Traditionally speaking, one of the easiest ways to determine the size of a company was to call the main number. If a live person answered the phone, the company must be small and local. If an interactive voice response (IVR) system answered the phone call, the perception was that the company was large and progressive and most likely suited to meet the needs of the large customer.

Whether or not these perceptions portray reality, they can still motivate the customer to make a decision one way or another. A company’s size does not always dictate its ability to serve the client base. Unfortunately, customer perception can often be based on little more than the greeting on the phone.

For those small and medium-sized companies who are trying to compete, this perception no longer has to haunt them with the ringing of the phone. Now, hosted IVR systems are available that provide the same features and functionality that the competition enjoys, without the cost that the competition incurs.

Ifbyphone (News - Alert), a hosted voice application and platform company, takes a simplified approach to the deployment of stand-alone and web-integrated voice services for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs).

The company strives to serve this segment of the market by combining advanced telephony and web services. As a result, Ifbyphone’s web-integrated voice applications turn the small business telephone into a powerful tool that can increase lead generation, improve sales conversion and enhance customer service.

All of these benefits can be experienced by SMBs without significant upfront costs and low monthly fees. And, these companies can customize their solution to ensure they only pay for the features that can help to promote everyday business processes.

Ifbyphone understands how important voice applications can be in today’s business. Beyond the customer service functionality for basic inbound calls, hosted IVR solutions from Ifbyphone can also be used to design voice surveys and launch in-house marketing campaigns.

Businesses that operate in the SMB sector have the same demand for customer satisfaction measurement and marketing campaigns as their larger competitors. With smaller budgets that often prohibit the use of outsourced services, access to an in-house application that can promote such projects will bring significant value to these organizations.

While size once indicated the capability of the company, technology can help replace much of what larger companies rely on for driving their business. In doing so, these smaller companies not only position themselves right alongside their larger competitors, they do so without large capital expenditures. In the end, such a strategy enables the SMB to better serve the client.