RingCentral Makes Your Office Mobile

You know what an office is, right? It’s got a desk, a chair, carpet, maybe walls and maybe dividers, all bathed in glorious fluorescent light. Well, not anymore. With RingCentral, your office is in your pocket. You don’t sit in it, you take it with you.

RingCentral Mobile is a low cost telecommunications service that lets you take your business anywhere. That’s important when you could miss an important call just because you’re out of the “office.” You won’t now, because you and the office are always together.

This service is just the thing for anyone who isn’t literally chained to their desk. That’s just about anyone in sales, technical consulting, or running a home based business. Mobile phones have given us the ability to cut the telephone cord. Smartphones added the capability to cut the broadband cord. RingCentral Mobile takes advantage of this freedom to enable your cell phone to be your office phone.

How does it do that? It’s starts with a special local phone number or toll free number that goes directly into the system. The “system” is RingCentral’s virtual PBX business telephone system. It’s all hosted and maintained by RingCentral, so you don’t have to buy any equipment or worry about maintenance procedures. What you get is the power of an office phone system without the headaches of owning one and without the limitations of being tethered to a landline based phone system.

Since this is a complete business phone system, only virtual, it is designed to accommodate business with only a single employee or as many employees as you want. They are all interconnected by this virtual PBX system. That means there is no need to round everybody up and make sure they sit cheek to jowl in the same room all day. The employees using this virtual office can all be on the go anywhere in the US or Canada. That’s one BIG office space, isn’t it?

The RingCentral virtual PBX can have a toll free or local main company number. An automated attendant, also known as an auto-receptionist, will take care of directing incoming calls that aren’t directly dialed to a particular employee. Of course, if you can’t take the call immediately it will go to your personal voicemail. You can set up answering rules so that callers will be directed to voicemail, extensions and alternate phone numbers based on the data and time or Caller ID as well as which number they are calling. If you need to put them on hold, play some pleasant music or an informative recording so they won’t be drumming their fingers as they wait.

Each RingCentral number can be used for both phone calls and fax messages. Unlike some services, you can send and receive faxes using nothing but your computer or cell phone.

Why continue to limit your business activities to the confines of a bricks and mortar office, when you could be free to visit clients or work from wherever makes sense at the moment. With RingCentral Mobile, no one needs to be the wiser unless you elect to tell them. But why do that and risk them getting jealous of your personal freedom? We’ll keep it our little secret.

Oh, Mandi, They Came and You Gave Them My Number

Everyone who's ever worked in an office knows that it's the secretaries that bring order to chaos. Sadly, we often take them for granted as they so efficiently go about their proscribed routine. It's when we cut the corporate umbilical and go out on our own that it suddenly dawns on us that chaos has reared its ugly head and there's no one to keep things running like the proverbial clockwork. You know you need a secretary. But you look at your budget and sigh. Alas, there's no hope you can afford someone to keep things organized. Or, perhaps, there is.

Meet your new assistant, Mandi. No, not the Mandy of Manilow song. This is Mandi, your virtual assistant. She's got your number. Phone number, that is. Hire Mandi and she'll manage your phone calls like the living, breathing assistant you can't afford. Mandi you can afford.

Mandi is a professional Electronic Voice Assistant. She's part of the SpeechPhone family of speech-driven personal assistants. The key idea here is "speech-driven." This is what separates Mandi from the usual automated attendants and answering machines. Mandi will answer your phone 24/7 and screen each call. She'll route them to wherever you happen to be and let you know who's calling so you can decide whether you're "in" or not. If not, Mandi will dutifully take a message.

When you order Mandi, you are assigned a personal local phone number. This is the one number that you publish and tell people. It matters not that you have 4 different phones in 4 different locations. Mandi will track you down when your services are needed and no one else has to know your real phone number.

What's really cool is the speech driven technology. You talk to Mandi just like you would a live secretary. With respect, of course. You say things like "get messages" and you'll get your new phone messages. Now say "call back" and Mandi dials that caller back. For some real fun, say "get email messages." Mandi will do just that and carefully read them to you over the phone. Then you have the options to save, delete, copy or reply to your messages, all by voice command.

Peeking behind the curtain, you should know that SpeechPhone services run on carrier grade Lucent Speech Servers that include robust Automatic Speech Recognition and Text to Speech technology that has been developed by Bell Laboratories. This is professional grade communications for working professionals. The amazing thing is that it's available in a price range that makes it perfect for mobile professionals and small office / home office users.