Still Your Best Toll Free Option

Could your business benefit from having a toll free number? Perhaps you already have toll free service, but are looking at getting a better deal or upgrading to more numbers. What service makes the most business sense these days?

If you’ve never had a toll free number and aren’t positive that it will make a significant impact on your business, the best thing to do is get in cheap without making any long term commitments. That way you can test the waters and see what happens. So, how do you do that?

Kall8 offers an outstanding package of toll free services that has been popular for years. It's had staying power because you get a lot for a little with no contractual commitments.

Here’s how it works. Your lowest cost option is to pick one of the 866, 877, or 888 toll free numbers that are all set up and ready to go. It’s like visiting the toll free supermarket. Just take a number that looks good to you off the shelf and put it in your shopping cart. When you check out, you’ll fork over all of $2. That’s right, two bucks.

What do you get for your toll free $2? You get to have calls to that number ring to a phone of your choice as soon as your order is complete. That can be your office phone, home phone or cell phone. Change that option to a different phone whenever you like, even in the middle of the night. You have an online portal that gives you complete control of your toll free number 24/7.

This is huge for mobile professionals, like consultants or real estate agents. Give everybody your toll free number, set it to the phone you are at, and you’ll never miss a call. If you do happen to be busy, calls will go to your toll free voicemail. You can call in and get messages at your leisure, listen to them online, or... get this... have the sound file sent to your email. Wait! It gets better. If anyone sends a FAX message to your toll free number, you can read that message online or also have it sent to your email.

How much does this really cost? It’s $2 to get the number. Then $2 a month to maintain service plus the cost of incoming calls. Most calls, originating in the 48 contiguous US states, are 6.9 cents a minute. There’s a modest surcharge for Alaska and Hawaii. If you decide you don’t want service anymore, then cancel it. All you owe is for what you’ve been using.

How can Kall8 make an offer like this? It’s because once you have the service you’ll want to keep it forever. Since you are only paying a couple of bucks a month plus the cost of calls, the bill for your toll free service only goes up when you get more calls. More calls mean more business, so you can easily afford the calling cost. It’s one sweet deal.

Goose Your Technical Service Business

Have you noticed that business has been slowing down lately? Perhaps you have as many inquiries as ever, but customers are hesitant to commit. It's probably nothing that you're doing wrong or differently. It's likely just the current state of the economy. Even so, is there any way you can goose your business to maintain or even raise your income? Sure there is.

These comments may apply to many different types of businesses, but the specifics are related directly to business telephone or computer networking technical service businesses. If that describes you, then you're in luck. Here are a couple of ideas that could give your business that extra boost when you most need it.

The idea is an opportunity that comes free of charge. It's membership in the VAR Network. VAR is Value Added Reseller and most often applies to companies that are authorized resellers of equipment such as routers, switches, IP PBX systems, handsets, security appliance, WAN optimizers, and the like. But it can also apply to technical consultants who help companies design their networks, select system components or install and maintain phone systems or networks.

What the VAR Network offers you is a registry of your business with details on the particular products and services you support and the footprint where you operate. There's no charge to be included in this online registry. Once your details are entered into the database and approved, you'll be qualified to receive inquiries from companies actively seeking your products and services. Think of it as a match making service between sellers and potential buyers of business technology. Whatever warm leads that come your way will probably be in addition to the business you currently have. That sounds like a net increase, doesn't it?

Another advantage of membership in the VAR Network is that you gain access to an organization with vast resources to provide competitive line services such as T1 voice and data, DS3, Ethernet, SONET fiber optic and even wireless point of sale. Chances are that you are not currently as well connected and maybe don't even deal in the specialized field of telecom line services. But with a couple dozen providers and experienced consultants at your beck and call, you can easily offer your clients the line services they need in addition to the physical hardware. For them it's one stop shopping. For you, it's extra monthly income.

The other idea isn't free, but it's pretty low cost. It's an add-on to your current business phone system that adds valuable features and opportunities to promote your business. For a few dollars a month, you obtain a toll free number that forwards to any or all of the phones you are now using. It includes such niceties as FAX on demand and an informational mailbox. You pitch your services and potential customers can impulsively connect you to in an instant no matter where you happen to be. Learn more about this by reading "Sales Lead Generation in a Recession" to see what it can do for you.

Free Telecom Consulting Service

How many companies have the budget left to hire consultants these days? Fewer and fewer. Even if you think hiring a particular consultant could result in more money saved than spent, it's hard to justify spending in the first place. So what does a manager or business owner have to do? Wait until sales increase and cash flow improves? No. Just get your consulting help for free.

Free consultants? Where do you get a deal like that? There's a company that specializes in technical consulting related to business telecommunications. All you need to do is enter an online inquiry or call a toll free number and your friendly consultant will be in touch quickly. In fact, if you're working the graveyard shift and need some recommendations on your WAN upgrade project, you can call up and talk to someone immediately.

What sort of consulting is provided? It's limited to telecommunications services, but that covers a lot of territory. Some of the frequently discussed topics include T1 lines, telephone trunking for PBX phone systems, backhaul for wireless Internet service providers, connecting multiple businesses using MPLS networking, LAN extension with Metro Ethernet, integrating voice and data with Integrated T1 or SIP trunking, quickly enabling point of sales terminals with wireless broadband connections, and outsourcing your data center to a colocation facility.

The Telarus experts understand both the technical tradeoffs involved with selecting one service over another and the financial advantages of each approach. They can get you the cost data you need to justify that new project. They'll also recommend the most cost effective solution among available options.

The fact that these consultants are tightly coupled with their counterparts at so many competitive carriers gives them insights that would be hard for you to gain by approaching service providers individually. Telarus consultants know who's running what special deals on what services, so they can get you the best deals in place at any given time.

Fees paid by carriers, not clients, are what enables Telarus to work on your behalf for free. You don't even need to buy anything to take advantage of this service. But you probably will if you need telecom services for any aspect of your business. The prices you obtain from Telarus bandwidth services are more likely than not to offer significant savings over whatever else you can get. That's especially true if you are already under contract and shopping around prior to expiration. You know what you're paying now. Wait till you see how much less it could be next time.

Got a minute? Take advantage of the Telarus GeoQuote(tm) online service finder or call the toll free number you'll find at T1 Rex. Remember, it's free for any serious business user.

Contract Expiration Means Opportunity

Business telecom services are usually sold on 1, 2 or 3 year contracts with monthly leasing fees for the service. While the contract is in force, the price you pay is locked in. You don't have to worry about your rate going up every month, but then you don't have an opportunity for cost savings either. It's when your contract expires that opportunity exists.

So isn't the potential for rising rates more of a threat than whatever cost savings you might negotiate? No, it's just the opposite for most businesses. Your fear of getting stuck with regular percentage increases is really a function of your service provider having you over a barrel. Or at least thinking they do. Once you have other options, you'll be counting the days until you can get out from under that oppressive contract.

How can it be that there are better service options out there, when you thought you negotiated your best price two or three years ago? There are a couple of good reasons. First, did you really negotiate the best possible deal? Or did you work your local ISP or telco for a package that represented a savings over what you paid on the last contract? You may or may not have gotten the best rates they had available. How much they'll come down depends on the competitive situation. If they are the only provider or are going up against someone with obviously high prices, they only need to offer a modest savings to land the contract.

The way to get dramatically better deals is to change the competitive landscape. Are you aware that there are probably several and perhaps many competitive service providers that are not listed in the phone book? Yet, they provide telephone trunk lines, dedicated Internet service, fiber optic bandwidth, and wireless or satellite delivered services.

Many of these carriers will contract with your local phone company to get last-mile access via telco lines to your business. They may just least the copper connections but use them to provide advanced services such as Ethernet Wide Area Networks. Or they may construct their own fiber optic lines to your location if you are close to one of their Points of Presence. Satellite Internet connections for retail stores, gas stations, theaters and other businesses with multiple locations is available just about anywhere.

You could spend a lot of time researching alternative service options, but that's not necessary. Not since there is a service already available that does this for you with a team of experts and a lot of proprietary technology. What would you say if I told you that you can use this service for free and you'll get prices as good or better than if you negotiated with each carrier yourself?

I hope you are saying "I'll take that service." OK. Go ahead and use the online telecommunications service inquiry form we have available at T1 Rex. Or call the toll free number posted there. If you use the form, it will take only a couple of minutes and you'll see online search results for service and prices available at your location. These include T1 lines, DS3 line service, ISDN PRI telephone trunks, bonded T1 lines, and more. Other services, such as Metro Ethernet, OC3 and other fiber optic SONET services require a little more effort by the staff and don't show up immediately. Neither do special limited time offers, so it will be worth your while to have a chat with one of the expert consultants.

Once you have a printout with 3 to 30 competitive quotes for the voice or data services you need, you'll no longer have to fear contract expirations. You'll likely be looking forward to them. Some companies have even found savings so great that it makes sense to pay cancellation fees on their old contract because they can make it up quickly with the dramatically lower prices of their new contracts. That might not be your situation, but you'll never know until you try. Take a few minutes and check competitive voice and data service pricing now.