Richard

Entries by Richard Reiffer

Flexibility Builds a Strong Contact Center

Like a great workout, a great call center functions best when it is tailored to your individual needs. Don’t let a stagnant call center slow you down, upgrade your contact center. Flex the muscles of your business and build a strong call center with the customizable features of the Mitel Flex Contact Center.

Everyone has different needs, and every business wants different results. The business looking to increase their ROI in the next 6 months doesn’t have the same needs as the business simply trying to land their first 100 customers. If your call center is at the heart of your business, it should be customized to fit your current needs, and have the ability to change as your business grows.

No matter the size of your business, or what size you want it to be, growth depends on customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction depends on positive customer interactions. Your customers don’t want generic messages and menus and you won’t grow if you’re applying the same solution to everyone. The right contact center solution can make it easy to personalize interactions and lead to higher customer satisfaction. Start seeing gains when you apply the following customizable solutions of Mitel Flex for Contact Centers to your call center.
Developer Tools:
Don’t rely on an outside developer every time you need to make a change to your phone system. Flexible developer tools put the power of customization into the hands of the customer. Customize your contact center solution or build your …

How Mitel Connect Can Make Your Day With Intelligent Voice & Data Solutions

There aren’t enough hours in the day, and sometimes those precious hours are eaten up by, well, life. An important meeting gets hijacked by car trouble, or kids get sick on a day you just can’t be away from the office. Well, with Mitel Connect’s intelligent voice and data solutions, you don’t ever have to be away from the office.

When you can’t afford to halt work when obstacles pop up, you need a communication system that will adapt with you and keep you moving forward. With robust features like conferencing and collaboration and flexible mobility between devices, you can stay connected when it matters most.

Find out all the ways Millennia, as a Midwest Mitel provider can take you through your day, no matter what life throws at you.
Late to work? Don’t miss the meeting.
Don’t let a faulty alarm ruin that early morning meeting. When life throws you behind, stay ahead with Mitel Connect’s conferencing and collaboration tools. The calendar feature will remind you of upcoming meetings and allow you to join a conference right from your mobile phone. Share a presentation by pulling from Dropbox and hit the mark without leaving your bedroom.

 
On the Move? Stay Connected.
Whether you’re bouncing back and forth between your desk and a coworker’s desk, or you’re running kids to school or managing car trouble, with Mitel Connect, you’re not anchored to one spot. With one click, you can transfer a call from your desk phone to your personal mobile …

The Pros and Cons of BYOD

In a world where technology is constantly changing and evolving, it can be almost impossible to keep up with the latest shifts and trends, especially for large companies managing complicated systems. But, it’s much easier for individuals to stay on top of the latest trends, and they often do.This is why, more and more, employees like using their own devices at work rather than relying on technology that may be outdated or hard to use. This desire has fueled a trend called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

The BYOD to work movement is taking the enterprise by storm and doesn’t show any signs of slowing. This new movement is often more productive and cost-effective for companies, but not always. There are a lot of perks to the BYOD movement, but also a lot of risks.

Before you put a BYOD plan in place, explore some of the Pros and the Cons of BYOD in 2017.
Pros of BYOD
Some of the more obvious perks to a BYOD environmentcircle around employee satisfaction. Workers know their own devices, they like them, they want to use them. When they are allowed to use their own devices, rather than an outdated or unfamiliar device provided by their company, they are happier.

But the perks go beyond happy employees. They also tend to be more productive on their own devices. They can share information faster and easier, work faster, and when they have their devices on them all the time, they can work …

The Apps That Help You Stay Connected

The way teams work is changing. Remote work and mobile offices can make it hard to stay productive and stay in touch. But every day new apps and programs are released that are designed to help us be productive, stay connected and get more done. These are just a few of those apps.
Asana/Teamwork:
These project management tools help your team stay connected, productive and on task. Both let you assign tasks and subtasks, tracking a project from start to finish. Assign certain tasks, leave comments, add files and connect with those outside your organization. Which one you use is up to to you, and there are even more to choose from, but a project management tool is a must for collaboration.
Evernote
Evernote is note-taking on steroids. And every business owner, creative, go-getter and idea man needs a place to take notes. Evernote provides that and more. It’s a space where you can store notes, documents, images and more. And, you can share those notes (or entire notebooks) with the team members you need to collaborate with.
Trello
Trello is a project management app that is not only great for working with teams, but can also help organize your personal life. A visual list that lets you drag, drop, upload images and share, Trello gives you an overview of your life.
G Suite
The Cloud, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Gmail; G Suite are all Google apps that make your life easier and make it easier to work together as a team. Share documents, save them …

What is a Firewall?

What is a firewall? While many people have the impression that a firewall is just a layer of security between two networks, its functions and purpose go far beyond that. Not only are firewalls essential in maintaining your business security but also thwart malicious attacks from a broader range of sources.

So how do you decide which firewall is the best for your company? First of all, you’d have to take the existing infrastructure of your organization into consideration. Then, choose among the three different categories of setups available.

It’s crucial that you know about the pros and cons of these firewall setups to make a better-informed decision. So, keep on reading!
Types of firewalls
1. Software firewalls

This is the kind of firewall that best suits individuals wanting to protect their network. But, since software firewalls are essentially a piece of code, it’s definitely not idea for businesses with significant amounts of data to protect. Think of it this way – the software firewall is more of a lock on your door than an impenetrable fortress protecting you from attacks on all sides.

Don’t get us wrong; this type of firewall does have value, and they are good at blocking malware, preventing risky activities, scanning blacklisted IP addresses, and detecting suspicious application requests. But these aren’t the only things that are needed for a large-scale enterprise with numerous network connections.

The biggest disadvantage of a software firewall is that they rely on one computer to run the …

7 Security Questions You Should Be Asking Your VoIP Provider

As VoIP services continue to advance, more and more businesses are now switching to this cloud-based phone system to experience it’s myriad of benefits. However, the security aspect of this cloud-based system still remains a concern among experts as incidences of fishing scams, phone hacking, and data breaches are still prevalent.

If you’re a business owner planning to switch your organization’s phone system to VoIP, there are some crucial questions regarding security that you must ask a prospective service provider before giving the go-ahead.

1. What protection do they offer against fraud attempts, fishing scams, and toll fraud?
An efficient cloud phone system should provide protection against a wide range of fraud and scam attempts by encrypting traffic using reset default pins. Millennia Technologies frequently runs vulnerability scans to check for attempts at data breach or other security threats. They also have a Security Response Team to respond to suspected breaches and mitigate the risks immediately.
2. How do they handle a DNS attack?
In a DNS attack, hundreds and thousands of hacked computers spam their targets with data requests, forcing the server to eventually crash. A professional VoIP vendor should use a combination of firewalls, redundant servers, and continuous monitoring to ensure none of their servers get clogged.
3. Do they comply with federal guidelines?
Don’t sign up for a VoIP service unless you have checked their credentials and compliance with the required federal security guidelines. A reputable service provider like Millennia Technologies complies with all the necessary standards and provides the highest …

Mitel Now Offers Google Chrome App

Mitel, one of the world’s leading VoIP and unified communications solutions provider, has launched an integrated solution that aims to deliver the unified communications experience across Mitel Connect, G suite, and Google Chrome. This integrated solution for the Chrome web browser will let you save time and eliminate duplicate work.

Now, you can join a Mitel conference bridge, view the contact’s presence, and place and accept calls via Google Chrome’s Mitel Connect browser extension. This extension for chrome browser is available for both on-site and cloud users in the US and Canada.

 
Benefits of using Mitel Connect for chrome browser
Easy contact search: Now, you can merge Google and Mitel contacts in a single list for ease of search and reference. By using Connect’s extension, you’ll have all your contacts in a single place with no more than just a press of a few buttons.

Quick integration: Mitel’s Connect extension integrates with Google Chrome in just a matter of seconds. Just install the extension from Chrome Web Store to get the system up and running and receive new functionalities as they’re released.

Improve productivity: Thanks to integrated call control, users will now be able to place and accept calls on the fly, schedule and join events, and view presence from the web browser itself without having to switch between multiple screens.

No extra costs: Connect is available for chrome browser with Essentials, Standard, or Advanced service and product plans at no extra cost. This browser extension not only aims to solve your …

Mitel and The Boston Red Sox

Mitel and Millennia would like to welcome the Boston Red Sox to the world of Unified Communications. Yes, the 115-year-old baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, has chosen Mitel’s IP-PBX solution with integrated unified communications to carry forward the team’s communication systems.

This decision came after the organization felt that their existing telephony services, provided by Avaya, was starting to show their age with mounting costs of maintenance and failing reliability.

The club chose Mitel after deciding to explore modern telephony features to not only boost communications for staff but also improve their productivity and communication with the fans.
Why Mitel?
At the heart of the decision made by the Red Sox, there was a desire to shift towards a system that provides easy to manage solutions with little intervention from IT. So, the company began evaluating services offered by different vendors from the perspective of front office personnel, sales teams, season ticket holders, and even baseball scouting personnel.

Mitel eventually emerged as the ultimate choice because at the core of their design is a distributed architecture that is capable of delivering extremely secure network features across a multisite environment.

The telephony company’s key advantage aligned with the club’s desire to have easy-to-manage unified communications systems, and so this deal came to be. Brian Shield, vice president of IT for the Boston Red Sox said, “The goal for our new systems of communication is to improve efficiency and employee productivity, simplify maintenance, and reduce costs.”

He further went on to …

10 Ways Your Phone System Improves Your Customers’ Experience

Business competition in today’s economy is fierce. Your customers expect the highest level of care, and you and your staff need to be reachable, professional and customer-focused at all times – no matter where you’re working.

If that’s your business model, is your phone system supporting you and your employees like you need to support your customers?

Use this checklist to evaluate if your business communications give your customers the experience they expect from their chosen providers. Give yourself a point for every line you can check off. When you’re done, count your checks.
Reachability and Professionalism

Customers can access your sales staff anytime and anywhere, with mobile capabilities that direct incoming office calls to your sales staff’s mobile phones.
Outbound calls look professional, coming from the main company number, even when your employees are using their smartphones or other mobile devices.
Customer focus is enhanced by integrating your Outlook and CRM tools with your phone system to track conversation history with your client.
Employee productivity is increased by merging call records with customer records to improve sales trending projections and staffing optimization.

Employee Productivity

Employees can bring their own device and integrate it with your phone network.
Teamwork is made easy with voice and video calling, instant messaging and desktop sharing.
Employees feel secure that voice and data are safe, even in public hotspots.

Cost Effectiveness

Ongoing administration, such as adding a new employee, is easy vs. labor intensive.
Local support is available to train your staff to use features …

5 Reasons Why a Switch to the Cloud Should Begin with Your Phone System

As an increasing number of businesses are now adopting cloud-based solutions, not being able to do the same may give you the feeling of being left out. Apart from the obvious advantages that a cloud-hosted platform brings to business operations, this solution is also very cost effective, given the right vendor.

If you feel overwhelmed at the thought of the transition of your services to cloud, then it may be helpful to concentrate on one service at a time. Integrating your phone system would be a great way to begin as this segment of business operations is deemed to be relatively simple.

Still need more reasons as to why the switch to the cloud should start with the phone system? Keep on reading to find out.
5 Reasons Why a Switch to the Cloud Should Begin with Your Phone System
 
1. IT can build internal support for cloud
One of the primary advantages of the cloud-based phone system is that it can be deployed in a controlled manner. This means you get full control of choosing how many employees or workgroups take the benefits of this deployment. As a result, you can put the new phone system to test incrementally before planning for a major scale rollout.

This practice will allow the IT system to work around potential hiccups that may hinder the full-time deployment. Additionally, your employees will also have a good experience with the final rollout and more willing to embrace cloud-based applications in their daily …

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Millennia Technologies is a full-service voice and data solutions company for midsize to enterprise customers. Specializing in UCaaS , CCaaS , Cybersecurity , IoT , Voice , Cloud , and more. Our passion is firmly rooted in showing clients how well-designed data solutions can significantly accelerate business operations, and then celebrating their goal-shattering successes.