•             Set up a call-forwarding service to a predetermined fail over location.  This could be a second location, outside of the geographical area where hurricane is expected to hit. You can also cell phone numbers,  VoIP services, and voicemail service to catch calls that otherwise would have gone unanswered.  

•          Set up a hotline number for employees, employees’ families, to call so that all parties know about the business situation and emergency plan.  You can also use multiple numbers for customers and partners if appropriate.  For this to be most effective, maintain an updated contact list, including mobile and home phone numbers and e-mail addresses, for all employees.

•             Protect your hardware, software, data records, employee records, etc.  Routinely back up these files to an off-site storage location.  Don’t forget to backup your phone system and voicemail.  Use a generator for supplying backup power to vital computer hardware and other mission-critical equipment.  At Boston Voice Networks we have large stockpile of phone systems and other telecom equipment, which can be used to quickly bring your service back up. 

•             Set up detailed plans for evacuation, and shelter-in-place plans.  Establish a backup location for your business and meeting place for all employees.

•             Assemble a crisis-management team and coordinate efforts with neighboring businesses and building management. Be aware that disasters affecting your suppliers also affect your business. Outline a plan for supply chain continuity for business essentials.

•             If you are not operating this weekend, we recommend that you shutdown and unplug from power source your phone system and forward the main number to a mobile line. This ensures that if your business is affected, you won’t need to deal with forwarding issue w hen the lines to your TelCo provider will be jammed with callers on Monday morning.

Stay Safe!

Today's businesses seeking the benefits of VoIP solutions have three options. Traditional IP-PBX., Hosted Service and Managed Voice Service.

Managed Voice Service provides the best of both worlds. With on-premise intelligence, cloud provided dial tone, and 24/7 monitoring and support at fixed monthly cost. Let's review some of the key benefits of Managed Voice Service:

• All-inclusive hardware, service and circuit. Your Long-distance, conference bridge, collaboration tools, faxes, international calling on top of pro-active system monitoring, customer support, re-configurations.
• Round-the-clock access to experienced staff that can help you re-configure systems, assist with telephone functionality and ensure business continuity.
• Predictable operating expenses(OpEx). Your monthly costs are fixed and the provider is 100% responsible for uptime and hardware performance.
• Low up front capital expenditures (CapEx), provide a more affordable start costs, rather then investing heavily into hardware, software, licensing and maintenance contracts.
• Flexibility to accommodate staff augmentation, the system can grow as you need them, support additional offices and remote workers.
• Greater adoptability of new features. New software functionality is simply pushed and delivered to you as part of the service. No software maintenance contracts.
• Seasonal Scalability. You can easily increase the call capacity of your system based on seasonal needs. For example, CPA firms and tax preparation professionals would typically increase their call throughput during the busiest months of the year, while relaxing and scaling back the requirements during other months.
• Business Continuity.  Managed Voice Services provide maximum survivability. Your calls will always ring through.  During catastrophic events, call can be automatically routed to backup mobile phones for each individual users.
• Service Level Agreement.  Unlike Hosted services which always provide "best-effort" delivery, Managed Voice Services pro-actively monitor circuits, networks and QoS Metrics of VoIP transmissions, which allows effective response and service guarantee.

We've recently updated our business cards, and as geeky as we are, we've added QR Codes for smartphones!