HUDdy list – shows the people you talk to most often
Location settings – set your location
Transfer from on hold to another extension or voicemail box
Agent log out reasons
Agent per queue logout
Whisper
Notification when being barged or recorded
Permanent agent different icon
Readable server-side chat log
Format.xml – stored server side, and allows for custom modification of dialing preferences and caller ID display
HUD Queues
New queue stats:  TTL SLA, Duration, Idle, Calls, Avg talk time

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBX solutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony with Enterprise, Call Center and UAE (SalesForce and SugarCRM integration) editions.
 
LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server,  voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

www.lightbound.net

 Check it out on you tube LightBound's newest a commercial showing our data center, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JxBZCCZuv8

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

 

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBX solutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony with Enterprise, Call Center and UAE (SalesForce and SugarCRM integration) editions.
 

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed servers hosting, Shared Storage server,  voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise. 

LightBound is also expanding. Be on the lookout for our new state of the art 47,000 sq ft. Data Center coming out of the ground and available for occupancy in first or second quarter of 2011.

www.lightbound.net

 

 COMPARING IP BASED BUSINESS PHONE SOLUTIONS

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to not just survive but thrive during the downturn, an IP phone system may be just the answer. It will give them communication capabilities previously available to only the largest companies. It will let them work in ways that they would have found impossible before. It will help them accomplish more with fewer resources. And it can save them considerable money.

But even if a company is more than ready to move to IP, choosing the best system for its individual circumstances isn’t easy. There are several contrasting approaches to IP telephony, each with its own benefits. The biggest differences among them are who owns, operates and maintains the equipment, and where it is physically located. These differences produce major variations in cost, convenience and ease of management.

This report analyzes the three leading options, which go by the names of premise, hosted and hybrid-hosted. It describes each approach, explaining how they work and the equipment and support they require. It also lists the advantages and disadvantages of each.

 

PREMISE

The traditional approach is for the SMB to buy and operate the equipment. It either installs the IP PBX itself, or has a dealer or VAR (value added reseller) do it. The equipment sits in the company’s own premises, connects to its LAN, and distributes calls to IP phones also connected to the LAN. The company owns the equipment and software, and administers and maintains them. Calls can come to the IP PBX from the communication service provider over traditional PSTN lines or over the company’s broadband Internet connection.

The premise approach has several advantages. Although the upfront cost is higher than with hosted service, at the end of the day the company owns the system, rather than having to make payments forever. And with ownership comes increased control – companies can customize or extend the capabilities of their systems more than they could with hosted service. Another advantage is that it’s not necessary to rely solely on the Internet to deliver calls. A premise based IP PBX gives you fallback capabilities should your Internet service be interrupted. Security is also higher because all messages and call data remain on the company’s premises.

But when compared to hosted solutions, there can be a significant disadvantage depending on the needs and resources of your organization. The biggest is monitoring and maintenance. Someone has to be available virtually all the time to make sure the system is running right. Someone also has to maintain and upgrade the software on a regular basis. Premise systems typically require maintenance contracts that add significantly to the total cost of ownership. Accessing the system for administrative tasks such as moves, adds and changes also requires either having someone on site to do it, or establishing a special connection setup to allow remote access. The latter typically involves opening a special port through the corporate firewall, which can not only be a tricky process but may be against company security policies. Configuring remote users can also be complicated and thus expensive.

 

PROS

▪ Own the system with available financing options

▪ Can customize to suit needs

▪ Doesn’t rely on Internet for quality, reliability

▪ Messages, prompts, records remain on company’s own premises

CONS

▪ Significant costs for hardware and software maintenance contracts

▪ Requires on-site staff for monitoring and maintaining

▪ Administration requires on-site staff or special connection setup

▪ Configuring remote users can be tricky

▪ Hardware, software upgrades eventually necessary if user numbers grow

 

HOSTED

Hosted VoIP, also known as hosted IP PBX service, runs on equipment belonging to and located in the data center of a service provider. Calls travel to and from the SMB’s offices via its broadband Internet connection. Hosted services can provide many of the features and capabilities that traditional phone systems offer. Users can make or transfer calls by dialing each other’s extensions. They can also make conference calls, park and pick up calls, and answer calls forwarded to groups of extensions, known as ring groups. That’s not to mention all the new capabilities that IP makes possible, such as listening to voice mail messages through e-mail or another online interface, or placing calls by simply clicking on names in onscreen address books.

The business is left with no associated asset. Security is another concern, since voice mail messages and call records reside on the service provider’s premises, not the company’s. Call quality and service reliability can also be significant worries, since both are totally dependent on the company’s Internet connection.

PROS

▪ Low upfront costs

▪ Increase capacity exactly as needed

▪ No need for maintenance contracts or staff

 

CONS

▪ Quality, reliability depend on Internet

▪ Pay full rate for little-used extensions

▪ No end to payments, no eventual ownership of equipment

▪ Messages, prompts and call records reside in service provider’s data center

 

HYBRID-HOSTED

The hybrid-hosted approach combines the key elements of hosted and premise systems. The customer buys and owns the IP PBX equipment, which resides on its own premises. But the vendor monitors and helps manage the equipment from its data center. This arrangement offers most of the benefits of both hosted and premise solutions, while doing away with most of the disadvantages of both.

 

As with conventional premise solutions, hybrid-hosted systems let companies pay once to purchase the equipment rather than paying forever for extensions, some of which may see little use. There’s also no dependence on the Internet for the quality and reliability of calls, though Internet transport is an option. And messages and call data remain within the company.

And as with hosted solutions, hybrid-hosted systems significantly decrease the hassles and headaches of premise solutions. Part of it is ease of use. Administrators and managers can access their systems from anywhere via web browsers, rather than having to be on premises or to have configured special routes through their firewalls. Setting up remote users is simple too, and linking branch offices is a one-click process. Users can even configure their own extensions from wherever they are.

 

Perhaps most important, the hybrid-hosted approach alleviates monitoring and maintenance headaches. From its data center, the vendor proactively watches the customer’s hardware and software, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, for impending failures, and takes action before they happen. It also transparently maintains the software, pushing out automatic updates without the need for someone on the company’s premises to do anything. The vendor can also choose to back up call records and generate reports, taking a significant load off the premise equipment. And it also backs up the customer’s configurations (though not its voice mail messages or prompts due to privacy concerns), allowing for easy recovery in case of disaster.

 

PROS

▪ Own the system with available financing options

▪ Can customize to suit needs

▪ Doesn’t rely on Internet for quality, reliability

▪ Messages, prompts, records remain on company’s own premises

▪ Vendor monitors for faults 24/7

▪ Vendor backup of customer configurations with easy disaster recovery

▪ Automatic software upgrades

▪ Easy remote administration through web browser

▪ Easy setup of remote users

▪ One-click linking of branch offices

 

CONS

▪ Upfront costs higher than with hosted solutions

▪ Hardware and software maintenance contracts recommended

▪ Hardware upgrade eventually necessary if user numbers grow

WHICH ONE IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

To summarize the choices, companies using hosted systems have lower upfront costs and zero maintenance worries, but call quality and reliability are totally dependent on Internet connections, and all call data, including messages and prompts, resides with the provider. With the premise approach, companies buy and own the equipment and control the call data, but they also have to spend considerable money and staff time administering, monitoring and maintaining their systems. Users of hybrid-hosted systems own and control the equipment and software, as well as the call data, but can leave much of the monitoring and maintenance up to the vendor, while administration is simplified.

Ultimately, of course, the choices are all about cost. Poor voice quality or unreliable service can lose you significant business. Spending staff time taking care of equipment also means spending money. But the most important cost to keep in mind is the cost of doing nothing. Not moving to IP telephony means giving up the opportunity to make your business work better. It means missing the chance to save money through increased employee efficiency, or to increase revenue through making better use of employees’ time and talent. In short, failing to take advantage of opportunities such as IP telephony can be most expensive option, even – or especially – during a downturn.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is your Fonality Authorized Reseller for trixBox Pro Editions for VoIP PBXsolutions both hosted and premise based IP Based Telephony.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise. 

 

LightBound is one of the sponsors for Tech Thursday. Our speaker this month is from Author Solutions.   Today, Author Solutions, Inc. is helping spur the next great expansion of publishing by introducing new technologies and services to help more authors than ever before to achieve their personal publishing goalsCome join us for open networking with some of the top technology professionals in Indianapolis. 

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound is also your end to end Voice and Data Service Provider.

LightBound is proud to announce our new state of the art Data Center. LightBound also provides a VoIP Hosted PBX Solutions with our Cloud Services.

Endless Possibilities for NSOEM and Fonality IP PBX Solutions

Installing drilling and power solutions is hard enough; the staff at NSOEM didn’t want to put in hours installing and maintaining the company’s phone system. So when NSOEM decided to replace its AT&T key system with Fonality’s PBXtra with HUD Agent, it was a match made in Houston. PBXtra’s flexible feature set, simple installation and administration, and ability to create a single phone network among a distributed workforce with multiple office locations are a hit at NSOEM. And HUD’s ability to track staff locations and quickly transfer calls meant that the company had finally found a phone system that it could hang its hat on.

NSOEM is a Houston-based manufacturer’s representative that focuses on engineering sales for electrical products related to drilling and custom power solutions. As the company expanded, its existing AT&T key phone system didn’t offer the flexibility it needed and often suffered from bad call quality. NSOEM needed a new phone system that was reliable and flexible, and that could easily connect its headquarters with its new warehouse facility, as well as with reps in the field.
PBXtra Works for NSOEM

On the hunt for its new system, NSOEM narrowed the search to Fonality’s PBXtra with HUD Agent and a system from a local phone installer. “I was impressed because, when I was evaluating PBXtra, I was working directly with Fonality,” said Keith Howard, operations manager at NSOEM. “The other vendor didn’t even distinguish who the phone system manufacturer was, and that didn’t sit well with me.”

Howard found that PBXtra’s technology fit his organization perfectly, too. “PBXtra is a phone system that works for us, rather than having us work for it. It’s incredibly easy to install, and the possibilities of what you can do with the system are endless.” PBXtra has allowed NSOEM to easily create a single phone network; now employees, regardless of whether they are working from the main office, its new warehouse or a remote location, are able to present a united, professional image to customers. And, the system will also be used to connect a new Louisiana office when it goes online later this year.

PBXtra’s flexibility was another key reason NSOEM chose to work with Fonality. “PBXtra allows me to tailor the system exactly how I want to. It saves me time and gets the job done right,” said Howard. Being able to route calls to the main office, to a different first point of contact, or directly to field reps’ cell phones has been a real time and customer service improvement for NSOEM.
Efficiency Is Up With HUD

PBXtra’s HUD has proven to be a favorite with Howard because his field sales team often travels to customer locations to evaluate and install products. “HUD is absolutely great,” he said. “It allows me to see whether my field reps are available no matter where they are, and it makes transferring calls to them a breeze. I simply drag and drop the call to wherever they are.”

Howard is also extremely pleased with HUD’s Outlook integration. “With HUD, I barely touch the buttons on my phone anymore! I just click on a number from my Outlook contacts list and the call is placed for me,” said Howard. “HUD is especially useful for international calls because I can program the country codes once and then forget about them.”
The Future and VoIP

NSOEM is currently operating a mixed VoIP and analog environment, but Howard is eager to test the possibilities of VoIP further. He anticipates that “PBXtra will help us save a bundle when working internationally. With PBXtra, soft phones and an internet connection, we can work around the world without huge telephone fees. It’s just one more way that PBXtra will work for us.”

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

In this day and age where everyone depends so heavily on Technology. Isn't good to have one company that can provide ITManaged Services, Server Collocation, Web Hosting Services, Virtual Storage, Storage as a Services, VoIP PBX Solutions, Hosted VoIP PBX  Solutions, Voice Services and Data Services.

LightBound can provide your Cloud Services, Data Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity to your Voice and Data services including Off Site Data Backup Services.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

We are working with a large Professional sports team that is looking to replace their current 12 year Nortel phone system.  Prospect has unique setup with several hundred employees all needing DID (Direct Inward Dial) numbers and Call Center features for sales and customer service group including call monitoring.  In addition, they have almost 700 analog phones around their facility. LightBound was able to propose a solution that would allow them to keep their legacy analog phones and give them IP PBX solution for their office with all the bells and whistles that Fonality provides.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

Have you been curious about the Fonality trixbox PBX but haven't been able to get away from the office to come to a Lunch and Learn? Fonality trixbox is a full featured, cost effective VoIP PBX that brings enterprise level phone system functionality like presence management, call queues, and CRM integration to the small to mid-sized businesses. Let us come to you with our monthly webinars. Webinars will last about an hour, starting at 11:30.

Location:   LightBound Data Center
731 W. Henry St, 2nd Floor
Indianapolis, Indiana

Dates:   June 23, 2010


Contact Email:   events@lightbound.net
Contact Number:   (317) 777-7165

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

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Dont' forget LightBound Lunch And Learn June 16, 2010 11:30 to 1:00 at our 731 W. Henry location.  We will be covering LightBound Hosted IP service with Fonality.  Come see hands on our VoIP PBX solution hosted in LightBound state of the art data center. http://www.lightbound.net/company/events.php

LightBound and Fonality are providing the best of both worlds with our VoIP PBX solution
that can be either hosted in our Cloud, in the cage in the datacenter or on premise. Services is expandable from 5 to 99 users.  Both solutions include Fonality HUD (Heads UP Display) that gives customer full view of everyone who is on the telephone, enterprise level chat and point and click capability. 

LightBound is also offering fiber conductivity to many major office buildings in the downtown area. Let us show you how you can combine your PBX solution with voice and data on a high speed fiber network.  Backup and virtual services are also available.

We will also be providing tours of the data center.
Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

I know that people think of Asterisk based VoIP PBX solutions like Fonality are for small organization. 

Having evaluate Fonality trixbox Pro Unified Agent (UAE) edition and Call Center Editions, I can tell you that they are full featured Call Centers that can expand to over 100 plus Agents. UAE
and Call Center Edition include a very full featured supervisor tool as well as very extensive reporting.

UAE integrates with SalesForce.com and SugarCRM with customizations available to integrate with many other packages. 

Call Center has high level features like
Skills-based Routing

Assign each agent a priority and your queue will distribute calls to them accordingly. This means you can pass more leads to your star-closer, or pass fewer leads to your underperformers. trixbox Pro offers an additional layer of prioritization based on agent order. This means similarly skilled agents can receive calls in an ordered, round-robin fashion.

Graphical Queue Reports

View graphical reports on every detail of your queues such as: abandoned calls, completed calls, hold time, average call length, agent productivity, and much more. Also view graphs of call volume and call completion by day, weekday, or even hourly averages. These averaged reports are great tools that allow you to better predict optimal call center staffing levels!

Barge Report

With the ability to barge calls using HUD Agent, your call center manager can now run reports on these barged calls from the CDR Reports page.

Agent Call Recording

Record your agents' calls -- automatically. Schedule up to 50 calls per agent. Call recordings capture agent name, agent extension, date, time, Caller ID, DNIS and file size. Using the Web-based interface, you can then listen to calls through your computer speakers or download them to your local drive.

Agents on Cell Phones

Remote agents on cell phones or analog home phones can now seamlessly participate in your queues. This means that callers will never know if the answering agent is on an IP phone in your office or on a mobile phone in another part of the world!
Agents Shared across Sites

Have a Call Center that spans multiple offices? With trixbox Pro's Linked Server Software and trixbox Pro CCE, you can have agents across several branch offices participate in the same queue.
Real-time Queue Stats

Want to know how many callers are in your queues? Need to know which agents are logged in? Need to know which of your agents is already on a call? The trixbox Pro Web-based control panel answers all of these questions, helping you to manage your queues with real time stats.

Light Bound can be your Virtual Service Provider. We help you answer that email and return the telephone call without worry.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

Robust feature set. Check. Pure VoIP capabilities. Check. Simple Scalability. Check. myShape was bursting at the seams and in desperate need of a new phone system. This online women’s clothing retailer already had its phone system requirements down pat. With PBXtra Call Center Edition, myShape found a solution that fits like a glove, right down to the easy deployment and quick addition of more handsets.
With PBXtra Call Center Edition, myShape found a solution that fits like a glove, right down to the easy deployment and quick addition of more handsets.

myShape is an online women’s clothing retailer that is committed to helping customers find sophisticated clothing to fit and flatter their individual body shapes. As a rapidly growing ecommerce organization, the myShape management team firmly believes in using technology to advance its business objectives. When the company relocated from a business technology incubator facility to its own office space, technology drove its decision to deploy Fonality’s PBXtra Call Center phone system.
Shopping for a System

With a growing staff overcrowding its current location, myShape needed to move. One of the questions it had to answer beforehand was which phone system to select for its new location. The business technology center, where myShape started its operations, had provided the company with a phone system, so there was no legacy system to take with them when they moved.

With 60 employees and an aggressive growth strategy, myShape co-founder, John Dmohowski, and the IT staff began searching for and evaluating phone system options that would meet the company’s needs. “Cost was not a primary driver for us,” Dmohowski said. “It was more important to find a solution that could scale and deploy easily, and provided a robust feature set.”

The team decided that PBXtra Call Center was the best system for myShape. “We could run PBXtra Call Center as a pure VoIP system, which, as a technology company, was important to us,” Dmohowski continued. “I knew VoIP could provide the capabilities we needed when combined with sufficient bandwidth and would be less painful than working with traditional carriers that couldn’t move fast enough for us. We didn’t have the time to set up an appointment with the carrier every time we needed to add a phone!”

Before selecting PBXtra Call Center, myShape evaluated 10 different solutions and met with four vendors, including Fonality. myShape even considered a hosted VoIP offering from Vocalocity, but decided against it because they wanted to have more control over their phone system than a hosted solution could offer. Besides, Dmohowski had faith in Fonality’s ability to produce upgrades and product extensions.
Trying Fonality on for Size

In the end, Dmohowski determined that Fonality was the right fit for myShape for many reasons: “our Fonality sales rep was terrific, the company’s recommendations for how to integrate technologies were very solid and PBXtra Call Center was clearly the superior technology. With Fonality, we don’t need to rely on the phone company — we are in charge of our own communications. Our IT staff can add a phone in two minutes and have a staff member up and ready to go. I can’t express how important that is to a growing business.”

Adding and moving handsets quickly were of particular importance to myShape since this was the first time the company actually was able to deploy phones to all of its employees. In its previous location, myShape didn’t have enough handsets for every employee, which impacted efficiency. Staff members had to send email messages rather than place phone calls, or use their personal cell phones for business calls.

“The move provided office space for all of our employees, and PBXtra Call Center made deploying phones fast and simple,” Dmohowski added. “Fonality makes it extremely easy to order and install new phones. I just call them and two days later the new phones show up, already configured. All we do is plug them in and we get an instant dial tone. I can’t place a value on that.”

Dmohowski has also found that PBXtra Call Center’s feature set does not require endless training for his staff. “We move too quickly to spend hours on employee training. PBXtra Call Center is nice because it does not get in the way. The phones work like the devices people have been using their whole lives, which is not entirely true of all new products that are supposed to make our lives easier.”
A Well Dressed Solution

In the end, Dmohowski felt his requirements for a VoIP phone system were simple: “it had to work, it had to scale, it had to be easy to deploy and it had to be painless to add and move handsets. PBXtra Call Center met our needs and then some. We’re happy because when we pick up the phone we know we will hear a dial tone. That may sound elementary, but for a young company, it’s extremely important.”

Dmohowski is eager to test PBXtra Call Center to its fullest capabilities. “There is tremendous value in knowing PBXtra Call Center can do more for us. We purchased the system knowing that we wouldn’t use all of the functionality right away, but I’m relieved to know that the system will meet our needs as we grow.”

Now that sounds like a well dressed solution.

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.


Please keep an eye on the new construction of our new state of the art data center providing Indiana with an elite Data Center for all of your Virtual Network Services, Business Continuity, Cloud Services, Storage as a Service, Software as a Solution and VoIP PBX Solutions. 

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HUD Heads Up Display only with Fonality VoIP PBX Solutions. Is a terrific desktop application for the Fonality VoIP PBX solution. Here are some of the cool things:

Employees can send instant messages on your own private chat network. This feature is perfect for companies that have turned off external chat as a time-saver and call centers that want to text-whisper to agents while on the phone. All chat messages are encrypted by industry standard SSL 128 bit encryption.

Chat with your external Google contacts directly from within HUD. Users are able to either add a single Google Talk contact, or import their entire Google Talk contact list into HUD.

HUD just got a facelift, errr a face. Once a user uploads their photo via the Web User Panel, you will now see their gorgeous mug whenever you interact with them in HUD (calling, conference, voicemail). In addition, we now support the Outlook 2007 photo feature to show pictures for calls to/from external numbers.

Wherever you HUD, there's your voicemail! The new visual voicemail component enables users to play, delete, and flag their voicemails, in addition to calling the user back, initiating a chat with the user, or adding the user to Outlook. HUD Voicemail also supports Photo Caller-ID, allowing you to see that befitting smirk while they are yelling at you.

Desktop alerts show the phone number (if available) or names of people stored in your Outlook contacts for all incoming calls to your extension. Answer, ignore, or send the call to voicemail directly from the desktop alert. You can also choose to display this alert when making outbound calls.

Instantly place a call by selecting a phone number in any file or application and dragging it into HUD.

Outlook Integration
Inbound Calling: When your phone rings, the Caller-ID will be analyzed against your Outlook Contacts. If a match is found you will see the person’s name pop-up!
Call from your Inbox:
Right-click on a contact or email message to call. Your phone rings and you’re connected!
Contact Import: Users are now able to import all HUD Contacts into their Outlook
Outlook 2003 or above is required

Place a call directly from HUD by typing in the desired phone number and clicking "Call". HUD will call your extension first, and then connect you to your outbound call.

Mobile presence provides a visual presence to other HUD users when a contact's cell phone is connected to the system. Users are prompted with the Busy Ring-Back™ dialog when attempting to call a contact who is on their mobile.

Ever need to know who was on a conference call quickly? With the visual Conference Component users now are able to see the all the participants in a conference bridge, in addition to the option to kick, mute, record, email, and chat with other participants in the bridge.

Click the mobile phone icon to instantly call any other employees on their cellular phones. The phone number is pulled from your PBXtra company directory.

HUD provides your employees the ability to record their own calls with the press of a button. Call recordings capture agent name, agent extension, date, time, and file size. HUD also comes with an extensive permission system that lets you decide exactly who can record their own calls and who is allowed to record others’ calls. HUD is critical for quality control within your call center!

Initiate a web search or CRM lookup based on caller’s Caller ID and know all about the caller before you pick up the phone. When you have PBXtra Unified Agent Edition, you will even be alerted of the deal size before you pick up!

LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.

LightBound will be doing a Lunch and Learn on June 16th at 731 W. Henry Street. Come see the new evolution in VoIP PBX solutions and how LightBound is adding Hosted VoIP PBX solution to our stable of Cloud Serves including Virtual Servers, Virtual Storage, Managed Services.

We will be doing a live demostration of our Hosted VoIP PBX solutions and how if can make your organization more productive.  

LightBound has been the leader in Indiana Internet Services since the early 90's.

Look forward to seeing you at our demo of Hosted Voip PBX Services.

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When SunPorch, the leading manufacturer of ready-to-assemble sunroom kits, needed call center capabilities it thought outsourcing was the only option. Fonality said no way! Beating bids from Avaya, Cisco and 3Com, Fonality’s PBXtra Call Center and HUD Agent improved SunPorch’s marketing and customer service programs while saving the company 100K in advertising costs. Oh yeah, it saved the day after Hurricane Ike and also paid for itself in three months.

SunPorch is the leading manufacturer of ready-to-assemble sunroom kits. To provide better customer service in its Westport Connecticut-based sales office, SunPorch needed call center capabilities that would allow calls to be routed to the appropriate person or department, and cost-effectively scale as its staff grew. SunPorch selected Fonality’s PBXtra Call Center and HUD Agent software to replace its legacy PBX system.
Outsource? No Way.

“Initially we thought that the only call center solution we could afford was to outsource to a third party,” said James McFarland, IT director at SunPorch. “With PBXtra Call Center we were able to keep our call center operations in house, which meant we could provide higher levels of customer service and maintain better control of our sales and marketing efforts.”

In addition to Fonality, SunPorch also looked at call center systems from Avaya, Cisco and 3Com. According to MacFarland, “the main driving factor for purchasing Fonality over the alternatives was essentially lower costs. PBXtra Call Center paid for itself in the first three months by eliminating the need for expensive consultants to set up and administer the system. Fonality does an awesome job of pre-configuring the system and the phones— all you have to do is plug everything in. I had the whole system up and running in less than one day.”
Saving $100K on Advertising Costs

The Fonality phone system is delivering significant value to SunPorch’s advertising programs. According to Leo Mueller, director of marketing at SunPorch, “because of Fonality, we can be much more nimble and responsive to our market. PBXtra Call Center helps us maximize the return on our advertising expenditures by reducing sales leads not associated with a lead source. We can quickly and easily assign a different phone number to each ad, which allows us to automatically record where a caller learned about SunPorch without having to ask them.”

This simple approach to tracking advertisements has returned some significant returns. SunPorch now clearly understands how specific advertisements are performing and can easily make decisions that directly impact the bottom line. “Thanks to PBXtra Call Center we’ve been able to more accurately target our advertising dollars and have reduced our annual overall expenses by $100,000,” said Mueller.

Additionally, Mueller recognizes that PBXtra Call Center has indirectly improved SunPorch’s sales program. Since the Fonality call center system has been providing the company with better data and management has been able to make more accurate and focused decisions about where to advertise, SunPorch has increased its lead acquisition by 10 percent. “It’s amazing. Even though the downturn in the economy is impacting customer purchasing decisions, we’ve still seen an increase in the number of home owners interested in our product.”
New Revenue and Better Customer Service

PBXtra Call Center has also helped SunPorch define new revenue-generating marketing campaigns, including new offerings to its existing customer base. This previously untapped group was the ideal candidate for product upgrades, but SunPorch couldn’t move forward on this type of campaign without Fonality. With PBXtra Call Center, SunPorch was able to set up specific call queues for current customer marketing programs that rang into five remote phones at its factory and then rolled over to the Connecticut headquarters when calls to the factory could not be answered. These capabilities made it possible for the company to efficiently sell to and support its most important audience.

PBXtra Call Center’s call queues have been a big help in improving SunPorch’s overall customer service. “PBXtra’s call queues and music on hold with sales voice-overs reduce the number of abandoned calls we receive. The queues let callers know how much longer they have to wait, which makes it less likely that they will hang up, and music or sales information on hold helps keep them entertained while they are waiting,” said Mueller. He has also been impressed with Fonality’s reporting matrix, which helps SunPorch monitor call center performance and adjust accordingly to improve the customer experience.
In the Wake of Hurricane Ike

Mueller gained extra appreciation for PBXtra Call Center after Hurricane Ike knocked out power to the company’s Louisville factory.

PBXtra Call Center’s unique hybrid-hosted Anywhere Management feature enabled Mueller to remotely access the call center system and record an emergency greeting in less than 10 minutes without hiring an expensive consultant. PBXtra Call Center allowed SunPorch to quickly implement a professional recording in response to the emergency, which helped maintain customer service levels and ensured calls could be redirected to the company headquarters for handling.

“The remote management of PBXtra Call Center is terrific,” said Mueller. “It gave me so much flexibility to make sure our customers were taken care of, even during a natural disaster.”
PBXtra and HUD - Essential Business Tools

In terms of its technical abilities, McFarland has been equally impressed with Fonality. “There are so many great things about our PBXtra system. The voice prompts, call queues and powerful web-based configuration are all fantastic. HUD helps us to enhance communication within the office, since we know whether someone is on the phone or not. We also like HUD’s drag-and-drop call transferring capabilities and its integration with caller ID on the PC desktop. Also, the PBXtra system easily integrated with the rest of my IT infrastructure, something I couldn’t do if I was working with a proprietary phone system.”

Mueller sums up how SunPorch feels about Fonality. “It’s simple — Fonality enables us to better serve our customers. PBXtra and HUD are essential business tools for our company — I don’t know how we lived without them.”


LightBound utilizes Fonality for both our premise based VoIP PBX solutions and our Hosted VoIP services. Our managed services can be added like Shared Storage Server, Collocation services, Cloud Services and many more that make LightBound a leader in Virtual Network Services in Indiana.


LightBound, your Virtual Service provider, can combine your managed services, voice and data services to provide you with a seamless Cloud Service that is economical and provides the business continuity that all businesses require regardless of their technical expertise.
 

LightBound now has a direct fiber connection to the Chase Tower in downtown Indianapolis.   The direct fiber connectivy enables tenants in the building to take advantage of LightBound's suite of services such as hosted virtual server, cloud services, hosted VoIP PBX Solutions, virtual storage, and off site data backup service.   Customers can connect to the fiber for $995 per month which provides a 100 MB connection to the data center bundled with 10 MB of Internet with bursting capability.   Hosted VoIP PBX solutions through Fonaliy are available starting at $34.99 per seat monthly for 5 users and as the number of users increases the prices drops to $18.99 per seat for 51-99 users!  If you are a business owner interested in hosted voice service check out Fonality for Executive video. This is a great service to help with business continuity planning as customers can either host their critical IT and voice services at the LightBound data center or backup critical data to Lightbound's storage as a service platform.  LightBound also has a business continuity.disaster recovery center with 32 seats each with a computer and a phone that can enable a company to minimize disruption of business operations in the event their building is not available for use.  Contact your LightBound account manager for more information on this new service!