Unified Communications Solution Provider of the Year – 2021 Mobile Breakthrough Awards
Posted on October 21, 2021 by Rachel Anderson
This morning, Mobile Breakthrough Awards announced winners across a variety of categories that showcase excellence in mobile technology and service. The team over at VirtualPBX was honored to receive recognition as the Unified Communications Solution Provider of the Year. The competition this year was especially challenging – 2021 Mobile Breakthrough Awards having received over 2,600 nominations.
What Makes VirtualPBX a 2021 Mobile Breakthrough Award Winner?
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – our aim is to meet customers where they are. And where are customers? On mobile devices! According to Tech Jury, in 2021, 67% of people are using their own devices at work. Of course, that fact comes with a lot of upsides – users are more familiar with their personal device than say, a hardware desk phone, they’re also better set up to work remotely, move around, and since most keep their phones nearby, they’re also more readily available on these devices than others. Of course, all that accessibility is a double-edged sword. How is the line drawn between work and personal? The same Tech Jury article states that, “87% of companies depend to some extent on their employee’s ability to access mobile business apps from their personal smartphones.” While ease of use is great, how do employers and employees draw the line?
That’s where VirtualPBX comes in. Using your personal mobile device at work should not have to mean sacrificing your privacy or your time off. Our own internal team at VirtualPBX, as well as our customers, have a preferred solution for handling this: the VirtualPBX Softphone App. The app is available for both iPhone and Android users, is free to download for VirtualPBX customers, and allows the following:
Company Caller ID on incoming and outgoing calls- Video Conferencing with pro controls like recording and automatically compiling meeting summaries
- SMS and internal team message groups
- Presence monitoring within your Company Directory so it is always clear who is on the clock, who is taking a lunch, and who is gone for the day
- DND (Do Not Disturb) mode when calls should be rejected and/or redirected
- And all the basics you’d expect on any phone, like Call History and Voicemail
Take Advantage This Month Only with 20% on Our Most Popular Plan
While we are honored to receive the Unified Communications Solution Provider of the Year accolade from Mobile Breakthrough Awards, we’re not letting our foot off the gas pedal any time soon. We’d love to show you what makes us a winner by helping your business where they are – in an office, in remote locations, or a mix of the two. Until the clock strikes midnight on October 31, 2021, we are offering 20% off on our most popular plan. Now is the perfect time to switch to VirtualPBX – just make sure to act fast! November is right around the corner!
We Have Won the 2021 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award!
Posted on May 26, 2021 by Casey Houser
It’s always great to announce that our company has been honored by the communications industry. Today we’re happy to say that we have won the 2021 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award from TMC for the development of our VoIP Phone Plans.
As an addition to the other accolades we have received for our phone plans, this award reinforces the idea that we’re finding success with businesses of all sizes. We’re catering to their communications needs as companies, and in particular as noted for the 2021 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award, we have met the needs of remote workers as the demands of the global market change.
Evolution of the Workplace
We have all seen the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in our personal and professional lives, and in large part our reaction for our business clients has been to make it even easier to complete work from any location, as our COO, Lon Baker, explains in his reaction to this award win.
“As a company, what we take away from this award is a sense of accomplishment as it relates to the way businesses have evolved over the past year,” Baker said.
“The pandemic has affected us all. For our business customers, we know many of them were urged into remote work situations, so we responded with new features like Business SMS and Video Conferencing ahead of schedule. We wanted to make it possible for our existing customers to make the transition to remote work and for future customers to find our VoIP plans accessible for that reason.”
“It’s great to see, from the 2021 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award, that we have responded well and can continue to offer these features as more companies adopt work-from-home policies.”
Commentary From TMC
TMC noted in its award announcement that companies are selected for the 2021 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award based on their development of products and services that are innovative in a remote work context.
Our own Business Phone Plans were selected, said TMC CEO Rich Tehrani, because we offer a product that lets remote workers grow their businesses and be productive outside the traditional office atmosphere.
“Congratulations to the 2021 TMCnet Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award winners,” Tehrani said. “The recipients of this award are recognized providers and developers of software, applications, devices, and other solutions that empower remote team members to flourish.”
More than just a plaque on our virtual wall, we know that this award win honors our past and guides our future. Remote work will not dissipate as the global pandemic becomes controlled; nor will our new and existing phone plan features cease to be useful as the environment changes.
We see a lot of attention for texting, video, and voice in our phone plans, and we plan to continue refining those options as businesses adapt to the needs of their markets and their own customers.
We Won the 2021 Product of the Year – Our Eighth Year Straight!
Posted on March 18, 2021 by Casey Houser
We’re thrilled to announce that we have been awarded the 2021 Product of the Year Award from TMC and Internet Telephony Magazine.
This year’s award win is special because it’s our eighth consecutive win. Since 2014, we have developed a phone system that has continued to innovate in the market and serve our customers well.
“What we have achieved, how far we have advanced through this decade, it’s amazing to see how our phone system has grown,” said Lon Baker, COO of VirtualPBX.
“The Product of the Year awards expect continued innovation and market-changing aspects of your product. With our Business Phone Plans, we have reached that goal in many ways. This past year of effort has brought us the power of Business SMS, the connective ability of Video Conferencing, and so many other new features that not only lead the pack but also have changed the face of what we offer as a telecom.”
Industry Reaction
TMC CEO Rich Tehrani had his own meaningful words about what it takes to win this award and demonstrate leadership in the global communications industry.
He said that 2021 Product of the Year Award winners “have demonstrated innovation and excellence” in their markets and that they are “prominent players who consistently demonstrate the advancement of technologies.” In short, they are innovators, and they have stepped to the forefront because of how they continue to address market needs from one year to the next.
“Each recipient is a verifiable leader in the marketplace,” Tehrani finished.
Internet Telephony Magazine has granted this award for more than 20 years and has established the honor as one of the most prestigious in the industry.
Award-Winning Features
Through the struggle of 2020 and within the pressure of a world gripped by pandemic, we pushed forward with a range of new features geared toward one huge change in the market: remote work.
Many businesses are moving to remote work to keep their employees safe. We have responded in kind with Business SMS to give businesses of all sizes the option to use our VirtualPBX Softphone on mobile and desktop so they can send unlimited messages to colleagues and customers. Texting here works similarly to how consumers expect on their phones, so there are no hoops to jump through to get started.
Video Conferencing, likewise, has helped our customers with their remote work situations. It works as a direct replacement to Zoom or Google Meet and can accept as many as 200 participants in a single high-definition video call. Businesses can hold internal meetings and share video chats with customers. Screensharing is now possible through the VirtualPBX Desktop Softphone.
These options have arrived alongside many other features released in the past year, including Multiple Auto Attendants, Advanced Call Reports, ACD Queues Pro, AWS Intergration across call recordings, voicemail, and faxing, and expansion of the VirtualPBX API to include SMS and expanded data access.
Looking to the Future
Innovation and response to the market doesn’t stop for us. We launched our new Flex Plan recently to better cater to remote workers.
Now we’re revamping our collection of plans once more. The biggest changes here come with movements in available features, a significant lowering of prices for our Unlimited Minutes Plans, and a huge increase in available storage for call recordings.
- Our Essentials Plan now includes Business SMS and Video Conferencing
- Prices have been lowered to $19.99/user, $24.99/user, and $36.99/user for Essentials, Advanced, and Enterprise Plans for 2-99 users on annual rates
- Storage has been increased to 250GB for Advanced, 500GB for Enterprise, and 10GB for the VirtualPBX 1000 Plan – as much as a 250-fold increase from previous storage allotments
We’re always looking for what customers need the most and adjusting our plans to fit.
What we believe TMC and Internet Telephony judges see in our product is the same hope we see in ourselves. We hope our Business Phone Plans provide an excellent value and extensible feature set to businesses of all sizes. In this pandemic, we have recognized the need for businesses small and large to take their operations remote, so we responded with new features that made the most sense to our changing day-to-day.
The challenge now is to continue to look forward. You can always see what we offer now in a Free Demo and take a peek at our plans in our Product Roadmap.
TMCnet Awarded Us With Its 2020 Video Conferencing Excellence Award
Posted on December 8, 2020 by Casey Houser
It always feels great when we hear that one of our products has impressed a professional panel of judges. It feels even better when a product released within the past year has won an industry accolade, and that’s exactly what’s happened with TMCnet’s 2020 Video Conferencing Excellence Award.
Our Video Conferencing feature was in development this spring, in a beta test with select customers by summer, and released to the public by autumn. Now we’ve heard that it has gained the 2020 Video Conferencing Excellence Award from TMCnet, whose CEO, Rich Tehrani, had this to say about our selection.
“The TMCnet Video Conferencing Excellence Award recognizes innovative video conferencing platforms. These companies have shown a commitment to driving and improving the video conferencing industry through their solutions.”
“VirtualPBX has proven their commitment to quality and the further development of video conferencing industry,” he continued. “I look forward to seeing more innovative solutions from them as they continue to contribute to the future of teleworking.”
Innovation Through Diversity
We believe our Video Conferencing feature, which is part of our Advanced and Enterprise Plans, pushed the business communications market forward through a combination of varied device support and VoIP feature interoperability.
At present, our customers can complete calls on the mobile and desktop VirtualPBX Softphone and on desktop VoIP phones that support video calls. Two notable hardware phones that have been tested in our development program are the Yealink T58V and VP59. This list of compatible devices will also soon be extended to include the VirtualPBX Web Phone.
Video callers will be able to speak with other video callers and with audio-only call participants. Both high-definition video and audio can be used in one-to-one calls or through conferences. Businesses may be begin calls with their company extensions – between team members – or to customers and company stakeholders with supported devices.
Conferences currently support up to 100 callers in a single conference room. That ceiling will be increased to support several-hundred participants in the coming weeks.
Video Conferencing stands alongside many other enterprise features such as API Access and universal plan features like Zapier Integration that make customization and automation of a business’s phone system possible. To get all our Video Conferencing customers started with speed, we also include Priority Support with their plans for quick configuration of devices and instruction for advanced phone system use.
Reflection on the Award
VirtualPBX COO Lon Baker spoke about what this means to our entire team:
“The release of Video Conferencing is one we’ve eagerly awaited,” said VirtualPBX COO Lon Baker. “More and more, businesses look to a single service provider for all their communications needs, and now that remote work is expanding globally, our addition of video capability helps our customers get everything they need in a single package.”
This is a huge step for our company to begin offering a unified communications environment to our customers. In 2020 alone, our Business Phone Plans Video Conferencing alongside Business SMS, Multiple Auto Attendants, ACD Queues Pro, Voicemail Transcription, and Dynamic Caller ID. Our outreach to current and existing customers has helped them used these and all our phone system features to better weather the transition from on-site to remote work.
It’s fantastic to see validation for the hard work our development team has put into Video Conferencing and all the other features now available to any business that needs them. The 2020 Video Conferencing Excellence Award marks a special place in our awards cabinet because of the quick turnaround (from feature development to public release to award win) and for how it expands our reach in the communications industry.
Device support, call clarity, ability to mix video and audio calls, and interoperability with other VirtualPBX features gives businesses yet another reason to try VoIP and see exactly how they can fit all their communications in a single package.
We Won the 2020 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award
Posted on May 5, 2020 by Casey Houser
Our Dash Business Phone Plans have taken home an important award – the 2020 TMC Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award – which recognizes innovation in the field of telework.
In our case, this means that we’re serving our customers well with phone plans that can support their need to go remote. We always talk about how our Unlimited Users Plans and Unlimited Minutes Plans work well both inside and outside the office, and we’re thrilled to see that the broader community has endorsed that idea.
Our CEO’s Response
VirtualPBX CEO Paul Hammond commented about the TMC award announcement by first addressing our array of Business Phone Plans:
“If you’re a business that needs voice communications for your on-premise or remote team, we have a plan that will meet your needs,” Hammond said. “This award win encapsulates that ideal.
“Our Unlimited User Plans are great for businesses with low call volume; Unlimited Minute Plans cater to larger businesses that see a lot of voice communication with customers; and our forthcoming Voicemail Only and Call Forwarding Plans will address specific client niches.”
Award Recognition and VirtualPBX Plan Goals
It’s our primary split between Unlimited Users and Unlimited Minutes that was noticed by the TMC award panel. This is where we make a distinction between businesses that complete many calls or only a few, and then offering distinct plans that meet those needs.
What’s come to our attention in the past several months, however, is that there are more specific niches we can address with other collections of specialized plans. Like Hammond began, our Voicemail Only Plans will work well for the specific type of business situation where there’s no need to make external calls. Businesses will be able to keep their phone lines open for a minimal cost and direct customers to an Automated Attendant with Voicemail capability.
In addition, our Call Forwarding Plans will allow customers to save money by forwarding all calls to their personal devices. Businesses will have all calls sent to their cell phone or landlines with a modest amount of calling minutes allotted each month. These plans also contain features like Audio Conferencing, Zapier Integration, and Ring Groups.
2020 TMC Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award Industry Response
TMC CEO Rich Tehrani provided his own comments about the 2020 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award.
“These companies have proven their commitment to quality and the ongoing development of teleworking,” Tehrani said about the award winners, which were recognized in categories such as backup and storage, conferencing, hardware, networking, and mobility software (that includes VirtualPBX Plans).
“Congratulations to these winners of the 2020 Teleworking Solutions Excellence Award for earning this great honor.”
We are excited to have confirmation that our Business Phone Plans are addressing a prevalent need in the business community. We have received many awards; this one simply happened to arrive at a time when every business’s ability is being tested in new ways. The whole communications industry is putting forth twice the effort to keep itself afloat while also innovating enough to keep its business customers working – whether that’s from a downtown office or distributed throughout many home offices.
Our hope is that work can return to normal as quickly as possible. For the time being, though, we also hope that our expertise in communications can help our clients do their best in a trying time.