Virtual PBX Provides Winning Service for New York International Spirits Competition

Posted on October 26, 2010 by C. Sensendorf

When you are hosting the world’s foremost spirits and wine competition, it is crucial to have a phone system that can back you up all the way. Luckily, Adam Levy, the host and founder of the New York International Spirits Competition (NYISC), was well prepared to recognize and award the best spirits and wines in the world.

Levy easily and efficiently ran the NYISC with the Virtual PBX® business-class phone system. Already familiar with the best, he knew VirtualPBX would be the perfect system to keep him in contact with a multitude of judges and vintners, and manage numerous calls from any location. In addition, receiving all the award submissions was no problem with the built-in faxing capabilities offered by VirtualPBX.

With Virtual PBX, Levy was able to significantly reduce overall costs and have access to vital features including follow-me calling and inbound fax. He estimates the new system saves the company around $980 a year on phone charges.

“After using Virtual PBX at a previous company, I knew that they offered a great service that would be easy for us to implement,” said Levy. “Today, our team relies on Virtual PBX to retrieve all of our voicemails and faxes, even when we are in completely different locations. In particular, we value the ease-of-use and varied feature set, which allows us to work out of our home offices and on-the-go when we’re at tasting events.”

The industry’s leading spirit experts are a huge part of NYISC’s overwhelming success. To compare and select the winning spirits, they had to be in constant contact with buyers, sommeliers, restaurant owners, distributers and importers. They never missed a call or fax as the virtual PBX system effortlessly routed the hundreds of entry forms as well as numerous calls to the appropriate line.

“A majority of our customers are on-the-go and require flexible resources to help them keep up with the needs of their clients, regardless of their location,” said Paul Hammond, president and CEO of Virtual PBX. “With the industry’s strongest set of features included in our standard plans, we give customers like the New York International Spirits Competition a cost-effective and powerful business phone system that delivers peace of mind.”

Our congratulations to Adam Levy and the New York International Spirits Competition. We’re proud to be involved with such a prestigious event!

Filed under: follow-me calling, general telephony, phone system

Virtual PBX Adds VoIP Phones and New Flat-Rate Plans!

  Virtual PBX Adds Hardware VoIP Phone Support

The time has come — Virtual PBX, provider of the no-compromise business phone system, announced support for hardware VoIP Phones along with new flat-rate plans, fortifying their lineup of industry-leading plans and services. With this, Virtual PBX now controls the phone call from the inbound phone number ALL the way down to the phone on the desktop. You can now have a truly complete phone system integrating phone numbers, free long distance and IP phones into one cost-effective solution.

We now offer two award winning plans from which you, the customer, can choose: the new flat-rate plans and the original usage-based plans. Even better, you don’t have to be on the flat-rate plans to use the VoIP phones – we’ve set up the system to support the phones on either plan. So feel free to pick the plan that works best for you and your business, and also decide how you would like the system to reach you. You can be contacted through the VoIP phone(s) and/or contact phone numbers via a landline or cell phone. The freedom to choose is in your hands.

We also offer you the freedom to save! With Virtual PBX you can simplify your life and your budget by cutting the ties with your landline carrier. There is really no need for a landline anymore seeing as how you can make and receive phone calls using a VoIP phone and your Virtual PBX service. So go on ahead and save that money each month with Virtual PBX Complete. With our phone service you can enjoy a savings of anywhere from 40-80% in traditional phone system and landline costs – that is a huge savings! Given that telecom costs are a major expense in everyday business, Virtual PBX provides business communication that is affordable, easy and accessible from wherever you need to be with a low monthly fee and no contracts or setup costs!

Please see the plan details below and save money with the plan suited for you:

Flat-Rate Plans:

These are your traditional “unlimited” plans that so many companies try to market. However, Virtual PBX does it right as there is a fair-use policy in place (much like every other VoIP phone service out there) that allows 5,000 minutes of inbound minutes per extension, aggregated at the account level. So a 5-user system would include upwards of 25,000 inbound local minutes. That’s amazing. Most companies won’t touch that. Yet, they can have this system for around $150 per month, and that already includes the e911 fees, Federal and FCC taxes. The flat-rate plans are as follows:

1-User: $39.99/mo4-User: $23.99/mo/ext10-User: $21.99/mo/ext20-User: $19.99/mo/ext50-User: $19.99/mo/extExtra Extensions: $24.99/mo

Usage-Based Plans:

These plans are what Virtual PBX used to pioneer the hosted phone service market. On these original plans you only pay for the minutes used each month. As the plans go up, you receive a larger block of free minutes and the price for additional minutes becomes cheaper. These plans come with unlimited users and all the same features as the flat-rate plans. Virtual PBX has the following usage-based plans:

VPBX-5: $9.99/mo (300 minutes, extra minutes are 6.5 cents/min)VPBX-10: $24.99/mo (600 minutes, extra minutes are 5.8 cents/min)VPBX-20: $44.99/mo (1,000 minutes, extra minutes are 4.7 cents/min)VPBX-50: $94.99/mo (2,500 minutes, extra minutes are 4.4 cents/min

VoIP Phones

Virtual PBX now supports hardware VoIP phones connected to the service. This is a superb addition as now you can make phone calls and show your Virtual PBX caller ID on every outbound call. And you don’t have to use a cellphone or landline to make that outbound call. All you need is an Internet connection. Virtual PBX sells the following phones that arrive pre-configured and ready for use:

Polycom SoundPoint IP 321: $99.99 (single ethernet port)Polycom SoundPoint IP 335: $139.99 (ethernet pass-through port; backlit display)Polycom SoundStation IP 5000: $599.99 (conference phone)

With Virtual PBX there is no need to get phones from one provider, calling plans from another, and features from somewhere else. Get it all in one place. If you are looking for a complete, no-compromise business VoIP solution for your business, Virtual PBX is the answer.

Filed under: ACD queue, auto-attendant, call recording, Call tracking, Call transfers, Call whisper, CallerID, conferencing, follow-me calling, hunt group, mail only extension, music on hold, phone system, virtual receptionist, VoIP Tagged: | caller id, extensions, features, hosted pbx, hosted phone system, IP PBX, IP phones, pbx, phone system, phones, Polycom, SIP VoIP, small business, small business phone system, virtual pbx, Virtual PBX Complete, virtual phone system, virtualpbx, VoIP phones

Virtual PBX Honored to Receive its Seventh Award for Open VoIP Peering

Virtual PBX, the pioneers and market leader of the virtual phone system, was honored to received their seventh award from Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) for their innovative Open VoIP Peering service. This particular award was presented by TMC’s NGN Magazine, the leading resource for communications service providers.

The NGN Leadership Award recognizes the growth and evolution of applications and services designed for next-generation networks and the enabling technologies that make them possible. Virtual PBX was recognized in the Services category.

“This recognition of Virtual PBX’s Open VoIP Peering service is a testament to the company’s continued commitment to providing customers with innovative solutions that meet their demanding business needs,” said Paul Hammond, CEO of Virtual PBX. “Being selected as an NGN Leadership Award winner is truly a mark of distinction and further validates Virtual PBX’s leadership in the VoIP market.”

So far Virtual PBX has received 3 product of the year awards, 2 leadership awards, 1 Product Innovation award and 1 telephony excellence award for the Open VoIP Peering solution they released in November of 2008. No stranger to winning awards, Virtual PBX’s 7th win comes on the heels of their impressive ‘2010 Best Telecommunications Services in San Jose’ award.

The many accolades that Open VoIP Peering has received truly are a testament not only to the company’s strength and dedication in bringing to market the most innovative product conceivable, but also the products immense popularity with Virtual PBX Customers everywhere.

The Open VoIP Peering Solution stands out from the masses, being the only VoIP solution to allow users to choose which option they like on a call-by-call basis to meet their individual needs. In addition, unlike competitors who charge extra for proprietary digital-enabled phone extensions, with Virtual PBX there is no additional cost for accessing soft phones.

“Virtual PBX was recognized for its exceptional work in advancing NGN services and technologies. Open VoIP Peering has proven exceptional and its innovation has contributed to the transformation of the industry,” stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. “Congratulations to the entire team at Virtual PBX, and I look forward to more innovations in the coming year.”

The 2010 NGN Leadership Award winners can be found in the May/June 2010 issue of NGN Magazine.

Virtual PBX Adds Call Recording – For Free!

We are excited to announce every Virtual PBX system now includes call recording in all standard plans at no added cost for customers.

“This is the latest in a series of enhancements that Virtual PBX has rolled out this year,” said Greg Brashier, COO of Virtual PBX. “We’ve had requests for call recording from our client base and felt it was something a majority of our SMB clients could use. Since we innovated the entire hosted PBX space, we feel it is necessary to lead by example and continue to enhance the service.”

With the newest Virtual PBX call recording feature, any or all calls can be recorded, saved, and played back later. There are infinite ways companies of all sizes can utilize this tool to enhance their business such as capturing calls for later review, assisting in employee training, monitoring customer service agents, as well as meeting legal requirements.  Greg adds, “we’ve found that many call centers love this feature since it’s a free and effective tool that allows them to improve company performance.”

In addition, the call recording feature is greatly customizable and easy to use. Every user with a Virtual PBX extension can record all calls automatically or select calls to record manually by simply pushing #9 during a call.  Furthermore, the built-in selective recording architecture allows calls to be recorded for pre-selected extensions and/or departments.

The recordings can be sorted by date/time, length, caller ID, user name, or extension number so they are easy to locate when needed. Recordings can be played back or deleted at the convenience of the extension owner, or downloaded them to a computer for future playback.

Administrators can also decide to control call recording for all users or give each user the ability to manage his or her recordings.

“With the addition of call recording, Virtual PBX extends our leadership in providing clients with the most diverse set of features at the lowest cost,” continues Brashier.  “This announcement gives users the ability to improve their own customer satisfaction and ensure that high priority calls are properly managed.”

This announcement adds to a long list of service enhancements that have been provided by Virtual PBX during 2010. Previous upgrades have included unlimited extensions and more free usage, open VoIP peering, free conferencing, and international numbers. The company promises more to come.