Cloud PBX Checklist for Large Companies: SMS & MMS Messaging

SMS & MMS messaging is an important feature to include in your cloud PBX shopping checklist, for your large company.

In the video below, Mike explains the benefits this feature can bring to your employee’s productivity, and also discusses how to determine if SMS & MMS should be included as a must-have feature for your company’s cloud PBX.

Want Mike’s recommendations on the best cloud PBX vendors to quote for your large company? Click the button below to ask him today.

About Mike

Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. You can also hear him as the host of the popular Information Technology podcast, ITsmiths with Mike Smith. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

Today, I’m going to continue my cloud PBX checklist for large companies in regards to SMS and MMS. So just quick summary again, I’m making this checklist, I’m making a video series of my checklist for large companies for cloud PBX. So what this means is companies who call me, who have a large company, and they say, Hey, we’re interested in purchasing a new phone system. I go through a list of discovery questions and I’m making a video series on those discovery questions. And based on those discovery questions, that’s how I find the right service providers for your company. So in today’s video, I’m going to be talking about the questions you need to be asking about SMS and MMS.

Ask me who to quote

But before I get too far into it, just a quick plug, if you’d like my recommendations on the best cloud PBX vendors that your company should be quoting, you can watch this video. That’s awesome. And more videos online. That’s great. But if you want to shortcut, just reach out and contact me on email or by phone (714.593.0011). Don’t Google it. I’ll get you some answers right away. And it’ll save you a lot of time. More information on that at the end of the video.

The questions to ask

All right. So SMS and MMS texting, that’s a feature that a lot of service providers are starting to offer, but not all of them offer for cloud PBX, but it’s a really cool one. And it’s definitely something that you need to ask about internally to decide if this is something you need.

And the question you need to ask internally is today, are any of you sending or receiving business related text messages to vendors or customers or things like that? Are you doing so today? And I think you’d be surprised that a lot of employees, especially in a large company are doing this.

Consolidate Phone Numbers

And if they’re doing that today, it’s definitely a feature that you should consider having moving forward. And the reason why is because number one, it’s going to consolidate the amount of phone numbers that your employees are having to use. For instance, if they’re using their cell phone today to send and receive text messages, they’ve got that going on for communicating. And then they’ve got a phone number for their office that’s getting voicemail, things like that. So they’re having to check voicemail on a different platform than text messages and everything like that. So in essence, they’re giving customers two different phone numbers. Well, we all know what happens when that takes place. So say if you give a vendor a phone number to send you a text message, what number do you think they’re going to call? Do you think they’re going to call your office number or the cell phone number that you just gave them?

They’re probably going to call the cell phone number that you just gave them. So now you’re getting business voicemails and text messages on your cell phone, and you’re also getting business calls and voicemail on your business phone. So it just creates a mess. So getting all of that on your business phone number is nice because all of your phone calls, text messages, all that stuff is on one number.

Separate Work and Personal

And you can kind of decide, “Hey, I’m taking calls or I’m taking messages now, or I’m not.” So you’re not getting everything on your personal cell phone. So when you go home, you’re getting text messages from customers or vendors on your personal cell phone, mixed in with all the different stuff that’s coming in from personal stuff. So it’s nice. It really helps separate business from personal. And it also gives you one number, which is a big convenience.

They would if they could

And a lot of employees, if you really talk to them, maybe they would text, but they don’t want to. And they haven’t been sending text messages because they just don’t want to give their personal cell phone number out to business associates, maybe customers or vendors. So it’ll allow more people to text within your organization. And it’ll also allow the people who are text messaging to do it more efficiently. So that’s text messaging, which is SMS. Now take it a step further, you might want to ask, are you ever sending or receiving pictures on the text messages? So that’s MMS. And some companies allow SMS through your work DID but they do not allow MMS. So you really want to make sure that you know, do you need just SMS or do you need SMS and MMS? So I hope that helps a little bit.

It’s definitely a great question to ask, because it’ll help really narrow down the number of service providers that you should be quoting for your company for cloud PBX.

Ask me for a recommendation

Again, if you want my recommendations, it’s going to get you a lot better vendor, a lot faster. So if you want to know which service providers your company should be quoting for cloud PBX service, just reach out and contact me on email or by phone (714.593.0011). The nice thing is, is that the service providers actually pay me my broker fees. So you don’t have to pay me anything. So there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least reach out.

I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. So I know all the major service providers who are in play for you, and I can quickly tell you which ones to avoid and which ones you should be quoting. I’ll also introduce you to the right people within those organizations and the fact that you don’t have to pay me anything to do it. There’s no excuse not to at least reach out and see what I have to say. So hope the video was good. If so, please, don’t forget to hit the like button down below and also subscribe to the channel. That’d really helped me out. It’d be a nice favor and a nice thank you to me for making the videos. I’ll see you on the next one.