I am testing out 3CX for our small business and am still trying to understand all of the options and ways that we can use this system. I was hoping someone could provide some suggestions on the best way(s) to configure and use 3CX (or tell me that 3CX is not a good fit).
Here is our current situation: our main business phone number is a mobile SIM number with Verizon (which happens to be my personal number also). We have 3 other employees who all have their own cell phones (one of the three uses his own personal cell number for business use and the other two use Verizon OneTalk app for business use). Most of us are working remotely and not in an office environment very often. Cellular signal and coverage is usually decent where we are working, but sometimes not great. All 4 of us use SMS texting quite often with our customers also, and usually on a one to one basis (think of how texting works with cell providers). We are growing enough that I would like to have a dedicated business number that could ring into an office, where we will eventually have someone physically present (although not all the time right now).
Some questions I am considering:
Do I need to have 4 DID numbers or can I get by with 1 DID and use extensions for each of us? If I only use one DID, how will the texting be handled?
Texting: What if two of us want to text the same customer (still one to one conversation)? Can the text message history remain on our system (I don't want it to be archived or deleted, I would prefer it be backed up and saved so we don't lose it)? When a customer sends us a text message, how will we know who they are texting (which one of us 4)? Our business is very relationship driven and I don't want to lose that personal connection and communication by having just anyone answer incoming text messages.
In area's where we don't have great cell service, I know that we can setup a call forwarding to mobile for incoming calls. How can we handle outgoing calls while we are in these fringe areas?
We will be using the android app almost 95% of the time. Can the app handle everything we will need to do? Can you do group texting from the app (one to many)?
I am still learning about 3cx and am currently testing out some of this functionality, but I wanted to get some outside input as well. I think the texting is the biggest hurdle for us and how we set up the system to maintain that personal level of communication with our customers. Thanks in advance.
Do I need to have 4 DID numbers or can I get by with 1 DID and use extensions for each of us? If I only use one DID, how will the texting be handled? You can have 1 number and then they can use an IVR to dial by extension or even dial by name. Alternatively, you could set up inbound rules to send caller A always to extension X.
Texting: What if two of us want to text the same customer (still one to one conversation)? Can the text message history remain on our system (I don't want it to be archived or deleted, I would prefer it be backed up and saved so we don't lose it)? When a customer sends us a text message, how will we know who they are texting (which one of us 4)? Our business is very relationship driven and I don't want to lose that personal connection and communication by having just anyone answer incoming text messages. You would configure inbound rules for each SMS number to go to a specific person(or group of users). They will send/receive with this number. with some providers, you could have the inbound calls to these SMS numbers to route to the respected extension. You can configure SMS to archive, auto delete or just stay. You can also view SMS from the MGMT console or a queue manager and oversee SMS conversations.
In area's where we don't have great cell service, I know that we can setup a call forwarding to mobile for incoming calls. How can we handle outgoing calls while we are in these fringe areas? You can call in to your 3CX system and from there make an outbound call as if it's your main number.
We will be using the android app almost 95% of the time. Can the app handle everything we will need to do? Can you do group texting from the app (one to many)? Mobile app is spot on, It is not possible to SMS to many natively from 3CX.
Do I need to have 4 DID numbers or can I get by with 1 DID and use extensions for each of us? If I only use one DID, how will the texting be handled? You can have 1 number and then they can use an IVR to dial by extension or even dial by name. Alternatively, you could set up inbound rules to send caller A always to extension X.
Texting: What if two of us want to text the same customer (still one to one conversation)? Can the text message history remain on our system (I don't want it to be archived or deleted, I would prefer it be backed up and saved so we don't lose it)? When a customer sends us a text message, how will we know who they are texting (which one of us 4)? Our business is very relationship driven and I don't want to lose that personal connection and communication by having just anyone answer incoming text messages. You would configure inbound rules for each SMS number to go to a specific person(or group of users). They will send/receive with this number. with some providers, you could have the inbound calls to these SMS numbers to route to the respected extension. You can configure SMS to archive, auto delete or just stay. You can also view SMS from the MGMT console or a queue manager and oversee SMS conversations.
In area's where we don't have great cell service, I know that we can setup a call forwarding to mobile for incoming calls. How can we handle outgoing calls while we are in these fringe areas? You can call in to your 3CX system and from there make an outbound call as if it's your main number.
We will be using the android app almost 95% of the time. Can the app handle everything we will need to do? Can you do group texting from the app (one to many)? Mobile app is spot on, It is not possible to SMS to many natively from 3CX.
Thanks for the info. From what I can gather, you are suggesting having different numbers for SMS texting, but using one number for voice. Since the majority of the cost is the # of simultaneous calls and not the numbers themselves, would it not be much simpler to just get one number for each of us that we can use for voice and SMS?
Can you point me to the documentation on how to call into the 3cx system to make outbound calls? I haven't found that feature yet.
Any suggested work arounds to SMS from one to many? What happens if you are the recipient of a one to many SMS? Does it still come through? If you reply, does it go back as one to one?
