Joan Prout of RE/MAX New Jersey's Take on RingCentral
I think at the service level I have, extra minutes are billed at about $.05. They send an email notification if you've gone over your prepaid allotment, and they automatically bill you, I believe in 10-minute blocks. I've upgraded my service plan twice to the point where I don't exceed my "free"minutes. When the market heats up again, I fully expect to do so again. It gets expensive in a hurry when you run up the extra minutes.
There are numerous levels at which you can subscribe, and, of course, the bigger the chunk you buy, the less you pay for extra minutes if you need them.
Still, I try to economize where I can. I have one extension where I don't take messages; I just record an availability list of properties (seeing my V.A.s aren't licensed in NJ and aren't allowed to give out that info.) Rather than record that announcement every week or so using the phone (and minutes), I record it to the computer and upload the file. When someone calls in on the 800# and I anticipate a long chat, I often ask if I can call them right back. Then I dial them right back from a land line w/unlimited long distance calling. My #1 attorney and lender both know the system well enough that they first dial my home number, but, if I don't pick up or the line is busy, they'll then call the 800# to have it hunt me down or they leave their message using RingCentral (that's the most sophisticated voicemail system I use.) I gave up "calling in for messages" years ago.
When we go out of town, I unplug the home answering machine, so no one is tempted to leave a message. I don't give out my home number or cell number to clients. Our V.A.s monitor our extensions when we're away. They always have our itinerary and emergency reach numbers. Rather than have them answer our extensions, the messages are emailed to both us and them. There is a protocol in place depending on the type of call. Many times agents dial my extension rather that one of the V.A.s for scheduling. Those are easy to handle. If it's a current client, the V.A.s can also usually handle the request. New leads and referrals get a call back right away.
"Joan is out of town...she's traveling and won't be reachable until the plane lands...she'll be back in the office Monday, will that be soon enough, or if it's urgent, I can have her call you back tonight..." I always have an agent(or 2 or 3) lined up to cover for me. They don't mind because they are spared all the nuisance calls. They get a referral fee from me for handling offers and negotiations (license required) and they take the business that"can't wait." Having the initial messages come in as .wav attachments allows me to track them. Before we got RingCentral, the V.A.s would call my office voicemail periodically -- at one point I'd set up pager notification, but that didn't work consistently and was very costly. I'd estimate now, during business hours, calls are returned in a matter of minutes. That's similar to when I'm in town, but unavailable to answer the call when it rings. Before RingCentral, the V.A.s logged call info to a spreadsheet for me. This is far more accurate, and the original message is easy to forward by email to an agent who will handle it, and I can review it later myself. There are call logs noting the time, duration, and disposition of each call that came in (hung up, answered, voice mail etc.) This is great ammunition when an agent (or client or attorney) says he left a message that wasn't returned.
It's hard to believe that when I started selling real estate around 1990, company policy was to print home phone numbers on our business cards. Within 6 months, I had disabled the ringer on the phone in our bedroom (because I'd gotten a call after 10:00 PM to discuss a home inspection report.) There was an "up-time" schedule for after business hours, where calls to the office were call-forwarded to an agent's home when the receptionist left for the night. That agent was expected to answer the phone as "Thank you for calling ABC Real Estate, this is Sally Agent, how can I help you?" and have the greeting on Sally's answering machine say one had reached the ABC Real Estate Co. As you can imagine, it didn't take me long to opt off of that rotation. A couple of years later, I remember carrying a pager and driving around looking for a pay phone. Between sessions at a real estate convention, there was always a line at the pay phones outside the meeting rooms. Ah, progress.
There's a free trial you can sign up for with RingCentral. Just go to their website. You'll be hooked. I sent an email suggesting Bubba contact them to see if they'd be interested in being a Summit Sponsor.
Joan Prout, MBA, CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES an Allen F. Hainge CyberStar R
Broker Associate, RE/MAX Villa REALTORS, Jersey City, NJ
Across the riverfrom Lower Manhattan
Call or fax the team direct at 800-671-0596
There are numerous levels at which you can subscribe, and, of course, the bigger the chunk you buy, the less you pay for extra minutes if you need them.
Still, I try to economize where I can. I have one extension where I don't take messages; I just record an availability list of properties (seeing my V.A.s aren't licensed in NJ and aren't allowed to give out that info.) Rather than record that announcement every week or so using the phone (and minutes), I record it to the computer and upload the file. When someone calls in on the 800# and I anticipate a long chat, I often ask if I can call them right back. Then I dial them right back from a land line w/unlimited long distance calling. My #1 attorney and lender both know the system well enough that they first dial my home number, but, if I don't pick up or the line is busy, they'll then call the 800# to have it hunt me down or they leave their message using RingCentral (that's the most sophisticated voicemail system I use.) I gave up "calling in for messages" years ago.
When we go out of town, I unplug the home answering machine, so no one is tempted to leave a message. I don't give out my home number or cell number to clients. Our V.A.s monitor our extensions when we're away. They always have our itinerary and emergency reach numbers. Rather than have them answer our extensions, the messages are emailed to both us and them. There is a protocol in place depending on the type of call. Many times agents dial my extension rather that one of the V.A.s for scheduling. Those are easy to handle. If it's a current client, the V.A.s can also usually handle the request. New leads and referrals get a call back right away.
"Joan is out of town...she's traveling and won't be reachable until the plane lands...she'll be back in the office Monday, will that be soon enough, or if it's urgent, I can have her call you back tonight..." I always have an agent(or 2 or 3) lined up to cover for me. They don't mind because they are spared all the nuisance calls. They get a referral fee from me for handling offers and negotiations (license required) and they take the business that"can't wait." Having the initial messages come in as .wav attachments allows me to track them. Before we got RingCentral, the V.A.s would call my office voicemail periodically -- at one point I'd set up pager notification, but that didn't work consistently and was very costly. I'd estimate now, during business hours, calls are returned in a matter of minutes. That's similar to when I'm in town, but unavailable to answer the call when it rings. Before RingCentral, the V.A.s logged call info to a spreadsheet for me. This is far more accurate, and the original message is easy to forward by email to an agent who will handle it, and I can review it later myself. There are call logs noting the time, duration, and disposition of each call that came in (hung up, answered, voice mail etc.) This is great ammunition when an agent (or client or attorney) says he left a message that wasn't returned.
It's hard to believe that when I started selling real estate around 1990, company policy was to print home phone numbers on our business cards. Within 6 months, I had disabled the ringer on the phone in our bedroom (because I'd gotten a call after 10:00 PM to discuss a home inspection report.) There was an "up-time" schedule for after business hours, where calls to the office were call-forwarded to an agent's home when the receptionist left for the night. That agent was expected to answer the phone as "Thank you for calling ABC Real Estate, this is Sally Agent, how can I help you?" and have the greeting on Sally's answering machine say one had reached the ABC Real Estate Co. As you can imagine, it didn't take me long to opt off of that rotation. A couple of years later, I remember carrying a pager and driving around looking for a pay phone. Between sessions at a real estate convention, there was always a line at the pay phones outside the meeting rooms. Ah, progress.
There's a free trial you can sign up for with RingCentral. Just go to their website. You'll be hooked. I sent an email suggesting Bubba contact them to see if they'd be interested in being a Summit Sponsor.
Joan Prout, MBA, CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES an Allen F. Hainge CyberStar R
Broker Associate, RE/MAX Villa REALTORS, Jersey City, NJ
Across the riverfrom Lower Manhattan
Call or fax the team direct at 800-671-0596
posted by RealSupport Inc. at
3:13 PM
1 Comments:
I, too, use RingCentral's Virtual PBX (for a non-Internet business) and it's worked well for me in spades. You can read my review of their small business phone system here: http://www.small-business-phone.com
By
J.B. Malik, Editor-In-Chief, At
July 24, 2007 at 10:35 AM
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