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Phone Rooms

by James Foster
21 replies
Hey Warriors,

I've been out of the loop for a while. Who are the people to talk to these days in regards to starting and running a phone room? Who's at the top of the Warrior list?
#phone #rooms
  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Ken Michaels....could also search for John Durham's posts in the past, he is no longer active here though.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Foster
    Thanks man. I hear you have some expertise in this area too?

    I was just searching for threads by Ken and it looks like the last one he started was back in April. Has he moved on to someplace else now? How would you recommend getting ahold of him/following him.
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    • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
      Originally Posted by James Foster View Post

      Thanks man. I hear you have some expertise in this area too?

      I was just searching for threads by Ken and it looks like the last one he started was back in April. Has he moved on to someplace else now? How would you recommend getting ahold of him/following him.
      I am around - I just don't post much. The conversation here in the last year
      has been a bit repetitious for my taste. Most of the people I like to chew the
      fat with about sales have left. My bizz is mostly off line - so no way to follow
      me. Just shoot me a PM or make a subject with my name in it ... google
      alerts will let me know about it.

      Bob Ross gave you good advice - I use T-1's, predictive dialers and dialogic cards.
      Price prohibitive for a start up or small room.
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      • Profile picture of the author qu4rk
        What do you guys find as the best commission split? Meaning what kind of base & what kind of commission do you find works best?

        Also, what personality types do you look for to hire?
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        • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
          Originally Posted by qu4rk View Post

          What do you guys find as the best commission split? Meaning what kind of base & what kind of commission do you find works best?

          Also, what personality types do you look for to hire?
          Min wage + sliding scale commision with quota. 6 - 12%
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  • Profile picture of the author bob ross
    I run two call rooms (one for my remodeling business, one for my marketing business), if you have questions that you want to ask here I may be able to help. Please keep it to the forum though.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Foster
    Thanks Bob Ross.

    I guess one of my current questions is - how do you handle a rep talking to a prospect with a trainer or trainee listening in?

    My group is small and we use skype for our dialing (since all our calls a pre-scheduled appointments). And it's easy enough to record a call and listen to it with a trainee after the fact, but I'd really like to have a way where trainees could listen into calls as they're actually happening.
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  • Profile picture of the author bob ross
    I'm not sure how to set that up through skype. I could do it using a mixer but that would be overkill for you.

    I use a voip pbx system which allows supervisors to listen in and barge-in to take over anytime.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Foster
    I went with Skype because there are only a couple of us, and it was simple to set up. At what level (how many people) would you recommend making the switch to a system like yours, and then, what system(s) do you recommend?
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  • Profile picture of the author bob ross
    It costs me about $290/month for the basic charge of 5 extensions and every feature under the sun. That includes the internet access and everything.

    Every extension past that is $30/month and after so many extensions you'll also need to upgrade your bandwith to handle it as well. I currently have a lot more extensions but since you won't need that many I gave you the price of the base plan of 5.

    I believe this is just about as good as you can get a for a fully functional voip plan that would have everything you need, so you'd have to gauge whether it was worth it or not.

    Once nice feature as well if you're calling nationally is that you can likely buy throwaway numbers to have your caller ID's show as, my provider only charges me $1 per month for them and I can toss them away as needed.
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
      Originally Posted by bob ross View Post

      It costs me about $290/month for the basic charge of 5 extensions and every feature under the sun. That includes the internet access and everything.

      Every extension past that is $30/month and after so many extensions you'll also need to upgrade your bandwith to handle it as well. I currently have a lot more extensions but since you won't need that many I gave you the price of the base plan of 5.

      I believe this is just about as good as you can get a for a fully functional voip plan that would have everything you need, so you'd have to gauge whether it was worth it or not.

      Once nice feature as well if you're calling nationally is that you can likely buy throwaway numbers to have your caller ID's show as, my provider only charges me $1 per month for them and I can toss them away as needed.
      Damn, the phones put me out $1,200/mo. I've never been a fan of VOIP though, lots of dropped calls.
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      • Profile picture of the author bob ross
        Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

        Damn, the phones put me out $1,200/mo. I've never been a fan of VOIP though, lots of dropped calls.
        I have 21 extensions, totals $900-ish after taxes.

        I used to have a regular pbx system but when I expanded I did not want to spend $5k having a pbx installed, pay $100+ per phone, and have less features, so I went VOIP. It took the rep almost two years to sell me on it, finally getting me to do it in January.

        Once in a while there will be a little static or a blip of chopiness but it's very rare, and dropped calls are never an issue, they happen so rarely we don't even notice.

        I was pretty against voip but there's a lot of reasons I went with it besides price:

        1. All extensions are plug-n-play, so if I want to add some phones to a new room I just plug them in.

        2. I can have extensions at home. I have two extensions in my home so that anytime someone rings my office it not only rings at my physical office but also at home, acting as if it was in the same office.

        3. I can also use my cell as an extension, so that if it rings to my office it's also ringing my cell as the same extension. Or I can have it ring the office and if no one answers it will automatically switch to my cell.

        4. IF the power goes down it automatically forwards incoming calls to a designated number I choose.

        5. I can use multiple virtual receptionists and the phone tags it, so I don't have to have separate phone systems for different companies. If someone is calling my remodeling company, it still goes through the same system but tags it so the receptionist knows which company the call is coming in for.

        6. If I move offices the whole system follows along, no need for those crazy junction boxes, key units, or miles of wire needed for traditional pbx.

        7. Reporting is instantaneous. I can pull up all sorts of data in real time through my admin dashboard, I can see logs of every call made from every extension with durations and recordings and everything.

        also... the ability to add and drop extensions whenever you want. If I want to add 3 more extensions and cancel them out a month later, no problem.
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        • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
          Originally Posted by bob ross View Post

          I have 21 extensions, totals $900-ish after taxes.

          I used to have a regular pbx system but when I expanded I did not want to spend $5k having a pbx installed, pay $100+ per phone, and have less features, so I went VOIP. It took the rep almost two years to sell me on it, finally getting me to do it in January.

          Once in a while there will be a little static or a blip of chopiness but it's very rare, and dropped calls are never an issue, they happen so rarely we don't even notice.

          I was pretty against voip but there's a lot of reasons I went with it besides price:

          1. All extensions are plug-n-play, so if I want to add some phones to a new room I just plug them in.

          2. I can have extensions at home. I have two extensions in my home so that anytime someone rings my office it not only rings at my physical office but also at home, acting as if it was in the same office.

          3. I can also use my cell as an extension, so that if it rings to my office it's also ringing my cell as the same extension. Or I can have it ring the office and if no one answers it will automatically switch to my cell.

          4. IF the power goes down it automatically forwards incoming calls to a designated number I choose.

          5. I can use multiple virtual receptionists and the phone tags it, so I don't have to have separate phone systems for different companies. If someone is calling my remodeling company, it still goes through the same system but tags it so the receptionist knows which company the call is coming in for.

          6. If I move offices the whole system follows along, no need for those crazy junction boxes, key units, or miles of wire needed for traditional pbx.

          7. Reporting is instantaneous. I can pull up all sorts of data in real time through my admin dashboard, I can see logs of every call made from every extension with durations and recordings and everything.

          also... the ability to add and drop extensions whenever you want. If I want to add 3 more extensions and cancel them out a month later, no problem.
          I'm very Interested and would like to learn more. Who is your provider?

          What if you want to use and auto/power dialer?
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          • Profile picture of the author bob ross
            Originally Posted by DIABL0 View Post

            I'm very Interested and would like to learn more. Who is your provider?

            What if you want to use and auto/power dialer?
            I use a local communications company so I don't think it would help you any where you live, but I'm sure you have the same kind of providers who manage everything and can get you rates under their contracts.

            The dashboard they give me is through vonage, called vocalocity and whitelabeled as their own, it's a really really great tool as it lets you do everything under the sun and is cloud based so you can access it anywhere.

            I don't use any auto or power dialing, it's all manual, simply because I don't have computers setup at every workstation and don't plan to. Just my personal preference.
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  • Profile picture of the author bob ross
    I forgot to mention as well that you'd have to buy the phones, I use cisco ones that I buy from my provider for about $30 but there's cheaper ones for $20 called "yealink" that work really well too.

    You may be able to buy one of them and hook them up through ringcentral, I'm just not sure if they have the barge-in feature or recording.
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  • Profile picture of the author BillyParadise
    There's good VoIP and bad voip. Most if not all carriers use VoIP in their network now. Having a dedicated DSL connection for voice really helps too - so when someone InThe office downloads something your voice quality does not suffer
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  • Profile picture of the author JNAssociates
    I use Five 9, it's about 179 a seat and you can listen in and even talk to your employee while the customer is on the line. However, I have done this only a handful of times since it is time consuming. Sometimes an employee will get nervous with this kind of coaching and usually those will be the people who is half way out the door already.
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  • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
    So I checked out vonage business and they have all the features you spoke about and other add on options. So I take it you are using it and then just using local co for your bandwidth.

    They charge $39.99 per unlimited extension with multi ext discounts. I will find out what the discounts are. So do you just hook up a switch that has enough ports or something to your router for all the extensions?

    Anyone know what the most cost effective way to run crm/dialer for each extension would be?
    I don't need predictive, just auto/power dialer would be fine, as all calls will be B2B and I would assume predictive is probably more needed for B2C.
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    • Profile picture of the author bob ross
      Originally Posted by DIABL0 View Post

      So I checked out vonage business and they have all the features you spoke about and other add on options. So I take it you are using it and then just using local co for your bandwidth.

      They charge $39.99 per unlimited extension with multi ext discounts. I will find out what the discounts are. So do you just hook up a switch that has enough ports or something to your router for all the extensions?

      Anyone know what the most cost effective way to run crm/dialer for each extension would be?
      I don't need predictive, just auto/power dialer would be fine, as all calls will be B2B and I would assume predictive is probably more needed for B2C.

      Yep I just use the provider for the bandwith and administration over the whole thing. They set everything up, troubleshoot any problems, offer tech, and installed everything (lots of ethernet cables everywhere). I know it uses a "sip trunk" as well but I have no clue if that's a piece of equipment that I have or something digital.

      If you hook up a switch or just use your router, you should be absolutely fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sandy Berth
    Why not just use vicidial? I do not understand the need to pay what you all are paying? $525 for 4 servers a month, $500 a month for full time IT, and .007 for white route VOIP. I have over 75 agents and 4 managers, very little issues. If you have less than 10 agents, it can all be done for less than $200 a month.
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    • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
      Originally Posted by Sandy Berth View Post

      Why not just use vicidial? I do not understand the need to pay what you all are paying? $525 for 4 servers a month, $500 a month for full time IT, and .007 for white route VOIP. I have over 75 agents and 4 managers, very little issues. If you have less than 10 agents, it can all be done for less than $200 a month.
      I'm always open to looking at anything that will save me money.

      Can you elaborate how it works out to less than $200 per month for 10 agents?

      What is the set up costs? You mention you have full time IT, why is this required?

      I take it that .007 for white route VOIP, is .007 per minute? What is your average cost per agent per month?
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