Home - Grapevine - Ask the Experts - BrokerWire - Buyer's Guide - Classified Ads - Conference Calendar - Database - Free Newsletter - Making the Sale - Market Conditions - Marketing Tips - Mortgage University - The Paper Warehouse - Quality Time - Special Reports - SubPrime Lending - Technology News - This Week from Broker Magazine - What We're Hearing - WeirdLoans
|
|
Brokers Benefit From Voice Over Internet Protocol TechnologyBy Anthony Garritano "When small to midtier businesses have a choice of having a fully hosted service and paying a monthly fee or owning and maintaining a piece of hardware, the answer is clear," said Dave Zwicker, vice president of marketing at Whaleback Systems, Portsmouth, N.H. "We're a blend at Whaleback. We give the user a device that they can customize to their business without owning it. "We appear like a hosted service because we're turnkey and manage everything for the customer. We get paid a fixed amount for unlimited calls in the U.S. and Canada. Also, the user doesn't have to pay for new hardware," he said. And brokers are realizing return on investment from the VOIP approach. "Our company has a certain philosophy in that we do good loans the right way and provide them to our customers based on their needs," stressed Eric Mayor, a principal partner at Simplified. "We're a loan company, not a phone company. We needed 10 guys to have phones to broker loans. We're an outbound telecom company. "We went with another service but the features were very limited, and it was hard to transfer calls and no service. The fees were also very high. The expense was prohibitive and the features were limited, so we started the search again. We looked at private branch exchange and other options. We even looked at hardware that ran between $6,000 and $10,000. We were skeptical about Internet phones because we thought the quality wasn't there. We wanted a more transparent system. The match was exactly what we needed when we came across Whaleback." And implementation was easy, according to Matthew Fitch, a principal partner at Simplified. "They gave us a pamphlet. It was very intuitive. We had experience working with business telephones in the past. We like the fact that our voicemails are sent to us in a wave format over e-mail. I can log into my e-mail and get all my voicemail even if I'm not in the office," he said. "Every company has a phone bill," added Mr. Mayor. "Our investment is in the service only and every phone bill is the same. It's $49 a month. With the dynamic environment it's important because it's a fixed cost so I don't have to scream at people for making long-distance calls. We can project out for the next four years what our phone costs will be. And in this competitive market, that's a blessing." Also, with an Internet-based system updates are seamless and features are continually being added. "We do updates two or three times a year," pointed out Mr. Zwicker. "The update is transparent to the customer. In the last release we integrated voicemail and faxes with e-mail. Service-oriented companies can save a lot with this cost structure as well. We have a network operation center to see into the Internet to manage the call path to avoid garble or interruption. It's all hosted on behalf of the user and eliminates one hassle of doing business." |
Click here for advertising information.
For technical support, e-mail webmaster@brokeruniverse.com
For reprints, call Charlton Sanabria at 212-803-8377.
Privacy Policy
© 2008 Broker magazine and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use, duplication, or sale of this service, or data contained herein, is strictly prohibited.
