Voxox Cloud Phone Brings Mobility to Business Calls

Voxox, a San Diego-based provider of voice over IP (VoIP) phone services for businesses, launched Cloud Phone, a virtual or hosted PBX (private branch exchange) solution for small businesses.

Cloud Phone solves a big problem for small business owners and how they handle inbound calls, according to Tristan Barnum, vice president of marketing for Voxox. While dealing with vendors, putting out fires and generally keeping things running, desk phones ring, voicemails pile up, and worse, inquiries from potential customers go unanswered.

VoIP Meets Mobile in the Cloud

Designed for teams of 10 employees or fewer, Cloud Phone leverages something that practically everyone keeps on their person at all times: their cell phones. “It makes sense that when someone calls you, the call goes directly to your [mobile] phone,” said Barnum.

After a sign-up and setup process that takes a few minutes—the company offers preconfigured profiles that you can customize later—the hosted PBX service seamlessly transfers incoming phone calls to a worker’s mobile phone. No mobile app required. Voxox Cloud Phone also supplies a dedicated phone number and supports call-routing policies that, for example, prevent business calls from reaching employees in the dead of night.

Other business-focused features include voice-to-email transcription and an auto-attendant that helps callers reach the right department or person.

A streamlined, user-friendly interface gives even technophobes the tools to get up and running. Voxox shields users from the complexities of designing, configuring and maintaining a PBX system with a mobile-first, user-centric website. “We talk about people rather than extensions,” said Barnum.

Experts, meanwhile, can dive in and customize Cloud Phone to fit their needs. You can modify practically every feature to fit the work styles of a variety of business types and the professional image you wish to exude.

Press 1 for Professional

In the game of attracting and keeping customers, perception is reality, argued Barnum. Cloud Phone lets even the most modest mom-and-pop shops deliver their customers a polished, professional experience that “gives the appearance of a larger business.”

That good first impression can boost confidence in a business. Even better, Cloud Phone makes it likelier that callers will reach a live person instead of getting punted into a voicemail system, said Barnum.

Another perk: big savings. With Cloud Phone, businesses, startups in particular, can eliminate the cost of traditional phone services and equipment. Businesses that watch every penny can exploit the major benefit of the “bring your own device” (BYOD) phenomenon.

Voxox CEO Bryan Hertz said in a statement that his company “wanted to provide entrepreneurs with a basic, yet professional, phone service that addresses their telephony needs.” Based on the firm’s commercial-grade Service Delivery Platform unified communications, Cloud Phone’s “small-scale design and all-Web interface makes it perfect for a small business on a budget,” he added.

Cloud Phone is available now in the U.S. and Canada. Prices start at $19.95 per month for the starter plan. It includes one local phone number, supports up to two users and offers up to 500 minutes of inbound calls. Additional time costs 4.9 cents per minute. A five-person Plus Plan with 1,000 minutes (3.9 cents per minute additional) and the 10-peson Pro Plan with 5,000 minutes (2.9 cents per minute additional) cost $39.95 and $49.95 per month, respectively.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Small Business Computing. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

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