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Indy Business: Unwanted Spam Calls

With the growing problem of unwanted and fraudulent spam calls, more and more people are asking if anything can be done about it. There are apps and services available for cell phones, but what can you do about spam business and residential calls? In this post, we’d like to highlight some of the ways to decrease or eliminate telemarketing calls.

Talk to your provider.

Not all providers will let you block unwanted calls, but it’s worth finding out. For example, we will block calls for both our business phone service and our home phone service. Not only can we block a number or a whole area code, but the way we block it makes spammers believe your number has been disconnected even though everyone else can call you normally. It’s a great tool for removing your number from spam call lists.

Also, if your provider says they don’t block unwanted calls, consider porting your number to one that will.

Let your phone do the talking.

Because so many of the spam calls are automated, why not automate your answer to them? With modern phone systems, it’s extremely simple to create an answering service that screens your calls. Just requiring the caller to press a single button is enough to stop most telemarketers. And you can combine this method with call blocking to virtually eliminate unwanted calls.

Get extreme.

As a last resort, you can choose to only allow calls from a list of trusted numbers. Instead of blocking bad callers when they contact you, you start by assuming every call is bad until you say otherwise. This is guaranteed to eliminate unwanted calls, though you may miss some legitimate calls from people whose number hasn’t been whitelisted.

Whatever you choose to do, it’s important for all of us to make it as hard as possible for spammers to succeed. The moment their activities are no longer profitable, they will stop engaging in them.

If you want help fighting your spam calls, or want to switch to a phone company that does all it can, feel free to contact us or give us a call anytime. Thanks and have a great day!

Indy Business: Phone Cabling

Why is it so hard to find a business in Indianapolis that does traditional landline phone cabling? There are many reasons why, but a lot of them have to do with the switch to structured network cabling. Even if the signal from your phone system eventually travels across a telephone line, your office may utilize ethernet cables as opposed to the old 4-wire telephone cables when connecting phones to the server or PBX. Let’s take a look at why.

It’s all copper.

The old 4-wire telephone cables used copper wiring (traditionally wrapped in the colors red, yellow, green, and black). Today’s structured cables like Cat5E and Cat6 use 8 wires of different shades and stripes. But, any of those wires can replace one from the old 4-wire type. So if you have a new building to install cabling in, even if you know the business will use landline services, installing the future-proof network cable is still the smart thing to do.

Not many businesses advertise that they will install phone cabling in Indianapolis, but that doesn’t mean they won’t install cables that work fine with traditional phone jacks.

The phones are computers.

The best phone systems today are VoIP phone systems, which means all of the phones use the 8-wire network cabling to connect with their central PBX. The PBX may send and receive calls using landline phone wires, but those connections don’t need to run throughout a whole building. On top of that, the landline service provider will probably install those connections for the customer, leaving the rest of the cabling to someone else.

The good news is that landline telephone companies are usually more expensive, so you’re better off going with a network cable installer like us. We can provide the same materials and expertise without all the overhead a traditional phone company has.

Ask about discounts.

If the cable installer also provides phone service like we do, there’s a good chance you can get some or all of your install done for free. After all, a long-term phone customer is better to have than a onetime cable customer.

To find out what kinds of rates we offer, simply request a quote or give us a call. Thanks and have a great day!

Indy Business: Best Business Phone

Over our 10-plus years providing phone service, we have used and recommended a ton of business phones. We can safely say the current best business phone for most people is the Grandstream GXP2130. It has a professional look and feel, comes with all the features a modern business needs, works as well or better than more expensive options, and can be used with most VoIP phone service.

Look and feel.

The GXP2130 has a solid construction and feels nice in the hand, like many desk phones available today. Where the GXP2130 really stands out, though, is its color screen and intuitive interface. We wish the screen was a touch screen; but for under $70, it is hard to complain about a button-operated screen. Plus the buttons around the screen are all placed well and the screen changes to clearly show their function at all times.

All other buttons are labeled with helpful icons that show what they do. The call transfer button shows a phone pointing to another phone. The do-not-disturb button shows a microphone with a line through it. The hold call button shows a pause symbol, etc. We’ve also found these icons to be easier to learn and recognize at a glance than text labels like other brands use.

Features.

Like most SIP desk phones, the GXP2130 is completely customizable, but the majority of users will never need to customize them. From the moment they are provisioned, local time and weather displays on the screen, and the default buttons are programmed to work out of the box. The only unclear settings that users may wish to set are two SIP security options which will eliminate any phantom call issues. Those settings can be found by following these instructions.

Try before you buy.

We doubt you’ll have any issues with the Grandstream GXP2130, but please feel free to contact us or give us a call if you’d like to try them before buying. We offer free trials of our recommended phone hardware and phone service because we’ve seen how much customers appreciate it.

Thanks for reading our thoughts and have a great day!

Indy Business: Why So Affordable?

New business customers sometimes ask us how we can offer our phone service for Indianapolis so much cheaper than the big internet companies. We don’t always know how to answer that question because we’re not one of those big companies. Still, we’d like to try breaking down how we can offer so many services for so little money even as our competitors have to charge more.

Providing phone service isn’t that costly.

Phone service using traditional phone lines can be expensive to provide, but modern VoIP phone service is relatively inexpensive. We’ve actually been able to lower our prices as we’ve grown because internet and cloud services become cheaper and more reliable year after year. So why don’t the big phone and cable companies do the same?

The phone companies at least are trying to pivot to VoIP, and that may allow them to save money; but cable companies have been offering VoIP all along. We think they charge so much because they have to. Either they have to charge to make up for administrative costs, or they have to charge a lot to accommodate their shareholders. Either way, the customer ends up paying more.

Customer turnover is expensive.

Because the phone and cable companies raise their prices and fees regularly, they have a lot of customer turnover. Closing accounts, convincing new customers, and opening new accounts costs a lot of time and therefore money. Perhaps that’s a more lucrative way to do business in the long run, but it sounds exhausting to us and it certainly angers customers.

Instead, we’ve opted to charge a consistent monthly price for a good service. As a result, we’ve seen our customers stick with us for years and years. That allows us to spend less time on customer turnover, and more time improving our phone service for existing customers.

What to do about it?

If you think you might be paying too much, feel free to contact us or call us anytime. Worst case scenario, you get another quote and find out if you’re paying too much. Thanks for reading our thoughts and have a great day!

Indy Business: Business Phone Numbers

Ever wondered how Indianapolis businesses get those great, easy-to-remember numbers? They always have fun ones like the following:

(317) IDIOT-AXE
(317) JAR-LIST
(317) OLD-KNIFE

Numbers that spell things are great. It’s almost always easier to remember a couple words as opposed to a string of numbers. But maybe you’re just looking for a number. It doesn’t have to spell anything, but it should be simple to hear, recall, and repeat later. Numbers like these:

(317) 399-1717
(317) 436-4344
(317) 720-2550

For business that go with the big phone and cable companies, the bad news is that their options will be more limited. The big national companies don’t often take the time to find a number that suits you and your business. But for people who want a new, custom business phone number, there are a ton of great numbers out there. In fact all of the numbers listed above are available as of this posting.

Numbers in the 317 area code aren’t the only ones available either. There are phone numbers for all over Indiana and the country, as well as for cities in and around Indianapolis like Speedway, Zionsville, Carmel, Greenwood, Plainfield, or Avon.

And the best news is that a good, memorable number doesn’t cost extra. There aren’t even additional fees for toll-free numbers when you go with something like our business phone service Indianapolis. The number you want is the number you get. Plus if you’re ever unhappy with your service, you can take your number with you to another provider.

There are companies out there who will charge an arm and a leg for a custom phone number, but we recommend avoiding any corporation that just wants to make a quick buck. Look for a phone service provider who has a track record of reliability and excellent customer service. Those are the people you want to entrust your business number to.

Thanks for checking out our post! If you’re interested in learning more about what numbers we can offer, please feel free to contact us or call us anytime.

icon-ban Indy Business: Unwanted Spam Calls

icon-chain Indy Business: Phone Cabling

icon-phone-square Indy Business: Best Business Phone

icon-dollarIndy Business: Why So Affordable?

icon-list-ol Indy Business: Business Phone Numbers

Indy Business: Unwanted Spam Calls

Indy Business: Phone Cabling

Indy Business: Best Business Phone

Indy Business: Why So Affordable?

Indy Business: Business Phone Numbers