Telephony @ NCH

Hi! My name is Dustin and I am the new lead developer for NCH Software’s Telephony products. Previously, I’ve been working on our company’s Utility products such as FileFort backup software, Verity child monitoring software and Orion file recovery software. I am excited about this new opportunity and I hope I can make our Telephony products even better!

One new feature coming soon to our Axon virtual PBX is the ability to access your web interface from any internet connection without the need for complicated router configuration. This is accomplished by connecting to an NCH Software server using a simple internet address like http://sampleaddress.users.nchuser.com which relays to your Axon server. Pages can even be viewed over a secure (HTTPS) connection to guarantee that transmitted information is safe. This feature is ad supported so there is no extra cost to you. You will still be able to view the web interface without ads the same way you always have but with this feature we hope Axon will be even easier to use remotely.

So be on the lookout for this new feature in Axon and more feature and usability improvements to come to our telephony software:

• Express Talk Softphone
  
• Axon Virtual PBX System
  
• IMS On-Hold Messages Player
  
• IVM Answering Attendant
  
• TRx Single Line Call Recorder
  
• VRS Multichannel Voice Recorder
  
• Quorum Call Conferencing Software
  

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Auto Dialer Software Gives Added Power to Small Businesses Reaching Out to Customers and Clients

There is an abundance of reasons your organization might want to call lists of people—whether for service calls on accounts to make sure customer relations are in good standing, reaching out to members when it is time for them to renew, notifying clients of an important change, or to meet an important fund-raising goal.

Between email and the Internet, the number of opportunities an organization has to put themselves in touch with their customer base has increased over the years, and businesses and groups are learning the best ways to take advantage. Developments in these fields have become an important component to Customer Relationship Management, and in some cases have come to overshadow some of the more traditional channels of communication like the telephone. Yet the value in person-to-person contact is still important, and technological progressions in phone system management are helping to keep phone calls an economical option for staying in contact with customers.

The new Axon Agent auto dialer is an add-on feature for our virtual PBX that makes it easier for everyone from call centers to charities to reach out to their customers, members or constituents. No matter the reason your organization has for placing calls, the longer the list of contacts gets the harder it is to manage the process. That is where an automated dialing system can really come in handy.

One of the wonderful things about NCH's virtual PBX, Axon, is that it is Windows based software, making it easy and accessible to small businesses that don't have the luxury of a full time IT staff to help configure and manage a more complex Linux phone system. The new auto dialer agent gives these smaller organizations another useful and powerful feature, making it easy and efficient to place phone calls to a list of people and to compete with their larger counterparts.

With the Axon Virtual PBX you can log-on to the weblet to set up not only lines and extensions for your phone system, but also to set up calling agents and outbound calling campaigns containing your list of contacts and a script for the agents to use when placing the phone calls. Agents can then log-in using Axon Agent and join a calling campaign. Axon does all the work of managing the campaign list and dialing for the agents, making sure that no duplicate calls are made and ensuring an efficient calling process.

Axon is just one of the telephony software applications offered by NCH, allowing any business to customize a solution for their unique needs. For another example, see automated outbound calling software for additional calling options that don't require operators to handle individual phone calls.

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Auto Dial feature for Axon Virtual PBX in development

Axon virtual windows PBX is one of the keystone products of our telephony suite. The fact that Axon runs on a windows pc makes it much easier for small businesses to setup up a complete phone management system themselves, even without a dedicated IT person on staff.

A PBX is an important piece of a phone management for business or call centers, allowing you to create extensions for individuals, have internal dialing and other features like hold, transfer and voicemail, and soon we will be adding a new power dialing feature to Axon that will be another valuable addition for call centers and other small businesses that need to manage making outbound calls to a list of customers or potential clients.

Our development team has been working on adding an automatic dialer feature, similar to what you may think of as a predictive dialing system. This new power dialer will allow users in a call center type environment to share a list of contacts in a campaign by a list of agents (eg. sales staff or customer service personnel). When an agent is ready to make their next call, at the press of a button the auto dialer will automatically grab the next uncompleted person from the list and dial the number for them, which can save time.

This new feature will be similar to Express Dial which integrates with the Express Talk softphone for a single user, but by allowing multiple people to work off a campaign it helps expand the capabilities to better suit a small businesses or call center.

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Not sure if VoIP is right for You or Your Business?

With the latest release of Axon, a virtual PBX, we have made it even easier for you to try and test a VoIP system. We have teamed up with InPhonex, so you now have the option to set up a free 14-day trial VoIP account when you are setting up Axon on your machine. So now you have two full weeks to test not only all of the call management features and benefits that this virtual PBX can provide you, but you can trial a VoIP DID phone number as well. So if you have been sitting on the fence trying to decide if you should take the plunge into the world of we hope that this will be the stepping stone you need to try it out and experience all of the benefits that VoIP can provide.

Axon is a fully featured telephone switch that can be used either VoIP telephone lines or traditional analog landlines (PSTN) with the use of hardware adapters such as FXO adapters or telephony boards, or a combination of the two. But in this economy the cost saving benefits of VoIP due to reduced hardware costs and lower phone bills make a strong case for considering the switch, and how better to learn than by testing this easy to use software for yourself. Within minutes you will be able to setup the software and start making phone calls.

Learn more about Axon and Download at http://www.nch.com.au/pbx/index.html

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