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Supercharging your Business with VOIP

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 12:03:00 +0000

Instead of using traditional phone lines, a VoIP phone system uses the Internet Protocol to make and receive calls. With the growth of broadband, VoIP has emerged as the clear choice for phone service for both individuals and companies.

VoIP stands for voice-over-internet protocol. It is a technology that enables internet-connected devices to make and receive phone calls over the internet. Many organisations choose VoIP, especially when dealing with a high number of conversations and data storage.

How does it work?

Now you know we like to keep it simple here at Ostratto, so, if you aren't too interested in how the sausage is made you can skip to the next section.

Voice over IP is a technology that turns your voice into a digital signal, compresses it, and delivers it over the internet. To function, VoIP often requires an internet connection. Aside from that, the VoIP functionality is contingent on the quality and speed of the internet connection. This implies that VoIP phones perform best when such internet connection is fast and consistent. When both the caller and the recipient are using VoIP equipment, the call signals go fully digitally, with no signal translation.

How VoIP operates is dependent on the devices and extensions used to make these sorts of calls. It is critical to understand how they are employed and how they enhance voice quality and communication performance.

Credit: Unsplash

Pros and Cons of Voice over IP

Pros

Remote work friendly. Employees can work from any location thanks to VoIP. They can connect in from any computer, use any IP phone, and telecommute instead of creating a new satellite offices and adopting costs such as paying rent and utilities.
Cost. Calls using VoIP are often packaged in bundles providing unlimited (and sometimes internationally) minutes. With no physical PBX equipment costs and often no physical handset costs, the entry cost is minimal. Perfect for small businesses.
Quality. VoIP uses wideband codecs, which have a larger audio bit depths and so provide better voice quality. Narrowband codecs are used in traditional phone line networks, which generally result in lower-quality calls.
Feature-rich. VoIP, with its sophisticated capabilities like auto attendant and call transferring, allows even a one-person team to present the appearance of a larger organisation.
Availability. One distinguished aspect of a cloud-based VoIP service is the advanced availability offered by the cloud. Not only can you generally expect the likes of 99.999% uptime, redundancy features such as emergency forwarding to mobile phone numbers are often baked-in. This means users missing calls becomes a problem of the past.

Cons

Internet-dependant. The quality and dependability of your sound will be determined by your internet connection and network settings. You must rely on an internet service for VoIP communication, whereas traditional PBX systems use the PBX network. Should the internet connection go down in an office or satellite location, calls cannot be received by users. Data service is required on the go too.
Recurring cost. For as long as a cloud-based VoIP system is required, a monthly or annual cost will always need to be paid, and this is usually user-based licencing. As the business grows, so do the costs of the phone system whereas traditional systems can expand at a lower cost. That being said, many VoIP vendors have overcome this by offering volume pricing. And over the long run all businesses will see a cost saving.
Latency and jitter can be an issue. Jitter and latency are other call quality issues you may experience with your cloud-based phone calls. It’s just a natural function of wireless networks. Between your internal network, ISP, and VoIP service provider there are many servers in between which data needs to travel through. Jitter can result in choppy audio or calls that are delayed or dropped. The variance in ping responses that measures jitter. Latency can result in callers experiencing a brief delay or echo in a conversation. In most cases, it’s not noticeable, but in severe circumstances, it can be problematic.

Features that can be expected

And onto how cloud-based VoIP can really do bits for your business. Here's a list of common features you will see advertised within phone system feature-sets.

Auto-attendant/receptionist. An automated attendant is a top feature for companies. Using call routing rules, this functionality answers all incoming calls and forwards them to the appropriate extension.
Call Queuing. A call queuing tool will assist you in queuing your customers’ phone calls. You can often also set up notifications to remind your callers your callers of their turn and the wait time.
Call Recording/Monitoring. These two great features can empower your business by checking the consistency of your customer service on calls and limiting the deterioration of your company’s efficiency. They can also be used in a legal setting as evidence of claims.
Voicemail/call forwarding. Because often smaller businesses can't be available all hours of a day, there will be times when a call can't be answered. Call forwarding is a common corporate telephony tool that ensures that your customers’ calls are never missed. Inbound calls can be diverted to another extension, phone number, or a voicemail function.
Conferencing. Conference calls are ideal for remote teams because they allow them to collaborate even when they are physically apart. Some managers and owners may organise this sort of call on a frequent basis, whether it's keeping teams updated or checking in with customers.
Data analytics. VoIP Data Analytics are a sophisticated data report framework, generally included with most VoIP phone systems. It is useful for businesses that deal with a variety of outgoing and incoming clients calls on a regular basis. Informations such as missed calls and overall wait times help improve customer service quality.
Business Tool Integrations. In our opinion, one of the top VoIP benefits is the ability to connect data with external business tools such as ticketing systems or email, keeping conversation records consolidated and teams connected. These integrations are very useful for remote teams. Many modern business phone networks integrate with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programmes such as Zoho CRM. This guarantees that all transcripts of interactions are connected, forming a wealth of information. Sales app integration is a one-of-a-kind solution that enables users to automate their sales funnel, get closer to prospects, and complete more transactions. Sweet!

Is VoIP necessary?

For years, businesses have been debating whether or not to move to cloud-based VoIP. Some businesses made the changeover in the early days of technology, while others waited until prices dropped and quality, dependability, and availability of knowledge were ironed out.

Now, as these aspects have been ironed out, BT have announced they will be switching off the PTSN network in 2025. This means that not only is cloud-based VoIP the logical choice for businesses, it will soon be the only choice.

Price of VoIP

In general, with cloud-based VoIP, you can expect costs between £10 and £20 per 'seat' per month. A seat is essentially a user of the system.

Often suppliers offer monthly or annual payment options and generally expect a commitment of at least a year, with discounts provided on longer term contracts.

In Summary

Voice over IP is a fantastic and obvious method to run your business telephone communications. The significance of VoIP in telecommuting cannot be overstated. The current state of affairs necessitates a more advanced and adaptable work culture which means many business owners are concerned about their employees’ ability to work efficiently from home.

To make the best selection, you should first comprehend the benefits of VoIP, then examine the features and functionalities you require, and last compare all of your options until you find one that meets the bill. This is where we come in.

We offer a range of telephony options from different vendors, meaning we can suggest the most suitable option for businesses from an unbiased position.

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Is Your Business Keeping up with the Modern Workplace?

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 12:00:00 +0000

The workplace used to be a rigid place where employees conformed to cultural norms such as wearing a shirt and tie and working 9-5. Being in the office every day was an expectation.

Today’s modern workplace is more of a fluid, casual environment, where work-life balance is championed and, depending on your business culture, some of the team might even come to work dressed in sweatpants from time to time.

New-age employers have found that the old, rigid style of thinking is inefficient in reality and doesn't meet new age challenges, like employees collaborating effectively over long distances. The modern workplace environment has a blended workforce, is becoming more responsive to problems, and less tied down to physical locations. Employees now use modern collaborative software like Meet and Google Docs to communicate more effectively with their colleagues around the world in real time.

The workplace continues to evolve in order to meet the needs of both employees and employers. Let’s take a look at 5 modern workplace trends and how they are changing the way we work.

1. Flexible workforce

According to a study from Intuit, freelancers will comprise 40 percent of the workforce by the year 2020. The biggest reason for this growing trend is that employers are finding that freelancers can drive efficiency, especially with the savings on administrative and healthcare costs.

Freelance marketplaces like Upwork are helping to drive the shift towards the gig economy. Sites such as Freelancer, Fiverr, Guru, and even LinkedIn are providing specialized workers with opportunities to work remotely for a wide range of companies around the world.

The rise of the internet also has given rise to the gig economy. Sites like Upwork are connecting more people around the world. This give them the freedom and flexibility to choose the kind of work they want. Millennials, in particular, are trading in the traditional security and benefits of a full-time job for more freelancing opportunities where they have complete control over their schedule.

These outsourcing platforms are hugely beneficial for freelancers, too. Workers enjoy:

The flexibility to choose whom they work for and at what pay rates
The ability to set their own schedule
The freedom to work remotely

Freelancers can have a wide range of specializations. Writers, graphic designers, Photoshop experts, customer service specialists, accountants and many more can freelance by looking for work on sites like Upwork, Guru, and Freelancer. Companies benefit by getting access to a vast talent pool of specialized professionals.

Freelancers aren’t just working with small businesses on a tight budget either. Some of the largest companies in the world take advantage of freelancers for specialized talent. Companies like Facebook, IBM, and BBC Worldwide have used freelancer sites to get projects done on budget and on-time.

In summary, employers are becoming more dynamic and improving productivity. They prefer to hire from a rich talent pool of remote workers from around the world. And with that, there is an increasing need for managers who can skillfully manage both freelancers and full-time employees working alongside one another.

This brings us to trend number two.

Origin Workspace: a very popular freelancers stop here in Bristol. Credit: www.originworkspace.co.uk

2. Collaboration, and a lot of it

Even in our digital age, collaboration can still be a difficult thing to master. As connectivity increases, so do the number of platforms which employees, employers, and clients communicate on. This can pose problems for teams that are working in the same office — let alone those that are working and communicating remotely.

Take a post-click landing page for example and everything that goes into the creation process. Typically, you have a copywriter, designer, and ultimately a manager or VP that gives the final approval for publishing. With all of the necessary post-click landing page elements required to create an optimized page, there is constant communication and changes to be made before a page is published.

Project managers would have to organize copywriters, editors, and designers as well as feedback from clients or other stakeholders. Copywriters might prefer to communicate through Slack or Google Docs, while clients may prefer giving feedback and providing suggestions through Gmail or Trello. Communication through multiple channels likely meant publishing delays and details lost in translation — all making collaboration inefficient.

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Ensure your business is operating efficiently by keeping up with modern ways of working or your business will end up being the 20" Plasma whilst your competitors become the 50" OLED. See what I did there?

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What your business needs to succeed in hybrid work

Sun, 05 Jun 2022 12:05:09 +0000

For generations, most people have worked the typical 9 to 5. And while there was talk of remote work—and some slow adoption—through most of the last decade, it took a pandemic for it to become a norm overnight.

But the evolution of work isn’t quite complete. As we move to the future, many companies will likely land somewhere between the office and remote, offering hybrid work arrangements for their employees.

Success in remote work

The adoption of remote work a year ago was fast and it was also extremely successful. According to a recent PwC survey, 83% of employers gave high marks to their company’s remote experience over the last year—a 10% boost from initial sentiments about working remotely at the infancy of lockdowns.

Both the research and anecdotal evidence show that employees were extremely productive. Although on the flip side, the blurring of home and office life can make it feel like we’re 'always on'.

The improved scores over the course of 2020 reflect the nature of having to adapt to change overnight. Instead of being guided by a thought-out strategy, the rapid shift to remote work was more of an experiment that was refined and improved along the way.

The next step: hybrid work

According to Microsoft, 73% of employees want flexible work options to stay, and 66% of employers are considering new office designs that promote hybrid work. Google CEO Sundar Pichai officially announced their own return to work plan included a hybrid approach.

At the other end of the spectrum, just a small percentage are prepared to let go of the office altogether. The majority agree that for many teams, work-life moving forward will consist of a combination of the two.

But unlike the rush to implement remote work, this next shift both allows for and demands greater planning, including an examination of some age-old workplace habits that have no place in a modern, hybrid work era.

While there will likely be some kinks to iron out, as a remote-first business, we at Ostratto have a pretty good idea of what hybrid work requires to succeed. Here’s how we would approach this next monumental workplace transition.

1. Communication is key

The need to work together effectively and efficiently is true of most businesses.

It’s even more so for hybrid workplaces, where strong, accessible communication practices act as a connector between teams working from home, the office, the side of a mountain and anywhere else remote-working allows for.

Back in the 'office days', business communication was often top-down, with requests originating from upper management and working their way downward. But to support the needs of a flexible, hybrid organization, communication needs to be fluid and constant, with the tools and processes in place to support open communication across all teams and functions.

2. What's a 'workplace' anyway?

When everyone worked from the office, work location meant a physical place. But hybrid work changes the definition of workplace. Although offices (and all of the collaborative spaces they offer) will remain a vital part of the modern workforce, hybrid workplaces need to be open to include the virtual spaces where communication and collaboration also occur.

In considering where work gets done in a hybrid world, it’s not enough to consider office buildings alone. Companies also have to consider how they will build and support online collaboration space too. This includes bringing on solutions like Google Workspace and Vonage that allow workers to seamlessly message, meet and call from easy apps.

3. Flexibility in hours as well as location

The beauty of hybrid work is that it frees employees to perform various aspects of their jobs where it makes the most sense for them to do so. For example, one could prepare an in-depth sales deck from home and go into the office to present it to partners or prospective clients.

But to achieve their full potential, hybrid work models need to embrace flexible hours too. Google, Facebook, and Salesforce are among a growing number of companies that have said goodbye to 9 to 5. Why? Because not everyone does their best work—or can always be available—during regular office hours.

Although there are times when everyone on the team may need to be available at the same time, freeing night owls to burn the midnight oil or early birds to get a head start on the day allows employees to be their most productive and may improve job satisfaction.

4. Don't micromanage

Just as hybrid work means the end of using “time in seats” as a performance metric, it also needs to mark the end of peering over employees’ shoulders to make sure they’re getting work done. This isn’t because working from other locations can impede managers’ visibility into employees’ workdays. Micromanaging is simply a bad management practice that erodes trust and productivity.

Instead, consider that by taking care to support hybrid employees in doing their best work—including arming them with the tools and open flow of communication they need—workers will be better equipped to get their jobs done. At the end of the day, when managed effectively, the results will speak to the increased productivity and engagement hybrid work can provide.

The freedom to do your best work

There are exciting times ahead as businesses combine the best parts of office-based work and working from home into flexible, new hybrid models. But there’s no need to rush it.

We now have a lot of information to lean on about how to best support employees in new hybrid models. And while hybrid work will undoubtedly continue to evolve as we discover what works best for our unique teams, now is a good time to reevaluate old practices and explore the tools and processes that will drive the best results—wherever employees work from.

We help businesses adopt to the hybrid model within their businesses using smart productivity tools. Are you facing difficulties with teams unable to work remotely?

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Will we work from home forever?

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 21:09:15 +0000

In early March, Twitter and Facebook were among the first companies to close down offices and send staff to work from home—even before government agencies issued lockdown orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Fast-forward two months later, the two social media giants declared that most employees will at some point be able to telecommute permanently.

Large businesses have continued to extend their work-from-home policies. In many cases, they’re even making remote work a permanent fixture. Google, for example, initially told employees to work from home until June. Most recently, the search giant announced that workers could telecommute until July 2021.

It’s not just Silicon Valley tech companies. Most employees for investment banks like Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are still working from home. Entertainment company ViacomCBS and music labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Warner Music Group have told workers to work remotely through the end of 2020.

Now that we’re about half a year into the remote work experiment, many employers have determined that the advantages of letting employees work from home may outweigh the negatives.

Herein lies the question: is remote work here to stay in the corporate world?

Most employees want to work from home

Studies show that 43% of those who previously commuted to work telecommuted during the height of the pandemic—and they enjoyed it. Remote workers say they are more productive and have better work-life balance since they don’t have a commute and can work flexibly. In fact, workers also report significantly higher levels of engagement when they work from home.

When the global health crisis is over, most employees still want the option to work from home at least part of the time. According to a survey by PwC, nearly three-quarters of employees (72%) said they’d like to telecommute at least twice a week after the pandemic is over, while nearly one-third (32%) want to work from home full time.

In a survey of 9,059 workers, 48% work from home during the pandemic and have a Workforce Happiness Index score of 75 out of 100, which is four points higher than employees who still have to go into their offices, according to a report by CNBC and SurveyMonkey. Remote workers are also more satisfied with their jobs: 57% of telecommuters say they are very satisfied versus 50% of non-remote workers who say they are very satisfied.

Companies want more remote work, too

As COVID-19 still lingers (and spikes), many are planning on making remote work permanent. In the short term, extending work from home keeps both employees and the company safe from safety-related events. In the long term, the flexibility of remote work promotes higher employee satisfaction and engagement, leading to significantly higher performance and retention. It's a win-win.

74% of CFOs surveyed by Gartner said at least some of their employees will be allowed to permanently work from home after the pandemic ends.

Not all workers can work from home

While remote work is something both leaders and employees want, it’s not an option to all workers. Only 37% of jobs can be done from home, according to University of Chicago economists.

For employees who can work remotely, 68% still want at some access to the office. Of those, 8% want to work full time in the office and 60% want to take a hybrid approach and be in the office a few times a week, according to PwC’s remote work survey.

The top reason people say they want to go into the office is to collaborate with other team members. Difficulty collaborating is a major reason people give for being unproductive while working from home (39%). They miss face-to-face interactions.

Others are simply more productive in the office because they have too many distractions at home. PwC found that 38% of remote workers feel balancing work with home duties, such as childcare, made them unproductive while working from home.

Coronavirus reshapes office working

When the health crisis is (finally) over, employees for some companies will return to their offices full time. Some will transition to 100% remote work. But most will likely take a hybrid approach, where employees work at home half the time and in the office half the time.

A permanent, flexible workweek has broad support among both executives and office workers, according to PwC’s latest remote work survey. While 83% of office employees want to work from home at least one day a week, more than half of employers (55%) anticipate that most of their workers will do so post-pandemic, the survey found.

For example, insurance company Nationwide is moving to a hybrid model. When the pandemic began, the company allowed 98% of its 27,000 employees to work from home and discovered that employee performance did not suffer.

As a result, Nationwide executives have announced plans to reduce 20 physical offices down to four main corporate offices, which will help the company save huge costs. Employees in the closed down locations will work from home permanently, while employees at the four remaining offices can split time between home and office, according to a magazine article.

Preparing for the remote future

Telecommuting has earned a permanent spot in the corporate world, and as we recover from the pandemic, more and more people will work from home in some way. That’s because not only is remote work better for safety purposes, but also fosters higher engagement and job satisfaction.

It’s also clear that many workers can’t work remotely. From restaurant staff to hardware engineers, many industries will return to normal after the pandemic. At least for now, most offices won’t go anywhere—but that can change in the near future.

Companies planning to expand remote work opportunities will need the right tools to maximize productivity amongst remote teams. While office workers can simply walk to a colleague’s desk to collaborate, remote teams don’t have the same convenience. It’s up to a company’s tools to facilitate communication and collaboration.

Unified communications solutions like RingCentral bundles team messaging, video conferencing, and cloud phone into a single platform in the cloud, allowing employees to access all of their communications from anywhere, on any device, and at any time. Employees can easily switch from messaging to voice or video calls with a single click, keeping collaboration as effortless as possible to start.

Speak to Ostratto today to find out how we keep businesses connected and productive.

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Written in collaboration with RingCentral©.

5 Lessons We’ve Learned About Remote Work

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 10:16:21 +0000

If one was to capture 2020 in a single word, “unprecedented” would be a fairly solid pick. The rippling effects of the coronavirus pandemic have transformed all aspects of life, with how we work being one of the most salient.

Case in point: at the start of the year, 4.7 million Americans (3.4% of the working population) worked remotely. Just three months later, at the height of lockdown, 34% of Americans who previously went into the office every day were now working from home.

The Overnight Shift to WFH

This unprecedented shift is remarkable for its incredible pace, not so much the direction. Even before the pandemic accelerated the move from the office, remote work was on an upward trajectory with 159% growth since 2005. It’s estimated that by 2025, the majority of the workforce (at least 70%) will work remotely for at least one full business week each month.

At all levels of the corporate hierarchy, from admins up to CEO's, 2020 has represented a massive work-from-home experiment. As much of a rollercoaster as these last few months have been, the rapid shift to WFH offers a unique glimpse into the future of work, and to better prepare companies and their employees for life after the office.

The overnight shift to WFH marks the first time many employees have had to find ongoing and sustainable ways to work together while apart - and as a whole, teams are not doing too badly: according to a global survey of office employees during the pandemic, 68% said they’ve been “very successful” working from home. Employees are equally satisfied with their work activity performance at home compared to the office, and 70% of leaders say their teams are performing the same or better from home.

The Future of Remote Work

These positive assessments of remote work are quite remarkable given that workplaces were forced to transform themselves overnight and without much warning. Sentiments about working from home have likely improved as teams adapted to working remotely and refined the processes and tools by which they do so.

Given that remote work is here to stay, it’s worth looking at the experiences of the last few months to evaluate what we’ve learned about remote work so far as well as find ways to make remote work even better moving forward.

Without further ado, here are five lessons we’ve learned about remote work in 2020.

1. It can be hard for employees to disconnect

Fear that employees would slack off was once many managers’ primary objection to working from home. As it turns out, the opposite is true. Since the start of lockdowns, employees at home averaged 48.5 more minutes of work every day.

But that may not be the win it appears to be. Nearly half of workers also report feeling more burnt out. To combat this, businesses need to make it a priority to help employees maintain work-life balance, even when the lines between home and office are blurred.

2. Projects can easily get lost or buried

It’s easy to take for granted the built-in ways with which employees share information in office settings. An ability to quickly touch base in-person (on the way back from making a coffee) helped employees prioritise their projects and provided a unified sense of momentum. When everyone works separately, projects can all too easily become lost or buried.

The solution lies in increased visibility. To prevent key projects from falling off, all people involved need ways to easily access and share key documents and information, as well as project management and collaboration tools that make it easy to track progress.

3. Remote employee silos happen without communication

Whether within a team or across departments, silos occur when colleagues don’t communicate with each other about what they’re working on. And when the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing, it can be costly for businesses.

Silos often result in duplicated work, blind spots, and other major business risks - and they’re more likely to occur when visibility is lacking, such as when everyone is working from home. Effective communication and collaboration, however, can help cure employee silos both formal (status meetings, progress reports) and informal (making it easy for workers to discuss work on the fly).

RingCentral offers a constant communication channel(s).

4. WFH improves many aspects of work but makes others harder

WFH does not have a universal effect on work - in fact, it improves some aspects of working while making others more of a challenge.

According to the Global Work from Home Experience Survey, homebound employees have a significantly easier time managing distractions and disruptions, and doing the sort of deep-thinking work that relies on this increased focus. But with fewer opportunities to interact organically, collaboration and a sense of connection drops off.

To get the most out of working from home, businesses need to find ways to continue to protect employees’ ability to work without distraction when it makes sense - but to also better enable seamless connectivity between workers and teams for tasks that require it.

5. It’s difficult (but possible) to recreate the organic collaboration that happens in the office

When it comes to teamwork when working from home, it’s not all bad news. Though remote work has been seen to fare worse than office environments when it comes to needs like getting timely information and collaborating with others, the results aren’t actually bad at all: six in 10 employees, a majority of workers, rate their ability to perform these activities from home positively.

This suggests that organic collaboration is possible when teams work remotely - but workers might need a little more help to do so. Setting up virtual “drop-in” office hours for managers, regular face-to-face team chats, and finding other ways to electronically recreate the easy communication that occurs in the workplace are key to fostering organic collaboration at home.

Communication and collaboration in the WFH era

What these lessons have in common is the theme of communication and collaboration. In a WFH world, the right tech becomes more than a communication tool - it’s the foundation upon which all work happens. This underscores the need for technology that’s accessible, seamless, and doesn’t create new challenges when it comes to helping employees connect with one another to get the job done.

A unified communications solution such as RingCentral helps to relieve many of the pain points employees encounter while they work from home. RingCentral combines team messaging, video conferencing, and cloud phone into a single platform, allowing employees to choose how, where, and when they want to collaborate. By breaking down the barriers to workplace communications, remote teams can master collaboration regardless of where they work and take productivity to new heights.

Combine it with our other favourite product, G Suite, and enjoy your new super powers.

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Written in collaboration with RingCentral©.

5 Reasons Everyone Should Have the RingCentral G Suite Add-on

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 11:19:39 +0000

When it comes to tech companies that have had a large impact on how we work smart, it’s hard to dispute that Google has been a strong contender. In the 22 years since the company was founded, Google has changed how people (and businesses) use the Internet in countless ways.

A suite of powerful tools that includes Gmail (email), shared calendars, documents, and other functions, Google’s offerings for business, collectively called G Suite, have had a massive upward trajectory. In the 4.5 years since November 2015 (back when G Suite was still called Google Apps for Work), paid user base has tripled to 6 million paid accounts. There’s a good chance you and other businesses your company does business with are among them.

But as with any tool you’re using to support collaboration and productivity, you may wonder if there are ways you can use it better in order to make communications more efficient.

Installing RingCentral’s G Suite Add-on is one way to accelerate the collaborative benefits you’re already gaining from using G Suite. Here are five ways the RingCentral G Suite Add-on will make your life easier.

The ultimate power couple.

1. Message or call colleagues directly from Gmail

Email has long been a primary communication tool within workplaces for many good reasons. To name a few, email creates a lasting record of what has been said, and can be sent from any connected device at any time. But email is not without limitation. In fact, email can be a source of hassle among businesses.

Emails are easily ignored. O ne survey found 60.8% of workers to be guilty of not responding to emails occasionally, often or always—and they’re rife with the potential for miscommunication due to lack of tone and context.

That’s why it's good practice to switch to a different medium of talking if you're not making progress after a bit of back and forth.

The RingCentral G Suite Add-on allows you to message or call colleagues directly from Gmail, making it easy to hop on a call or video chat without added coordination for those times when email conversation just isn’t cutting it.

2. Schedule meetings directly in Calendar

Scheduling meetings can be an absolute farce over email. First, you have to find an agreeable time, then create a calendar entry, and then figure out how to correctly export your meeting call-in details from your conferencing app to your invite. Get that last part wrong and you’ll also waste a ton of time when the meeting begins and everyone has trouble accessing it.

Installing the RingCentral G Suite Add-on eliminates this complexity altogether by allowing you to create a meeting, and fully populate your invite with details such as meeting ID and password, directly from Google Calendar with just a click. Sweet!

3. See your colleagues’ current status

In an office scenario, it’s easy to swing by someone’s desk for an impromptu chat when the need arises. When everyone’s working from home, it’s harder to gauge availability.

When your collaboration efforts require a deeper conversation—for example, an audio call or face-to-face video chat—you can lose powerful momentum simply trying to coordinate a time for that remote conversation to happen.

Though it may not be possible to use a closed door or other visual cues to determine the right time for on-the-fly chats in remote work scenarios, the RingCentral G Suite Add-on provides the next best thing: it allows you to instantly see when all of your RingCentral contacts are available, away, offline or in 'do not disturb' mode.

4. Start an email from a RingCentral contact card

The seamlessness of RingCentral and G Suite flows in two directions—and connecting the two also helps you to extend the usefulness of RingCentral. For example, sometimes email makes the most sense for communicating, such when you need to follow up with materials after a meeting. RingCentral’s G Suite Add-on simplifies this too by allowing you to send an email directly from a user’s RingCentral contact card.

5. View call history

While the number of options for communicating online is undoubtedly a boon for collaboration, it’s a nightmare for staying organised. Communicating across email, video, phone and SMS makes it difficult to remember what conversation occurred when, which can have impact on accountability (and efficiency!) RingCentral’s G Suite Add-on automatically creates a log of all your calls, making it easy to determine when that important conversation occurred.

Work Efficiently with RingCentral + G Suite

Collaboration tools are essential in the workplace—especially as more people work from home. But they also add complexity, as employees are forced to turn to multiple apps to meet their communication needs. RingCentral helps G Suite users get more out of their existing tools, and do so more efficiently, by connecting key functionalities so that users don’t have to change apps to communicate.

With the RingCentral app, the G Suite add-on creates a single record of information, combining team messaging, video conferencing, and cloud phone into a single platform for all workplace collaboration. As with all RingCentral apps and integrations, the G Suite add-on is free for all users.

You just need RingCentral and Google's G Suite to get started - both of which we can help you get started with today.

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Written in collaboration with RingCentral©.

COVID-19: Remote-working Checklist

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Many if not most organisations have already crossed the 'working from home' bridge either successfully or terribly.

If you’re on an IT team, you’re probably used to preparing laptops for staff to use remotely, and setting up mobile phones with access to company data.

But global concerns over the current coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, and the need to keep at-risk staff away from the office, means that lots of companies may soon and suddenly end up with lots more staff working from home indefinitely. For a business that has already deployed a remote-working strategy, this process is probably pretty familiar. For the businesses that haven't, it can be a logistical, security and financial nightmare.

Even for businesses that are no stranger to remote-working it's still a very different situation. If you have colleagues who need to work from home specifically to stay away from the office, you can no longer use the tried-and-tested approach of getting them to come in once to collect their new laptop and phone, and to receive the on-site training that you hope will make them an effective teleworker. You may end up needing to set remote users up from scratch, entirely remotely, and that might be something you’ve not done a lot of in the past.

I can imagine you and your business are very busy so without further wait - here are our five tips for working from home effectively and safely.

1. Make sure your users have everything they need

It's without a doubt the most important. Not only does it ensure your users are happy (productive) remote-workers, it means they don't revert to finding their own uncontrolled or 'shadow' solutions to their problems (we will come to shadow solutions in a minute or so).

If users genuinely can’t do their job without access to server X or to system Y, then there’s no point in sending them off to work from home without access to X and Y.

Make sure you have got your chosen remote access solution working reliably first – force it on yourself! – before expecting your users to adopt it.

If there are any differences between what they might be used to and what they are going to get, explain the difference clearly and don’t leave them to find that out on their own. They’ll not only be annoyed, but will probably also try to make up their own tricks for bypassing the problem, such as asking colleagues to upload files to private accounts instead of using a storage system they thought they would have had access to remotely.

If you’re the user, try to be understanding if there are things you used to be able do in the office that you have to manage without at home.

This is an excellent opportunity to really evaluate what software you are using in your business and if there are a lot of business-critical tasks you aren't able to complete because you aren't in the office then I hate to break it to you - it's not 1996 anymore! It's 2020 and the cloud is here in a big way.

To see how cloud technology can empower your business today, check out our post on our favourite remote-working software.

2. Make sure you can see what your users are doing

Don’t just leave your users to their own devices (literally or figuratively).

If you’ve set up automatic updating for them, make sure you also have a way to check that it’s working, and be prepared to spend time online helping them fix things if they go wrong. If any of their systems or software has produced warnings or errors that you know they will have seen, make sure you review those warnings too, and let your users know what they mean and what you expect them to do about any issues that may arise.

Don’t patronise your users, because no one likes that; but don’t leave them to fend for themselves either – show them a bit of cybersecurity love and you are very likely to find that they repay it.

3. Make sure they have somewhere to report security issues

If you haven’t already, set up an easily remembered email address, such as security@yourcompany.com, where users can report security issues quickly and easily.

Remember that a lot of cyberattacks succeed because the crooks try over and over again until one user makes an innocent mistake – so if the first person to see a new threat has somewhere to report it where they know they won’t be judged or criticised (or, worse still, ignored), they’ll end up helping everyone else.

Teach your users – in fact, this goes for office-based staff as well as remote-workers – only to reach out to you for cybersecurity assistance by using the email address or phone number you gave them. (Consider snail-mailing them a card or a sticker with the details printed on it.)

If they never make contact using links or phone numbers supplied by email, they they are very much less likely to get scammed or phished.

4. Keep shadow IT out of the shadow

Shadow IT is where non-IT staff find their own ways of solving technical problems, for convenience or speed. If you have colleagues who are used to working together in the office, but who end up flung apart and unable to meet up, it’s quite likely that they might come up with their own ways of collaborating online – using tools they’ve never tried before.

Sometimes, you might even be happy for them to do this, if it’s a cheap and happy way of boosting team dynamics. For example, they might open an account with an online white-boarding service – perhaps even one you trust perfectly well – on their own payment card and plan to claim it back later.

The first risk everyone thinks about in cases like this is, “What if they make a security blunder or leak data they shouldn’t?”

But there’s another problem that lots of companies forget about, namely: what if, instead of being a security disaster, it’s a conspicuous success? A temporary solution put in place to deal with a public health issue might turn into an important part of the company’s online presence and so make sure you know whose credit card it’s charged to, and make sure you can get access to the account if the person who originally created it forgets the password, or cancels their card.

So-called “shadow IT” isn’t just a risk if it goes wrong – it can turn into a complicated liability if it goes right!

Closing comments

Most of all, if you and your users suddenly need to get into remote-working, be prepared to meet each other half way.

For example, if you’re the user, and your IT team suddenly insists that you start using a password manager and 2FA (those second-factor login codes you have to type in every time) then just say “Sure,” even if you hate 2FA and have avoided it in your personal life because you find it inconvenient.

Likewise if you’re the IT admin, don’t ignore your users, even if they ask questions you think they should know the answer to by now, or if they ask for something you’ve already said No to, because it might very well be that they’re asking because you didn’t explain clearly the first time, or because the feature they need really is important to doing their job properly.

We’re living in tricky times, so try not to let matters of public health cause the sort of friction that gets in the way of doing cybersecurity properly. And if you need assistance with any of this, join our partners in empowering their businesses with our intelligent solutions.

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4 Steps to Ensure Company-Wide Adoption of Communications Technology

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Considering our infatuation with technology, you’d think that we’d get excited when our organisations introduce new tools into our workflows. In many cases, however, that couldn’t be further from reality. During my time providing technical solutions to businesses I've come across many cases where individuals in the business had their own preferred project management app, often leading to a mismatch of processes and workflows and consequently, confusion. In response, management have migrated users onto a new project management app for the entire business, mandating that the team adopt the new app.

Several months later, users often slowly crawled back to their previous apps. Why? Because the users felt that the new solution didn’t meet their needs and had a convoluted user interface. The result was hundreds of collective hours and valuable budget wasted migrating between apps.

Control =/= Flexibility

Businesses deploy new technologies in response to business needs. However, deployment really is only half the battle. Users often resist technological change, which fragments teamwork as a result. Whether users are too busy to learn new processes or too stubborn to abandon old habits, their resistance can nullify any new technologies a business decides to introduce.

Migrating users to new technologies isn’t as straightforward as it seems too. Many companies demand that teams use certain tools and prohibit them from using alternatives. That creates a major problem if those tools are ineffective. A survey by ZenBusiness shows that 57% of employees feel working with inadequate and obsolete technology negatively affects workplace productivity and morale. Tasks take longer to complete, employees work longer hours, and the quality of work suffers.

And on the contrary, giving users too much freedom poses a challenge as well. Ineffective company-provided solutions often push employees to find and deploy their own solutions without approvals from security teams. A Forbes Insight survey found that one in five businesses experienced a cyber event due to shadow IT, or technologies that fall under the radar. This presents huge security risks for businesses.

When it comes to enterprise control versus business unit flexibility, who wins? The answer is somewhere in the middle. Deployment strategies include several key steps to ensure successful widespread adoption. Let's get going with four essential steps to help businesses get started.

1. Choose a communication solution with a seamless user experience

The most important factor in user adoption is the user experience. Millennials and 'Gen Zers' (who comes up with these?) grew up surrounded by communications technology (MSN, Skype, FaceTime) and expect the same level of simplicity in their professional tools. Without a seamless user experience, users will wander in search of better options.

Many businesses choose a multi-app approach, deploying a communications app for every need (messaging, video calling, phone, fax). The deluge of apps, however, often overwhelms employees. 68% of employees toggle between apps 10 times a single hour, with some toggling up to 15 times, according to a recent study. Toggling between apps destroys concentration, especially when switching apps requires you to enter meeting credentials and wait for long load times.

Communications technology should combine essential tools into a single platform. Unified communications solutions like the RingCentral or G Suite combine many communication methods into a single platform where employees can seamlessly switch between different modes of communication with a single click (or tap for our millennials). When compared to multiple apps, the simplicity of a single platform allows employees to work without being inundated by technology and that makes for a much better user experience.

2. Be transparent

The right messaging can make all the difference in user adoption. If employees feel obligated to adopt a new app to justify someone else’s decision, they’ll be much less inclined to make an effort. At the same time, choosing a new solution without consulting employees is a sure way to get mixed responses.

Businesses should start by assessing the team’s business needs. Employee surveys or leadership meetings help IT teams gauge how employees feel about the current ecosystem. With their concerns in mind, introduce the new communication solution explaining how it eases employee workloads and helps streamline workflows. Employees are much more receptive to technologies adopted with intent and will put more effort into making them work.

3. Provide training

Even tech-savvy users won’t entirely understand a new solution’s capabilities at the start. It's similar to how every so often you might discover a new feature on your phone after three years of using it! Without the full scope of what’s available, users might find the new solution lacking of obvious features and give up early.

Deployment plans should include training sessions before finalising any contracts. We would always encourage our partners to utilise our training services as part of any big software migration and generally IT leaders or service providers would offer training sessions using lesson plans customised to every individual department within a business.

Keep sessions bitesize and hands-on so users have a chance to test and ask questions. This keeps employees of all levels of technical expertise on the same page.

4. Engage with early adopters and empower ambassadors

Sometimes, employees resist new technologies because the benefits of switching their entire workflow aren’t clear. The same holds true for communications when migrating entire communication histories. Important files can get lost, and users don’t want to risk that.

Businesses should carefully choose their change leaders to educate employees. Leaders can host webinars and office-hour sessions, or simply answer questions from colleagues. By educating employees, businesses won’t leave employees to their own devices. Instead, they’ll take a proactive approach toward ensuring widespread adoption of their new communications solution.

Creating ambassadors of a new solution is absolutely key. By showing change leaders the benefits of a new system they are much more likely to encourage others to use the service too. This cuts down on direct training resources as well as leverages the confidence that teams have in their closest change leader or 'ambassador'.

Closing comments

Introducing new communication solutions within your business can certainly present challenges, but with the right approach it will be successful. Todays IT users have high expectations for their workplace technology and so IT leaders ultimately need to keep users interested, invested, and educated in the deployment strategy. With employees fully on board, businesses can successfully deploy the new solution and start streamlining communication and collaboration.

An effective communications solution has to meet the needs of as many users as possible to ensure business-wide adoption. Luckily, unified platforms solutions such as RingCentral and G Suite, check all the boxes. All of the products we provide integrate seamlessly together to provide a one-stop shop for business users, minimising app switch and consequently maximising productivity.

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COVID-19: Our Favourite Remote-working Tools

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 13:02:41 +0000

Whether your business had already implemented remote-working ideologies or it's all very new to your business, it's definitely been a general-culture shock to the working world. Businesses that never thought they could work from home are now embracing wonderful and sometimes whacky ways to get their work done remotely, sometimes whilst even compromising security (yes Zoom we are talking about you).

Our partners are generally well equipped already. More than 80% of what Ostratto helps our partners' businesses with, resides on cloud technology. That's smart business solutions that are accessible from anywhere at anytime.

For the businesses that we don't yet have a relationship with, firstly; welcome(!) and secondly; this article is for you. It's a quick run through of our favourite tools that will help you conduct your business from pretty much anywhere.

We'll firstly break it down a bit into some sub-categories of the products we offer today. Select to jump to the sections:

Communication Collaboration Productivity

Looks uncomfortable. Credit: unsplash

Communication

Communication during these tricky times is absolutely vital. It's the difference between a happy and productive worker and a very unhappy unmotivated one. Here's some of our favourite communication tools.

Google Meet

Video meetings for your business. Meet takes the headaches out of joining a video call at work. Just set up a meeting and share a link. No worrying about whether teammates, clients, or customers have the right accounts or plug-ins. With a fast, lightweight interface and smart participant management, 100 + person video calls are a breeze.

Meet is perfect for keeping connected with your team and your customers from one product, and it comes included in the G Suite package as standard.

Google Chat

A messaging platform built for teams. Hangouts Chat makes it easy for teams to stay in contact with instant messaging. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate easily and efficiently. With dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time — plus threaded conversations — Chat makes it simple to track progress and follow up tasks. Chat currently supports 28 languages and each room can support up to 8,000 members.

RingCentral

RingCentral is our preferred cloud phone solution. Get an all-inclusive business phone system with online meetings, messaging, and more. Integrated perfectly into your business systems, you can expect big business benefits without the high cost and complexity. Your teams will have all the accessibility they need to seamlessly communicate and collaborate from anywhere, becoming more productive, effective, and efficient as a result. You can host video meetings with up to 1000 participants too - which is pretty cool.

We love it because it's super reliable and it provides a one-stop shop for all business communications.

Zoho Campaigns

Email marketing software that drives sales. Create, send, and track email campaigns that help you build a strong customer base. From beautiful email templates to an easy-to-use editor, and automation tools to real-time analytics, Zoho Campaigns has it covered.

We use this to keep in touch with all of our partners with ease, updating them on the current situation and also providing regular tips on staying productive.

Collaboration

Even the most communicative team still need ways of collaborating effectively. If your team is still saying 'are you done with that spreadsheet as I need to make edits', then this category is for you. It's 2020 and things have changed now, you old-timer you.

Google Docs

Create and edit documents directly in your browser – no dedicated software required. Several people can work at the same time, and every change is saved automatically. Work on a single document with team members or people outside your company. See edits as others type, communicate through built-in chat and ask questions by including comments.

It really is powerful word editing, made simple and accessible with the power of the cloud. It comes with even the most basic version of G Suite.

Google Sheets

Collaborative, smart, secure spreadsheets for fast-moving organisations. Sheets was designed with the needs of agile organisations in mind. As Sheets is cloud-based, it enables you to collaborate with anyone, anytime, anywhere. It's built on top of Google’s infrastructure, which gives you the freedom to create, while helping to keep your information secure.

Again, no software to install and super simple to use.

Google Slides

Slides is Google's offering of a presentation tool. It allows you to create and edit polished presentations in your browser – no software required. Several people can work at the same time so that everyone always has the latest version. It helps you to make your ideas shine with a variety of presentation themes, hundreds of fonts, embedded video, animations, and more. All included in G Suite.

Productivity

Productivity is often the measure of a successful migration to remote-working strategies. With recent developments in the technical industry it's still very possible to maintain a very high level of productivity. We've covered a few excellent communication products and we've also covered a selection of smart collaboration software.

G Suite

G Suite - our bread and butter. It provides all the tools a business needs to do business, in an extremely affordable package. An integrated suite of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI. Includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Meet and more, all in the same place accessible with the same login.

We use G Suite for our business email, communications and productivity needs. The prices start at £4.60 per user/month and there's no contract, so it's really ideal for new businesses who don't want to commit to anything serious in the early days.

What I think is pretty cool is that the likes of Netflix and Colgate are using exactly the same product as a start-up business of one user. It really is modern-day cloud computing, allowing the little guys play with the big guys with no capital required. Awesome!

Zoho Projects

When we do any commissioning work such as website design or a system setup, one of our most used products is Projects. It lets us track all ongoing tasks so that an overall project progress can be seen - and shared with clients if necessary. It can help you plan your work, track it efficiently, and collaborate with your team wherever they are.

The main features we use are the tasks, the activities, issues (at times a great tool to nudge clients if we're waiting on them) and also the integration with Google Drive so that we can share files securely within the project space without needing to upload anything.

A great tool for teams that still need to be working on projects from different places.

Zoho Bookings

We've noticed a large increase in online classes since the lockdown here in the UK. Classes for exercise and yoga type activities the most prevalent. Should you be needing to host this sort of event, you need a solid way of offering booking for your 'students' - Bookings has you covered. It syncs your calendars while letting students/customers self-schedule and pay for appointments. The user interface is completely customisable to fit your brand and there is an email function that sends emails to your customers automatically reminding them when an appointment is due.

This one is for personal trainers, coaches teachers, trainers and just about anybody else that needs a way to manage classes easily.

So there you have it. They are our favourite tools because they are cost-effective, smart and they are generally awesome. They all also meet our principles.

If you need any help with working remotely during these very difficult times please just reach out. We will be happy to assist and if we can help your business in any way at no cost, we absolutely will.

Stay safe.

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Three Social Experiments You Can Try Today with Video Meetings

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 18:07:57 +0000

I'm not going to preach. You're no first timer when it comes to video meetings and working remotely. You jump into the advanced settings and customise things based on what you need. You know how to get the lighting just right, how to manage a call and how to read video-only body language. What's left for you to know?

You may be very well acquainted with meetings but in a time when video meetings are the only method of 'face-to-face' communication it's actually super-important to try and keep them fresh, engaging and useful.

If you’re working remotely (or just using video conferencing software to connect with your team) and want to make things a little more interesting, here are three social experiments to try.

1. Easter eggs

You might recognise this idea from movies and video games.

Producers will place an object, cameo, or reference just outside the viewer’s peripheral. Most of the time we're so focused on the core of the scene that we miss these little things.

But if you’re in on the joke, you’ll get a unique—and fun—experience. For example, if you always take calls in your office, you could trade out a picture on the wall behind you each time you take a call with someone. See how long it takes for them to notice. Or move your desk closer and closer to a background object with each call.

Make little changes and you’ll see who is really paying attention. If you have a recurring meeting with a teammate, you could turn this into a game and see who notices the difference first!

2. Always on

A few of our partners in their businesses have started leaving a RingCentral Video screen on all day.

All they do is share the meeting’s ID or link with each other, and use this as a chance to pop in on each other throughout the day.

Essentially, it creates an online version of that random walk-by that you experience in an office environment.

Leave your video on while you work and see if it helps you connect with your team throughout the day, have a casual conversation, or even share lunch together—all while working remotely.

3. Video-only days

If you need a bit of practice getting used to video meetings, this is a great way to start building that up.

Can you survive all day with only video calls? Try it!

Give your thumbs a rest and tap the video icon for your meetings each and every time.

Maybe you start a trend - Video Fridays - and see how it influences your day and productivity. Try to notice things like patterns in your communication and how quickly decisions get made in video calls compared to just messaging or audio calls.

Need help getting online with remote working during these challenging times? Just give us a holla.

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Written in collaboration with RingCentral.

Ostratto - Blog | Ostratto #flexibleworking

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​​Pros and Cons of Voice over IP

Features that can be expected

Is VoIP necessary?

Price of VoIP

In Summary

Is Your Business Keeping up with the Modern Workplace?

We help businesses work smarter

What your business needs to succeed in hybrid work

Success in remote work

The next step: hybrid work

1. Communication is key

2. What's a 'workplace' anyway?

3. Flexibility in hours as well as location

4. Don't micromanage

The freedom to do your best work

Will we work from home forever?

Most employees want to work from home

Companies want more remote work, too

Not all workers can work from home

Coronavirus reshapes office working

Preparing for the remote future

5 Lessons We’ve Learned About Remote Work

5 Reasons Everyone Should Have the RingCentral G Suite Add-on

COVID-19: Remote-working Checklist

4 Steps to Ensure Company-Wide Adoption of Communications Technology

COVID-19: Our Favourite Remote-working Tools

Three Social Experiments You Can Try Today with Video Meetings

Pros and Cons of Voice over IP