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5 ways to reduce your business landline bills Find out how you can reduce the cost of your business landline bills and boost your business profits. The financial pressures of running a business can be difficult enough to manage without having to worry about large landline bills. If you’re looking to cut down on your spending, there are a number of ways to make your business landline as economical as possible, and keep your bills to a minimum. Compare the market regularly One of the simplest ways of keeping your business phone line costs down is to make sure you know what deals are available. You can save hundreds of pounds a year depending on the size of your business by moving from an unsuitable tariff to one that’s right for you – the only way of doing this is to research the market.  All you need to do is choose which is the best business landline deal for you and your business. You should keep all your utilities providers, including your business landline, on a regular review cycle, allowing you to take advantage any new deals that might be launched. Look out for bundles A growing trend for telecoms companies is to offer bundle services to business customers, allowing you to hold all of your services with one provider at a discounted rate. Companies including O2, BT and Orange are all offering packages that combine cheap business phone lines with mobile phone plans and broadband, meaning you can cut down the number of providers you have, saving time and money. Lose the pricey extras You should check your current landline plan to see if you’re paying for any non-essential extras that are adding to your monthly bills. Additional services such as call waiting, caller ID and call forwarding may be nice to have, but could also be costing you dearly. Keeping your landline package simple or adding individual services that you need can help to keep your costs down. Alternatives to inter-office phone calls If you have large premises and need to be in constant contact with employees on different floors or within different departments, you can drastically reduce your landline bills by taking advantage of new communication technology. Products such as Microsoft’s Skype for Business, allows instant messaging and phone calls over the internet, which still allows you to chat to any employee without the use of a landline phone. Skype’s Instant Messaging functionality works in the same way as a social messaging service, but without the distractions, allowing you to send real time messages to colleagues via computer. VoIP – the future of phone conferencing Using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, you can make free voice calls locally and overseas. Skype and Apple’s FaceTime facility will both allow you to make video and voice calls for free, so you can reserve your business landline for short conversations only and avoid making costly calls to your clients, suppliers or offices Take a look at our Telephone and Conferencing services For more information and to see if we can help you contact us T:03303 130966 or e-mail us using hello@thinkcirrus.co.uk

…That’s what we hope you’ll say once we’ve fixed the problem. Wi-Fi will work and can work! It’s just about getting the right capacity in your venue! We know that you’ve attempted several speed tests and Google searches to try and find out why your Wi-Fi is so slow or runs with a lag, especially when it’s busy. But speed isn’t the issue… You need more Wi-Fi capacity! But, what does this mean? Think of Wi-Fi capacity like a speaker.  Place the speaker in the corner of an empty silent room.  Whatever level you choose you can hear that speaker.  As more people come into the room you need to turn the speaker up in order to hear it but at some point you’ll have too many people, creating too much noise to hear the speaker.  You’ll also find the closer you are to the speaker the better chance you have of hearing it.  Move the speaker to different areas of the room and different people can hear the music. That one speaker can fill the room with music, but can it fill a full room with music.  Coverage vs Capacity. You need to think of broadcasting your Wi-Fi in the same way. The solution to the problem would be to install more speakers? Right? If this sounds like your problem? Let’s have a coffee and a chat. Call us on 03303 130966 or visit our website https://www.thinkcirrus.co.uk or drop us a note hello@thinkcirrus.co.uk

There’s no doubt about it – dynamic Wi-Fi is valuable asset to any business, providing benefits not only for the customer, but for the business itself. Do you find that your Wi-Fi crashes, or drops out? Do you heavily rely on the Wi-Fi? From streaming music to providing card payments and electronic online cash desks, we’ll keep you functioning even when it’s busy. We know the pain of having unreliable Wi-Fi. Do you speed test your Wi-Fi and still have problems? Installing reliable Wi-Fi widely will attract new customers to your premises, as well as encourage return visits. You might run a clothing boutique, restaurant or coffee shop, but you’ll know that the longer your customer stays on your premises, the more money they are likely to spend. You will not only be providing the customer with a practical tool, but an all-round better and more convenient experience. Another way that business Wi-Fi can greatly benefit your business is with customer analytics.  You’ll be able to analyse your customers’ behaviour as they wonder around your store, or settle done for a spot of lunch or a quick coffee. The customer will also be able to view a branded landing page, upon which you can add any announcements or special offers you might want to bring to their attention, raising brand awareness in the process. For the customer,  access to a  Wi-Fi service,  is a very simple and straightforward process. If the customer is connecting to the network for the first time then you can decide whether you want them to complete a one-off registration, or just click and connect. Each time they return after this they will be automatically connected without the need to do anything, allowing a type of ease that is something that really will encourage people to return. Always on hand! Stress-free Wi-Fi that works We are always on hand to assist you with any technical queries, as well as any servicing or repairs that need to be carried out. With experts on hand 24 hours a day to help you whenever you need it, you can rest assured that we’ve got you covered. We will also provide you with clear reports showing information such as data usage, customer registration numbers, which can be both helpful and interesting to you as an owner. From installation and beyond… We manage this service for you, from installation to setting up the wi-fi connection, we’ll take care of it.  We will continue to manage and maintain the system remotely for you. You can also opt for a separate public wi-fi to your existing broadband provider, which we are more than happy to take care of for you. You are in complete control of the web filter, meaning that you can ensure a family friendly environment, and monitor and control what content users can access from your business wi-fi for customers on your premises.

  Operating more efficiently means integrating communications, marketing, sales and operational technology – right? Yas! We know that integrating everything makes life easier. So, let’s start with Skype for business… …Skype for Business is a platform that brings together quite a few technologies presented from a single software solution. Here at Think Cirrus, we provide the Skype for Business Platform which includes instant messaging, voice & video calling, screen sharing and conferencing. It’s a modular suite so you can pick and choose as you need. Skype for Business is a productivity tool and compliments the Microsoft Office Suite of tools. User Interface for Video ConferenceThink about your smartphone, most of us have one.  It’s much more than a phone, right?  It’s got your contacts, e-mail, pictures, music and of course your social media feeds. Could you make do without your smartphone? Skype for Business represents a modern shift in business integrated communications. It allows you to work remotely, flexibly and another compelling reason to switch is, cost. Do you pay for your phone lines, phone bills, voice conference call service, video conference call service? Are all these platforms separate? These individual costs all add up, right? Quite often these require capital investments which mean you have long term assets to sweat. Not with skype for business… Skype for Business features: Charges are per user per month all rolled into a single price. Software based, so it can be on your office PC, laptop, mobile phone, tablet. All of this add up to the fact you can be in the office even though your away from the office. You might think: “ I can do this myself” – but lets have a chat about how we can integrate your I.T. properly, so that you don’t have any gremlins or frustrations. For more information and to see if we can help you contact us T:03303 130966 or e-mail us using hello@thinkcirrus.co.uk