VirtualPBX.Com Usage Scenarios provide examples of various ways in which businesses can make use of the VirtualPBX to expand their business phone system, serve their customers better, and have the latest and most advanced features with no installed equipment or equipment purchases.

Description of the VirtualPBX

VirtualPBX.Com provides its customers a main-business toll-free 800/888/877 number (or they can port or remote-call-forward their old existing toll-free or local business number to the virtual PBX). After a customer has called in to this number, he can dial the extension of the employee that he is trying to reach, look up his name in a company directory, or select a menu item for sales, customer support, tech support, operator, etc. When he does this, he is connected to the phone at which the desired employee is located no matter where that employee is in the world. He can be at his desk at the home office, calling on a potential client at the client's business address, traveling in his car, working in a hotel room on his accounts, traveling in Europe or Asia or anywhere in the world, or relaxing at some faraway beach for the day.

This is possible because the employee can store contact phone numbers in his extension. When someone dials that extension or when the extension is logged into one of the above queues, the VirtualPBX tries all of the stored phone numbers in the order chosen by the extension owner until he is found.

Tutorials on doing this in North America have already been covered so this Usage Scenario will concentrate on the international possibilities.

Setting Up an International Office

A sales representative or technical support expert in, for example, Berlin wishes to have an extension on a main business phone system which uses the VirtualPBX. First the system manager in the U.S. creates an extension for him on the VirtualPBX and gives this extension international dialing rights. Next the employee in Berlin calls in to the system and defines his contact phone numbers. The only difference from the tutorial on extension management is that the contact phone number must be entered as "011[country code][city code][phone number]". "011" is the international prefix in the U.S., and identifies an international number to the system. The country code for Germany is 49, and the city code for Berlin is 30. Assume, for example, that the office telephone is 654-443, the person's cell phone is 0171-345-6789, and his home phone is 765-4321. In this case he could enter 0114930654443 in contact phone number 1, 011491713456789 in contact phone number 2, and 01149307654321 in contact phone number 3. The 171 in the cell phone number is not a city code, but rather a prefix to identify the cell-phone network D1. The 0 is the internal German digit for German long distance and should be dropped in international numbers.

Once these contact phone numbers have been entered, the employee can manage his extension in the usual way and receive calls and/or voice or fax mail from anyone calling into the main VirtualPBX number.

Staying in Touch While Traveling on Business

To stay in touch while traveling, there are two options: Carry a cell phone or stay at a hotel with either direct-inward-dialing (DID) or dial-through-an-auto-attendant (DTAA). DID means that the hotel has a separate outside number for each room, for example 011-49-30-221-1014 for room number 1014.

DTAA requires that the auto-attendant first answer and perhaps speak its greeting after which the room number can be dialed automatically. The VirtualPBX deals with this case with the wait-for-answer characters, #2, and the one-second pause characters, *2. For example if the hotel is located in Berlin with the phone number 011-49-30-221-6600, and the traveler is in room number 1014; the extension owner would enter 01149302216600#2*2*21014 in one of the contact phone numbers while he was staying at that hotel. The one-second pause characters are optional depending on how the auto-attendant is programmed, i.e. whether it needs time to speak all or part of its greeting before the room number is dialed.

At the present time there are basically two cell-phone systems in the world: the North American systems and GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) which works in Europe and much of the rest of the world. For the time being anyone who is based in one of these two regions and travels into the other must rent a cell phone while he is away from his home area. Some service providers in the U.S. use GSM, but with the exception noted below a U.S. GSM user cannot roam in Europe or Asia without changing phones.

The single exception is SprintSpectrum, a GSM cell-phone service provider in the Washington-Baltimore area offering the new Bosch World Phone Model 718. Because of SpintSpectrum's world-wide roaming agreements, it is possible for users based in the Washington-Baltimore area to roam in the entire world using the Bosch 718 without changing cell phones.

This will change in the near future when the satellite cell-phone systems (Globalstar, Iridium, and ICO) come on line or when the joint effort of Qualcomm and Ericsson to implement the third generation terrestrial cell-phone standard becomes a commercial reality. The best and least expensive of these systems is Globalstar which will be operational by late 1999.

When carrying a rented cell phone, the number must be temporarily entered in one of the contact phone numbers. For example suppose someone based in North American travels to Germany and rents a GSM cell phone with the number 0171-738-6233. As explained above if he calls into his VirtualPBX and enters the number 011491717386233 into one of his contact phone numbers, the cell-phone will ring when his extension is dialed if he has "Follow-Me Calling" turned on or if this number is the default number. It is also a good idea to enter the rented cell phone number in contact phone number 7 and to mark the pager as a "combination cell-phone/pager" so that New-Message Pages can be received.

The Virtual International Office and 24-Hour In-Bound Call Center

Finally it should be emphasized that an international representative or tech support person does not really need to have an office since the VirtualPBX can reach him anywhere and the caller does not know his location. This is because after dialing the main number, the caller only dials the representative's extension or selects the sales, customer support, tech support, etc. queues and does not know what number is really being dialed. See also the VirtualPBX tutorial Traveling Internationally and Receiving Calls.

For example it is possible to set up a virtual 24-hour inbound call center, such as tech or customer support, etc., with a group of diverse employees scattered throughout the world rather than at a central location. When employees call into the system and log into a queue, the system routes calls to each person in that queue in a round robin fashion. All that is necessary for a queue to be open 24-hours is for sufficient employees in time zones which cover the earth to be logged in during their normal business hours. Also see the VirtualPBX tutorial 24-Hour Worldwide Call Center Using Only One Phone Number and the VirtualPBX usage scenario Virtual Answering Service With No Installed Equipment.