Magic Jack(c) for Small Business

With a little forethought and a small time investment (hours not days), you can virtually eliminate the costly and confusing telephone system you have been struggling with or have been putting off purchasing due to SMB budget constraints.

If you’re paying Ma-Bell for a traditional phone line, or have your own confusing pbx switch on location, you’re not making the most of current phone technology. In fact, you may be wasting precious time and money for a system that does not meet your needs and actually takes away revenue.

Maybe you are paying a full-time employee to do nothing but manage the “phone system”, or worse, heaping the responsibility on a part-time additional duty basis to an employee who could otherwise focus on THEIR job.

You may have already joined the quarter million other home subscribers of the Magic jack community. Now it’s time to see how this can be applied to your small or medium business.

There are links to reviews of the magic jack included with this article, but in summary:

FEATURES:

• It’s cheap, costs include $40 for the device and 1st year of phone service, $19.95/yr after that
• Being a USB storage device(like a thumb drive), it carries it’s own software and installs when inserted in the USB slot
• You can either make calls using a headset/mic or a traditional telephone (cordless phones & fax machines)
• It comes with “voicemail” forwarded to any email account you wish
• you get email notifications when new VMs arrive
• Although it’s not a traditional phone ine with 911 they provide 911 where YOU control the address, so you can set the 911 for ANY location in the US (got a sick mother?)
• Nationwide toll-free is included and international can be had for a price or…
• Send a Magic Jack to anyone you want to call and who you want to call YOU and it’s free WORLDWIDE!
• You can migrate your current landline phone number, maybe your cell number not always, or get a new phone number*
• ALL of this depends on a broadband connection (I recommend Always on like Cable, NOT DSL), and a computer/laptop.

UNFEATURES

• Call quality (QoS) resembles a cell phone, in both sound quality and dropped calls.
• Customer service is basically their FAQs online and that’s about it.
• The device is bigger than other USB devices, but has a dongle to get it out of the way of your other USB plugs
• One yank on the phone cord and “POP”! out comes the MJ
• limited local phone numbers means long distance numbers in some locations
• Ordering the service online or over the phone or using the MJ program can be confusing

* The “local” phone numbers are not always a local call for your city, for instance in Montana the ONLY number they have are local to Helena, great if you live in the capital not so great for the rest of the state.

The savvy entrepreneur has already seen some openings with the above list for cutting costs. Let’s look at a few ways you can make the most of this new technology for your business.

We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but here are some cost effective uses:
HARDWARE

1. Connect your Home & Work offices
2. Virtual Office employee(s) and VAs
3. Key Customer and teleconference training
4. Anyone who travels for your company

IMPLEMENTATION

1. Fax
2. Small pbx-like features
3. Integration with other tech i.e. Virtual PBX systems

First, HARDWARE solutions.
By simply purchasing the Magic Jack device at $40 ea. you can save tons on the recurring phone bill.

1 – Connect home & work offices, buy a MJ device for home and work, for anyone who commutes. After the initial $40 you get 1 year of uninterrupted calling from work to home etc. try out call forwarding thru a virtual pbx
2 – Virtual Office employees or VAs you contract with can now maintain voice contact with no cost to THEM if you simply buy them a MJ device, it’s up to you if you ask for it back at the end of the contract or give it to them for a job well done.
3 – Key customer care and Teleconferencing or training This encompasses many areas but essentially it’s a repeat of the above, for a nominal $40 charge you can ensure your key clients and business partners stay connected again at no fee for them. It’s so easy to use they really won’t have to wade through a tech manual to begin calling you. If you host training over the phone/online through .rdp connections etc. you can send one of the MJs to them ahead of training (perhaps with any manuals) and ask them to call on your $40 dime. Especially if you will have ongoing training with this client. Again, you can choose to just give it to them as a gift. $40 isn’t much when you consider the price of other training materials you use.
4 – The Road Warriors friend Having spent half my life on the road, I can tell you if I were doing that kind of work now, I would buy the MJ without even thinking about it. Being able to call “Local” to my home or the US when overseas for a year for $20 you bet I’m on board. Just imagine, you get to the hotel (with broadband access of course) late at night, and just want to touch base with home or the office, now you plug in MJ into your laptop and before you can unwrap the baby soap bar, you’re ready to make or receive calls from home FOR FREE minus $20 initial fee 😉
If you are already paying for cell phones for the travelers maybe you can cut down on some of the primetime minutes by simply buying the MJ, or better yet, give the MJ to them for personal calls and encourage strict business ONLY calls on the cell phone wiht no excuses for wasted minutes chatting with family etc.

Now that’s only what you can do by being nice enough to purchase MJ devices for everyone, now let’s explaore some of the cool things that can be set up on the USAGE/Implementation side of the house:
1 – FAX Although officially not supported yet, key word being “YET”, faxing can be done from anywhere again as a local call with no special setup, just plug in and send. Again, you might consider integrating with a virtual pbx system for a smoother operation especially if you wish to offer fax back capability.
2 – Private Branch Exchange (private telephone switchboard) although it’s far from a PBX or virtual PBX system, the magic jack will allow 3-way calling and take voicemails. Once you have the MJ phone number you can marry it with a virtual pbx and get full-featured use of a pbx with the orders or important calls coming to your MJ phone.
If you have set up your business to be on autopilot, send a MJ to your order takers and Cust Support VAs and let the calls come in with no per minute charges coming back to you.
3 – Integrate The most effective use of technology means marry-ing or integrating several solutions to create a full-featured robust solution.

If you aren’t familiar with virtual-PBXs look into using one like onebox, for service starting around $10/mo., prices go up depending on usage, you get 1-800 access and the same basic features that a geeky full-time phone switch programmer at your company can create, with less cost and hassle.
– Have calls routed within the PBX to various voicemails, but more importantly following the Tim Ferris way of doing things, you can have them follow YOU or any of your employees and VAs, no matter what phone or time of day they will be at that phone number, giving the illusion of 24/7 customer support.
Routing can also include having the really important calls directed to the MJ device number/voice mail so you get ONLY the most pressing calls, again, from anywhere in the world (With broadband access).

Well, this is again just brushing the surface of what the world of VoIP and devices like the MagicJack can garner for the SMB world, for more info please visit http://squatchtech.ning.com and follow the articles relating to small business technology use.

Your uncle BobSquatch

Reference:

• squatchtech.ning.com/
• www.jennyreviews.com/phones/magic-jack/
• www.onebox.com