By Ashley Caputo, TMCnet Web Editor

A hosted private branch exchange (PBX (News - Alert)) uses the Internet to place and receive calls through hardware that is located offsite and managed by a VoIP provider, a service that is supplied by a telecommunications provider in the form of a hosted phone. This type of phone system helps businesses avoid wasting space or money on maintenance, along with variety of call management features that has encouraged small to mid-sized businesses owners to move from PSTN.

Recently, HireAHelper.com, an online marketplace for services that provide laborers who load and unload trucks and containers for do-it-yourself movers that need help, went on a hunt to find the perfect PBX system that would revive their customer service reputation, which was at an all time low. To solve their problems they chose Phone.com (News - Alert).

“The reasons we settled on Phone.com are for all the features we need,” said Mike Glanz, co-founder and CEO of HireAHelper.com, in a statement. “They have APIs, call recordings, and their price was right. They have every feature we wanted.”  

HireAHelper was using 30-40,000 minutes per month, meaning that they’re too big to use a smaller office solution, but not big enough to spend $50,000 on an enterprise system with full call-center software. As the number of calls continued to increase, the need for a flexible PBX quality system system where they can pull the data that call centers do, without the hardware costs associated with a large PBX system, became its number one concern.

To resolve these issues Phone.com, a communications company that allows businesses to manage their connections, including calls, texts, e-mails, social network and business schedule, provided its services.

Deployed like a traditional PBX, all of HireAHelper’s agents are on cell phones with individual extensions. All incoming calls come into a call service queue and each incoming phone number is associated with a referral source, and whenever an order is placed HireAHelper records the referral number. This lets HireAHelper track all its sales back to specific advertising or partners, and determine how marketing efforts are working.

Using the APIs, HireAHelper pulls all the data it needs from Phone.com and generates reports on who is picking up calls, how many calls they’re picking up, who is booking the calls, and the average call length. “This is a really an advanced feature of call center software and is very expensive to implement with a large provider,” says Glanz. “It’s relatively easy to do using Phone.com’s APIs. For instance, being able to pull down the call recordings lets us do QA on the calls.”

Glanz is very happy with the service adding, “We have never needed support and the uptime and call quality has been 100 percent. Everything has been rock solid.”

To learn more about these communication services, please visit Phone.com.