You may have heard the term 'soft client' used before.  For those who don't know, it isn't a furry customer.

What is call queuing? Call queuing helps to provide better customer service by managing a high volume of inbound calls.  Incoming calls are automatically put in a queue and the caller is regularly told their place in the queue.  For organisations like GP practices, which receive a high volume of inbound calls first thing in the morning, a call queue can be the difference between a frustrating caller experience, and a pleasant one.  If your customers get a busy tone, or voicemail box when they call, the battle to provide excellent customer service is lost before it has begun.  But call queues offer more than just a way of avoiding frustrating customers . They are an opportunity.  Play a Call Queue Wait Announcement that is both interesting to the customer and meaningful to your business, and you have succeeded in knocking two birds out with one stone.

You may have very fast broadband, or perhaps even a fibre leased line, and yet you find that your Wi-Fi is frustratingly slow.  When you do a test, it confirms that it is much slower than your hard-wired connections.  But why?  Part of the reason you decided to pay more for additional bandwidth was so that you would have faster Wi-Fi, but alas - it seems to still run at a snail's pace!  This is because the speed of a Wi-Fi wireless network connection depends on several factors. And like most types of computer networks, Wi-Fi supports varying levels of performance, depending on the technology standard.

A lot of companies have a decent website, good product reviews and a competitive price.  It is the sales person that often makes the difference in today's marketplace.  As products and services become increasingly commoditised, buyers are all too aware they can get a similar product from another company. But what they can't get, is the same sales experience.  

Your smartphone connects to your Amazon Echo, as well as your car. Headphones no longer need to be plugged into a phone to work, but rather simply Bluetooth enabled.  And now, your office phone and your mobile phone can work as one - seamlessly syncing contacts and transferring calls between one another with the push of a button.

Whether it is selling something to an internal team, to a partner company or a potential investor, most of us regularly find ourselves trying to convince someone in the business world to do something.  The response given is the same response experienced sales people often get: "Now is not a good time", or "We don't have the budget for that."  But objections don't mean "no", particularly if you know what to say next. Here we outline the 5 most common sales objections, and how to overcome them.

At VTSL, we pride ourselves on speaking to you in plain English, without heavy technical jargon that often confuses even the most tech-savvy individuals. Whether you are a trained IT expert, or an office manager with little telecoms knowledge, we want you to know what you are getting and feel like we speak the same language you do.  

New technology has a way of creeping up on us. Starting off as a geeky trend, or a privilege of a select few, suddenly it appears everywhere. Things like the microwave, home alarm system, VoIP business phone system, and of course the smartphone, all started off as obscure technologies.  Now they are commonplace. But what new technology can we expect to make it big in 2019? Each year, we like to take a guess.  Here are 5 cutting edge technological developments we think may impact your business (or life) next year.

If you have ever had to speak to a telecoms company about a new phone system, or even an IT company about installing new internet connection, you will probably remember the sales rep using a lot of baffling acronyms that made the entire process more confusing than it needed to be.  PoP, VoIP, LAN, WAN, VPS, GEA, BPS, might have been a few you heard mentioned. The information technology and telecoms industries are rife with such abbreviations, that should in theory, make conversations quicker - but given most of us don't speak technology-acronym language, they serve to do much the opposite.  

Most businesses approach to sales is different to their approach to customer service.  Sales teams have targets.  They are on commission.  They have lots of meetings, and generally have varied schedules and busy diaries.  Customer service teams on the other hand are in the office 100% of the time, usually with the same schedule every day.