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Technology has evolved at the expense of human interaction and
has often brought confusion and lack of privacy to personal communications.
Neither the caller nor the person he/she wants to contact has had
any level of control.
Today, customer-focused business individuals are forced to give
up privacy, must publish or reveal cell numbers (or private “back
door” numbers), answer calls without knowing who is on the
other end, and access multiple voicemail or message-taking systems.
Callers want to reach their intended party – without the trouble
of calling every number on the business card. They should not be
required to know or guess if the subscribers are in their office,
in their car, or even at home. They want to talk to the individual
or know the subscriber’s availability/status. Are they in
a meeting? Are they temporarily unavailable? Are they on vacation?
As part of the OnlyOne philosophy to create the best possible communications
service, our subscribers are able to talk, send/receive messages,
forward information and convey their availability to callers --all
through one local number. Our “local access”
approach reduces our subscribers’ overall cost and enhances
the “local” presence that is so important in today’s
business. This is in great contrast to competitors who offer their
service through an 8XX number with its associated per minute costs
or limitations.
How Does OnlyOne Work?
The Subscriber Experience
The Caller Experience
The E-Mail Backlash
Faxing Documents – Finally Reinvented
How Does OnlyOne Work?
OnlyOne provides you with a local, single 10-digit number
that you give to all business associates, clients and family
members. You, the subscriber, then have a powerful tool to let you
decide if you are available for a conversation, or you currently
cannot take a call. Through either an on-line administrative site
or by phone, you select the appropriate “Status.” If
you are available, the Status option will “point” your
OnlyOne service to the correct phone device (e.g. cell, work, home).
If you are not available to take a call, the Status option will
inform the caller that you; “are in a meeting,” “currently
unavailable,” “currently traveling,” or whatever
you desire through the customized greeting option.
Your OnlyOne also accepts faxes, providing even greater flexibility
and privacy. Your OnlyOne number routes the fax document to your
computer as a .TIFF file. You simply view the fax the next time
you open e-mail. It’s right there for viewing, printing, filing,
or forwarding to others.
A business card that looks like this:
Now looks like this:
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The Subscriber Experience
Simplicity of One Contact Number:
• Give one single number to contacts. You never need to tell
people where to reach you. You will never again have to write down
a separate number or times/days you are at various locations on
the back of your business card.
• Change cell phone, work, fax, e-mail or even home phone
numbers without ever changing your OnlyOne number. Thus you will
never again need to inform business or personal contacts of your
changed numbers.
• Always know that important calls will always reach you.
Control and Privacy
• Peace of mind that your cell phone and home numbers are
private. Callers cannot reach you unless you choose to speak with
them.
• Maintain privacy of your location. Callers do not need to
know where you are in order to contact you.
• Faxed documents are directed to your private e-mail inbox
until you choose to review them.
• Hear your callers announced in their own voice, allowing
you to decide if you want to take the call.
• By changing your status, you choose when to be uninterrupted.
• Receive voice and fax message notification via cell phone
and e-mail.
• While talking “live”, transfer a caller to voice
mail so that he/she can leave a detailed message that you can review
later, when time permits.
• While talking “live,” transfer callers to any
other number (e.g. business associate or a land line if cellular
reception is poor).
• By issuing OnlyOne numbers to sales people, businesses can
maintain “customer ownership.” If a sales person leaves,
customer ownership stays with the company.
• By owning an publishing their OnlyOne number, independent
agents can maintain “customer ownership.” Wherever they
go their customers go with them.
Enhanced Professional Appearance
• Segment various functions of your business (e.g. accounting,
customer service, sales, etc.), regardless of how many or how few
employees you may have.
• Provide your callers with options normally found only on
big-company PBX-type systems.
Cost Effective
• Local access number that you place on business cards, brochures,
signs, etc.
• Unlimited local usage
• Low (affordable) flat rate monthly fee – much less
expensive than 8XX service
• No equipment or software to purchase or install
• Obtain “big system” capabilities without the
cost or hassle
• Reduce monthly cell phone usage.
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The Caller Experience
Simplicity of One Contact Number
• Callers only need to remember one number – always!
• Callers never have to decide which number to call –
work, cell, home? And they don’t need to remember separate
fax numbers or e-mail addresses.
• OnlyOne increases the likelihood that the caller will reach
the OnlyOne subscriber “live.”
• Caller never has to know that the subscriber may have recently
changed jobs, departments residence or cell phone provider
Control and Privacy
• Leave a voice message, anytime, without ringing a phone
or talking live
• Anytime you leave a voice message or fax, the subscriber
is notified that a message is waiting, increasing the likelihood
that your call will be returned promptly
• Have a choice to mark the voice message “urgent”
• Peace of mind knowing that that when a fax is sent, it goes
to the subscribers secure e-mail, rather than sitting on a public
fax machine in an open area. Faxes are always private.
• A “close” feeling that comes only by contacting
subscribers through a local number with a professional, personalized
greeting
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The E-mail Backlash
(and Return of “Voice as King”)
All of us would agree – e-mail has gotten out of control!
Spam often outnumbers “true” e-mails by more than 2
to 1. And then we have the notes and jokes from friends and relatives,
chain letters and all the e-mail where we are just copied. However,
while e-mail is an absolute business necessity today, it has lost
much of its importance as a person-to-person communication tool.
In fact, its use and overuse today actually decreases productivity.
While people once assumed you would receive an e-mail response in
a matter of hours, today, it is dangerous to assume someone will
reply in under a day. The bottom line -- If you need to convey or
request information, a phone conversation is actually the “new”
way to get the job done. “Voice is King” once again.
This situation with e-mail has opened up a great opportunity for
OnlyOne subscribers. Business people need a way to quickly contact
other individuals and a phone conversation has become more effective
than corresponding via e-mail. But, phone conversations are only
effective if the caller has an easy way to know the number that
will get through, or have the confidence that a voice message is
a priority message.
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Faxing Documents -Finally Reinvented
While the importance of fax has diminished significantly due to
e-mail, faxing documents back and forth is still a fundamental technology
of business today. For example, we still need to fax contracts,
invoices, product orders and document changes. Unfortunately, the
same fax problems persist:
• Unless notified, the sender assumes the recipient is at
the office. In reality, the recipient may be at a customer site,
at a hotel, off-site meeting, seminar, etc.
• The fax recipient cannot easily or quickly choose when or
where to accept the fax.
• Faxes often sit around a “common area,” allowing
others to read the information and eliminating any chance of privacy.
(We all have our favorite fax “horror story.”)
• Faxes can be misdirected, misplaced, or just plain lost.
Plus, there is no tracking on the receiver’s end.
• Depending on the fax machine, documents may smear and be
hard to read.
• Faxes are impossible to archive on a computer – unless
they are routinely scanned.
• If the faxed document needs to be reviewed by others, you
must copy it and then physically distribute it. There is no easy
way to forward it to others who need to review it.
• Fax machines, toner, paper and dedicated lines can add up
to a significant cost.
The OnlyOne solution converts any document faxed to you into a
high-quality image that is sent to your e-mail account. With this
technology, the recipient can review the document when time and
privacy allows. The document can also be printed to a printer, sent
to fax machine, forwarded to another e-mail address and/or saved
as a computer file.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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