Empowering Women in Business at Nextiva

April 17, 2018 9 min read

Nicole Small

Nicole Small

Historically, women have faced an uphill battle while establishing their position in the business world. And while women are making positive strides each day, there’s still a long way to go. 
There’s a major gender gap when it comes to women in the tech business. Instead of talking about the negative statistics surrounding women in tech, though, it’s important to be proactive and discuss all the opportunities women in tech have open to them. 
By encouraging and supporting women in the business world, we can shift the narrative and see more and more empowered women in the workplace.
We’re featuring some of the incredible women on our team to learn about their position, their hopes for the advancement of women in business, and the advice they would give to their younger self. 

Continue reading “Empowering Women in Business at Nextiva”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicole Small

Nicole Small is a former marketing communications manager for Nextiva and is passionate about growth, company culture, and the promise of Amazing Service. Outside of marketing, Nicole enjoys cooking easy and healthy recipes, taking care of the office plants, and hanging out with her cat.

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Loyal customers are important to any business. Anyone who loves your product or service, and keeps coming back for it, is thought to be the ideal customer. However, there’s a huge gap between customers who love your brand and customers who advocate for it. Converting loyal customers into brand ambassadors is a necessity for any business that wants to increase their popularity among consumers.
There’s a difference between a brand ambassador and a paid endorser. A brand ambassador is someone who loves your brand enough to promote it on their own. They’re viewed as trustworthy and credible by other consumers because they aren’t making money promoting your business, they just genuinely love and support it.
Brand ambassadors can greatly contribute to your business because they’re driving word-of-mouth marketing for you. If you already have loyal customers, bridge the gap between fan and ambassador using these five tips:
1. Communicate, communicate, communicate
One of the most important things a business can do is to communicate with its customers. This seems simple enough, but there’s a lot that goes into creating a strong connection with a customer.
Being available to your customers is essential. You have to make sure your customers are able to reach you when they have questions or concerns, preferably in more than one way. Some customers prefer to call in, while others will simply tweet you. Regardless of their preference, customers appreciate it when they can easily reach you and have their concerns addressed.
It’s also important to reach out to your customers before they even have to reach out to you. Set up a mailing list, keep your social media up-to-date, and announce anything new your business is doing on your website. When your customers regularly see updates from your business, they’ll have a hard time forgetting about it.
2. Deliver a great customer experience
Even if a customer loves your product or service, if they aren’t given a satisfying customer experience, they’re less likely to commit to your brand. Consider what your business can do to deliver customer service that goes above and beyond.
Going the extra mile for your customers is something that will stick with them. Even a small gesture can be the difference between loyalty and advocacy. Paying attention to and taking care of your customers should always be a priority, but don’t forget to build genuine relationships with them along the way. Maintaining the relationships that you create with your customers shows that your brand truly values its business. 
3. Encourage – and listen to – feedback
If someone is referring your brand to their friends and family, they have to love virtually everything you’re doing. Finding out what your business could improve upon in order to get a customer recommendation is a critical step in improving customer loyalty. Make sure to ask your customers insightful questions and follow up with your employees to get a read on how they feel about your brand.
When you do get customer feedback, what will make the difference is actually recognizing it and trying to resolve any concerns the customer shared. When a customer sees that you took what they said seriously and tried to improve their experience, they will see your business in a whole new light.
4. Offer rewards
Recognizing your customer’s loyalty makes them feel appreciated and keeps your business at the front of their mind. Rewards give your customers a reason to keep coming back to your brand other than their love of your product or service. If a customer already loves your brand, and you reward them for loving it, they’ll be much more excited to advocate for you.
There are many different ways you can reward your customers. Rewards range from membership programs to discount pricing to referral programs. What’s important is finding a strategy that works for your business and that excites your customers.
5. Make it easy to share
Even if your customers love everything about your brand, it’s likely they won’t go out of their way to advocate for it if it’s not easily sharable. If you’re expecting your customers to become ambassadors of your brand, provide them with the tools they need to do it.
Make sure your products and services are well-advertised, check that your website is easy to access, and consistently update your social media across all platforms. Also, make sure you’re engaging customers on these platforms by encouraging user-generated content. Anything you can think of that would make customers excited about promoting your brand, you should be doing.
It takes some work to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors, but once you do, your business will have a real relationship with people who are very loyal to it. Focus on improving your business for the sake of your customers and you’ll be able to transform the way customers see – and talk about – your brand trust.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Niana

Sarah Niana was a graphic designer at Nextiva. Prior to Nextiva, she was attending school in Los Angeles & London and obtained a degree in Visual Communication from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. When she’s not at her desk, she loves checking out new restaurants, taking road trips, and hunting for vintage clothes.

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6 Reasons to Use Internet Fax Over Traditional Fax

March 20, 2018 4 min read

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi

Who faxes anymore?
Believe it or not, faxing is still a vital communication method used in many businesses today.
However, with security breaches, data breaches, and cyber threats seemingly working around every corner, the traditional style of faxing is no longer safe and secure.
But like everything else, technology offers a better solution that makes online faxing possible.
For those who still admittedly use traditional fax machines, why should you consider switching to an Internet fax?
Related: How to Send and Receive a Fax Without a Fax Machine
Don’t worry, we will tell you.

Read on to learn about the top six reasons why you should use an internet fax and ditch your old traditional fax machine.

1. Easy Access from Anywhere

One of the primary reasons why the benefits of Internet fax outweigh traditional fax is accessibility. In today’s fast-paced, mobile, on-the-go business world, gone are the days when you had to remain in an office in order to receive, sign, and/ or send important documents via fax.
Internet fax allows you to send and receive faxes from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection and a mobile device. Most Internet fax providers offer mobile apps that allow faxers to receive, download, sign, and re-send important documents.

2. Save Space and Storage

Most traditional fax machines are large, clunky, and take up much-needed desk space in an office. All faxers need to use an Internet fax is an email address and an Internet connection in order to send and receive faxes. That’s it! With Internet fax, you can finally get rid of that old fax machine.
In addition to saving physical storage space, most Internet fax providers also offer sufficient data storage to archive old files and faxes. Some also offer a website and mobile app option to store faxes in the cloud.
However, it’s worth mentioning that different providers offer different levels of storage capacity. Some providers will allow you to store all of your faxes permanently, but others may not. Therefore, it’s important to do consider investing in additional cloud storage, especially if you do a lot of faxing and file management.

3. Go Paperless, Go Green

Internet fax makes it easier and ever for users and businesses to “go green”. All incoming and outgoing faxes are saved as electronic files and can be downloaded and uploaded in various file formats. Electronic faxes can even be electronically signed, which reduces the need for printing hard copies.  
Not only are you saving a great deal of physical storage space by finally tossing your old fax machine, but you also reduce the amount of paperwork and files. Internet fax makes it incredibly easy to save space, save paper, save money and become more environmentally friendly and conscious.

4. Organization

Saving space, reducing paper clutter, and increasing storage all mean one thing: more organization. When you get rid of your traditional fax machine, you immediately mitigate the risk of losing important paperwork, damaging file or not receiving a fax at all.
Internet faxing allows faxers to easily save their sent and received faxes all online. So, if you are searching for a particular file or fax, instead of sifting through endless piles of paper, simply access your faxes on your tablet or phone.
Many Internet fax providers allow you to sort faxes and files by date, sender or even specific keywords that appear in the file name or title, or even within the document itself. With Internet faxing, you can find what you are looking for in minutes instead of hours, and without the headaches!

4. Enhanced Security

Security is a huge concern for businesses today. In fact, many businesses have invested in cloud storage as well as Internet faxing to remain compliant with new security standards put forth on many industries, such as healthcare. Internet faxing is encrypted, which means you automatically add a layer of security to your faxing and document control activities.
Cloud storage is also more secure than traditional filing cabinets. Although most filing cabinets can be locked, with some force, they can be broken into easily.
Additionally, without having files or paperwork lying around in an office, business owners and managers can immediately increase security by simply investing in Internet faxing. Without extra copies of a customer’s address or credit card number lying around, businesses can rest assured that their customer and/ or user data is protected and secure.

5. Convenience

Another reason to consider an Internet fax is convenience. Again, because life and business on the go has become the norm, it is incredibly convenient to send and receive faxes in between meetings at a coffee shop, traveling or virtually anywhere outside the office.
The convenience factor alone makes it easier for faxers to quickly send and receive faxes, which increases productivity and efficiency.

6. Cost Savings

Internet Fax

Finally, one of the last—but certainly not least—advantages to Internet faxing is the cost savings. Think of all the money you can save on paper, ink cartridges, toner and maintenance. Believe it or not, traditional fax machines cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year to operate, depending on usage, of course. Businesses can easily adopt Internet faxing, and sync up with an Internet faxing provider for a fraction of the cost.

Internet Faxing for Modern Businesses

As the digital age continues to transform and shape, Internet faxing is replacing the traditional and somewhat obsolete fax machine that sits in a corner of an office. Internet faxing clearly increases accessibility, security, organization, efficiency and it is incredibly convenient.
Are you ready to make the switch and begin shopping for Internet fax providers? If you are looking for a reliable and reputable Internet fax provider, Nextiva is the best place to start. Nextiva vFax offers simplified faxing for modern businesses. Learn how to fax online quickly.
So, even if you aren’t 100 percent sold on Internet faxing, businesses can easily make the transition without giving up their traditional fax machines—yet.
 
More:
Is your fax machine costing you?
5 Reasons Online Faxing is Better than Traditional Faxing

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

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Lessons from NextCon’s Customer Experience Roundtable

March 6, 2018 3 min read

Nicole Small

Nicole Small

Those who sat in the audience on Monday, Oct. 23, 2017 at NextCon in Scottsdale, Arizona, were treated to an hour of incredibly valuable information when a powerful group of customer service superstars took to the stage for a panel titled CX Unplugged: Lessons Learned from Legendary Customer Experience Teams.

Moderated by business consultant and television personality Carol Roth, the panel consisted of marketing and employer brand strategist Lane Sutton, Nordstrom SVP Lois Evers and Ritz-Carlton general manager Liam Doyle. Each person shared customer experience insights so valuable, the audience could barely keep up as they jotted down notes.

Roth started the conversation by asking Sutton, a member of the Gen Z generation (born in mid-90s to early 2000s), if companies needed to alter customer service techniques based on the generation of their clients.

Continue reading “Lessons from NextCon’s Customer Experience Roundtable”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicole Small

Nicole Small is a former marketing communications manager for Nextiva and is passionate about growth, company culture, and the promise of Amazing Service. Outside of marketing, Nicole enjoys cooking easy and healthy recipes, taking care of the office plants, and hanging out with her cat.

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A Year in Review: 2017 at Nextiva

January 2, 2018 4 min read

Nicole Small

Nicole Small

2017 will be remembered as a banner year at Nextiva. We made innovative strides towards our mission of helping businesses achieve better communications and improve their customer experience. As pioneers in the cloud-communications arena, we are always working diligently on new technologies to accelerate business for our customers. We launched NextOS, the highly anticipated all-in-one communications solution. We upheld our commitment to education with our annual conference, NextCon, and continued to devote ourselves to providing Amazing Service, all of which culminated in widespread press coverage, unprecedented hiring, and significant charitable contributions.

Image of Nextiva in 2017

Let’s take a look:

Continue reading “A Year in Review: 2017 at Nextiva”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicole Small

Nicole Small is a former marketing communications manager for Nextiva and is passionate about growth, company culture, and the promise of Amazing Service. Outside of marketing, Nicole enjoys cooking easy and healthy recipes, taking care of the office plants, and hanging out with her cat.

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It’s the Season of Giving: Nextiva Cares & Toys for Tots

December 27, 2017 2 min read

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi

During the holiday season, many Americans feel joy, excitement, cheer, and love.  However, there are still over 13 million children across the U.S. living in poverty who aren’t able to experience the same holiday spirit.  Fortunately, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program works hard all year to make sure that millions of children across all 50 states and U.S. territories are able to feel the love, joy, and warmth of the holiday season.

For the third consecutive year, Nextiva Cares has partnered with Toys for Tots to bring some holiday magic to less fortunate children in the Phoenix area.  This year, we were able to donate over 500 toys!  Nextiva has grown exponentially in the last few years, so it only makes sense that our charitable contributions grow with it.  For the last three years, our 750 U.S. employees have donated over 1,100 toys to the Toys for Tots program, a fan-favorite charity for our team.

Continue reading “It’s the Season of Giving: Nextiva Cares & Toys for Tots”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

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Steve Wozniak’s Secrets of Innovation

April 28, 2017 2 min read

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi

NexCon16 attendees were treated to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on the last day of the conference last November when Nextiva co-founder and CEO sat down for a fireside chat with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The conversation covered topics as wide ranging as what it was like to work with Steve Jobs, secrets of the early days of Apple, Wozniak’s advice for companies on how to innovate and more. Several thousand people packed into the largest ballroom at Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale to hang on Wozniak’s every word.

Gorny started the conversation by asking Wozniak if he thought Apple was going to be the world-changing success it turned out to be. Wozniak responded by explaining that he and Jobs created Apple to help gamers play on home computers, a concept unknown until that point in history.

Continue reading “Steve Wozniak’s Secrets of Innovation”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

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In 2014, Russia banned four dirty words from use in the performance arts, but U.S. small businesses should strongly consider banning these six words: “We’ve always done it that way.” Granted, conventional wisdom says that long-lived processes make business life predictable and comfortable. But, your small business is less likely to grow if you don’t move beyond old, tired ways.

This is just one example of conventional wisdom that may not be so wise for your small business. Here are 5 more.

Continue reading “5 Ways that Conventional Wisdom Can Bring Your Small Business to a Standstill”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carol Roth

Carol Roth is an American television personality, bestselling author, entrepreneur, radio host, and investor. Roth appears regularly on national cable television networks including Fox Business, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

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For the second year in a row, Nextiva Cares dedicated the month of March to raise funds and volunteer at Phoenix Children’s Hospital (PCH), Arizona’s only Best Children’s Hospital.

All month long, Nextiva Cares pledged to donate $1 to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation for every engagement on Nextiva’s social media posts showcasing our philanthropic partnership.  More specifically, Nextiva Cares’ donations went directly to PCH Foundation’s Hope Fund

The Hope Fund helps Phoenix Children’s launch critical new programs, purchase essential equipment, conduct cutting-edge research, provide charitable care, and more.  It ensures that support is available where and when it is needed most so PCH can continue to enhance the care it provide to all of its patients.  With the help from all of Nextiva’s team members, the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation, and other family and friends in the community, Nextiva Cares’ social media campaign raised nearly $3,200 for the Hope Fund.
Nextiva Cares Supports Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation

Continue reading “Getting Social for a Cause: Nextiva Cares and the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

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Creating a Productive Home Office

July 21, 2016 3 min read

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi

Working from home can be both a blessing and a curse; you’re surrounded by the comforts of your own space, but also the distractions of day-to-day life.  Whether you will be working there only part-time or it will be your everyday workspace, you need to make it a productive area. 

Here are some tips to making a productive home office work for you.

Continue reading “Creating a Productive Home Office”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

Posts from this author

Does your company interact with customers over the phone, either by selling your product/service or providing support? If you’re like many businesses, a significant portion of the customer experience is conducted over the phone. If you’re not already recording your calls for training and quality assurance purposes, it’s a good idea to implement call recording with your phone service.
Recording calls is valuable for training purposes, coaching team members on the best way to handle customer questions and concerns, and identifying areas of opportunity that can improve the customer experience. While we would all love for our customers and employees to be happy 100% of the time, the reality is people are human and make mistakes—both employees and customers. By recording your phone calls, you have a record of these interactions that you can reference. Think of these recordings like your business safety blanket.
In the past, utilizing a call recording service for your business phone service was expensive and complicated, but commercial phone systems, such as Nextiva, have changed the game. Cloud phone systems have simplified the process and dramatically reduced the price—a win-win situation for businesses. If you’re a current Nextiva customer interested in utilizing this feature, it can be easily added to all of our Nextiva Office plans for a small monthly fee.

Also, with a virtual phone service, you have more control over when your calls are recorded. Below are the recording modes available to you:

  • Always: automatically record all your calls in their entirety
  • Always with Pause/Resume: To automatically record all your calls with the ability to pause and restart recording during the call
  • On Demand: Record selected calls
  • On Demand with User Initiated Start: This mode differs from all of the other modes in that the recording of the call is not started until you record the call. Once the call is being recorded, the pause/resume and stop functionality become available

Nextiva keeps all of your call recordings for six months with your cloud phone system. 
An important thing to note, if you plan to take advantage of the benefits of virtual phone systems for your business, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure you adhere to the law and properly notifying your customers. Many states require that you notify a customer when a call is being recorded, with a friendly reminder such as, “To ensure Amazing Service, this call may be recorded,” so make sure to check the call recording laws in your area. It’s always better to be safe than sorry!
If you’d like to learn more about recording calls for your office phone system, give us a call at (800) 799-0600 and we’d be happy to discuss the benefits to your business in more detail.

Related: How to Record Customer Service Calls & Why You Should

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

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The Evolution of the Telephone from 1876 to Today

July 9, 2012 2 min read

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi

The engineers at Nextiva are continuously improving our business VoIP phone systems to keep our customers connected in the most advanced ways possible.
With that in mind, we were inspired to take a trip back in time to examine how telephone communications came to be what they are today.  Kick back and enjoy our “Evolution of the Telephone” timeline.

1800’s

Our flashback begins with the world’s first telephone: the liquid transmitter. Two inventors, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electronically.
Bell reached the patent office mere hours before Gray, and won the famous battle over the invention of the telephone when his patent was passed on March 7, 1876.  The first words that were reportedly transmitted through the telephone receiver were “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” from Bell to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson.
By early 1877, the first official telephone lines were established as a part of Bell Telephone Company and the first regular telephone line was constructed between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts.

Early 1900’s

The first telephone exchanges were performed by a switchboard throughout the late 1800’s and turn of the century.
Almon B. Strowger invented a telephone that could perform the first automatic telephone exchange and did not require an operator.
Although Strowger filed the first patent for a rotary dial phone in 1891, the dialing devices did not make their way into the Bell System until the 1920’s.

1970’s-1980’s

Leaping decades ahead, we found ourselves with touchtone dialing and the first cordless phones by 1970. A completely experimental picture-phone system was developed by AT&T to transmit images throughout a phone call.
Deemed too bulky and expensive, the idea was scrapped until later on being incorporated into a personal computer. The ‘80s brought about a revolution in telephony communications with the first testing of VoIP service, caller ID and the introduction of the mobile phone.

1990’s

Although the term “smartphone” had not been coined at the time of its release, the IBM Simon is considered the groundbreaking device that first combined telephone and PDA features.
The cell phone craze had hit the ground running with consumers quickly discovering the benefits of being accessible while on-the-go.

2000’s

The technology throughout this decade advanced exponentially. Mobile phones became more compact, offered high resolution screens and had more features than ever before.
VoIP technology expanded into businesses and applications, and text/voice/video software such as Skype allowed people to connect in even more ways.

2012

With innovative device features such as the iPhone 4S’s Siri and Apple iOS 6’s Maps and Passbook, we are relying on our cell phones for more and more each day, and fewer people use a landline phone from their homes.
We can now use our cell phones book plane tickets, find directions to a business or residence, shop for shoes, see what’s new on Facebook, share photos with the world, check your favorite team’s score, play interactive games with friends, find out tomorrow’s weather report, and much, much more!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gaetano DiNardi

Gaetano DiNardi led demand generation at Nextiva and has a track record of success working with brands like Major League Baseball, Pipedrive, Sales Hacker, and Outreach.io. Outside of marketing, Gaetano is an accomplished music producer and songwriter. He’s worked with major artists like Fat Joe, Shaggy, and loves making music to stay turbocharged.

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