Melissa Hedwall is one of our excellent technical support representatives based here, in the U.S. Normally, Melissa works from our Encinitas, Ca., headquarters but is temporarily working from New York City. When Melissa told her supervisor she wished she could spend more time with her parents, what would have been an unfortunate situation for an office with a traditional phone system, was an accommodation our hosted VoIP PBX platform allowed us to happily approve.

Our employees are tremendously important to us here at FreedomVoice. We know that a happy worker is a productive worker, and we are happy to provide flexibility for employees with unique needs. Currently, we have permanent remote employees working across the entire country, all virtually connected to each other and our headquarters. All of our employees, regardless of their location, receive the same training and are held to the highest standards of professional conduct.

It was Melissa’s supervisor, not Melissa herself, who actually suggested working from New York for a few weeks in order to spend more time with her parents. When given final approval, her emotions took over. “I chased him around the break area to give him a hug; I was so grateful.”

A few weeks later, she left San Diego and flew home to New York. Unfortunately, she hasn’t had the opportunity to go back as much as she would like, so it’s been a wonderful experience.

“I’m staying in the bedroom I grew up in. It’s different because the new buildings weren’t here two years ago. They were tennis courts.”

The physical changes to her neighborhood pales in comparison to being able to spend time with her parents. “They’re beside themselves; they’re thrilled,” she exclaimed.

Our FreedomIQ hosted VoIP PBX system allows Melissa to plug in from across the country and still be able to work as if she was in the office across the hall. All she needs is her VoIP phone and an Internet connection. While Melissa has been able to stay up to date on her work of resolving customer tickets over the phone and email, her supervisor is still able to monitor her calls and performance through FreedomVoice visual call reports and call record.

“The transition between working in the office and 3,000 miles away was virtually unnoticeable. I really thought it would be much more of a challenge to work here than at the office,” she said. “But I haven’t felt much of a difference in my productivity.”

Melissa is also planning on taking advantage of being home by reliving some of her favorite memories as a child.

“We’re going to spend a weekend up in the Catskill Mountains to see old friends. We’re going to stay overnight in a bed and breakfast.”

We are all looking forward to hearing about Melissa’s trip when she rejoins the team in Encinitas on Oct. 17. In the meantime, we wish her and her family well as they get to spend this time together.

For more photos of Melissa’s home office in New York, check out our Facebook Album.
What’s your company policy towards telecommuting and workshifting? We want to hear your story!

Yesterday at about 3:30 p.m., the FreedomVoice offices in Encinitas, CA went dark. No lights, no computer, no internet access and no panic. While other businesses in the area were scrambling to get services back, we remained calm and collected, confident that our customers outside the blackout zone would be unaffected.

A quick phone call to our local data center confirmed that service would go uninterrupted despite the massive blackout. Our local data center is equipped with two 2 Megawatt Generators with enough fuel on hand to last multiple days; within 45 minutes of the power outage, calls were placed to contracted fuel suppliers that would have kept our service running indefinitely. Additionally, our New York colocation facility was completely unaffected by the regional power failure in the Southwest, and with remote workers throughout the U.S., even our customer service and technical support departments were able to continue serving our customers.

All of these precautions were put in place to protect our nationwide customer base from service outages. It wouldn’t be right for a business in Ohio to have to close for the day because of a power failure in California. We know that, and we do everything possible to make sure that will never happen.

“It’s always nice to be recognized by your peers,” said Bob of his award. “It’s pretty cool to be in the top 15.”

We are very proud to have Bob as a member of the FreedomVoice family. We strive to only hire the best channel managers in the industry to support our local dealers – who in turn help us support our customers.

Bob’s relentless work ethic and infectious passion for delivering excellent service is an inspiration to us all.

The award was presented to Bob in Chicago at the Fall 2011 Channel Partners Conference & Expo, the telecom industry’s only event exclusively for the channel.

The secret to Bob’s success isn’t really a secret to anyone who has met the man. “I treat it as my business; I’m not going to clock out at 5:01. If it’s important to the dealer, it’s important to me. I’m always available.”

When asked whether or not he was expecting to be back next year for the “threepeat,” his response was an emphatic, “Absolutely!” We look forward to it!

At FreedomVoice, we continuously reward our customers for referrals through our Refer-A-Friend program. Normally we reward our customers with a free month of service for each friend they refer. Recently, however, we upped the stakes by rewarding one lucky referrer with a free 5-day trip to Hawaii for two, including accommodations and airfare at the amazing Hilton Waikoloa Village.

Many happy customers were referred, and we’re pleased to announce the winner of our contest today:

Lauren Perreault of Fabulous South Bay!

About Fabulous South Bay

Specializing in California’s Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Palos Verdes, and the Greater South Bay, Lauren and the Fabulous South Bay staff are dedicated to offering their clients the very best in real estate consulting services. In addition to helping clients sell or buy their dream home, they also offer:

- Free architectural consultations for buyers.
- Expert loan brokers who can find you a good loan, sometimes even with no money down.
- Referrals to reliable contractors for estimates and repairs.
- Contractor discounts on materials and appliances.
- Interior design advice, furniture and accessories to help your home show its value.
- Ongoing real estate and home advice long after you close escrow.

What Lauren Loves About FreedomVoice

Lauren is busy building up a team of realtors to share tasks with and chose a FreedomVoice virtual phone system to help grow and organize her business. In addition to our quick and dedicated customer service, Lauren loves FreedomVoice for several reasons:

Vanity Number: Lauren proudly displays her easy to remember vanity toll free number, 888-SBayLux, on her sign riders and promotional materials. She also likes the simplicity of having a single phone number that can route callers to the appropriate team member.

Flexibility: Lauren loves how easy and flexible her virtual phone system is, especially the ease of setting up and changing call forwarding numbers from the web.

Scheduling Calls: Lauren has to manage tasks among her staff, so she likes that she can schedule who will receive calls in advance.

Confidence: Lauren wants clients to have confidence in Fabulous South Bay from the moment dial her number. Her virtual phone system projects a professional and polished image, perfect for her business.

Call Capture: Lauren likes that this feature enables her to never miss a lead. Never. She has also added name and address capture to her service so that she can personalize every returned call.

How to Participate in Our Refer-A-Friend Program

Are you a FreedomVoice customer who knows someone who would benefit from FreedomVoice service? Then participate in our Refer-A-Friend Program now! For each person you refer, you will earn a free credit equal to their monthly rental on your account when they sign up and use the service for at least 30 days. Refer as often as you would like!

What About Hawaii?! I’m Jealous!

Stay tuned for more FreedomVoice promotions and contests coming soon. Stay in touch with us through Facebook, Twitter and by bookmarking our blog. You might be the next customer to win a big prize! In the mean time, we wish Lauren a wonderful and relaxing vacation.

A big mahalo to everyone who participated!

If you’d like to connect with Lauren and Fabulous South Bay, be sure to find her on Facebook and Twitter.

This new site and blog were a positive first step in helping our outer image reflect our inner quality, and we’ve furthered that with a brand new logo for a new decade. Are we just trying to be more cutting-edge?

As a wise man once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” And we’ve been doing since day one, pushing the envelope of business communications. Not content to run with the pack, we’ve constantly rolled out improved virtual phone system features and innovative solutions like the FreedomIQ Hosted VoIP PBX and even the ill-fated Newber iPhone app. Where we’ve succeeded, we’ve grown. Where we’ve stumbled, we’ve learned.

This new logo not only represents where we’ve been, but also where we’re headed. In that vein, allow me to set the record straight – our logo may be getting a facelift, but our core values aren’t changing. Our commitment to quality, to affordable service, and to the success of our customers is as solid as it’s ever been. Think of this new logo as a badge of commitment to you, our customers, to keep pressing forward with new technologies designed with your business in mind.

We chose this logo out of countless alternatives because it really spoke to us as being representative of our services: bold, efficient, and easy to understand. So – love it, hate it? Tell us what you think.

Our CEO, Eric Thomas, is pretty excited about the program, as are the rest of us. Here is what he had to say.

“Our new affiliate program has it all. We have a dedicated and experienced affiliate manager ready and willing to help, our program offers competitive commissions, paying out on both leads and sales, and we offer highly optimized landing pages that have excellent conversion rates.”

The programs dedicated affiliate manager is none other than Tim Paulino, an Internet marketing expert with over a decade of experience in affiliate marketing. Tim also has considerable background marketing FreedomVoice services, which makes him a great resource for those looking to beef up their product knowledge.

And that is really Paulino’s main objective, to answer questions and guide affiliates towards success. Being well versed in blogging and social media as well, Paulino has already taken measures to add important program information to his FVSuccess Affiliate Blog. In addition, Paulino is offering information through his Twitter feed and is available to connect via LinkedIn.

Paulino knows a thing or two about marketing. Here is what he had to say about the program.

“The FreedomVoice Affiliate Program provides Internet marketers with the tools needed to sell and make commissions off three excellent products. I would not be a part of this program if I didn’t think it had tremendous potential. We are encouraging all online marketers to take a hard look at our offering and the opportunities they present.”

The FreedomVoice Affiliate Program is dedicated to high paying commissions and providing excellent resources for affiliates to utilize. The program is already offering some really cool banners, text links, landing pages, and videos for affiliates to utilize. There is even website text available.

But FreedomVoice will not stop here. The program will continue to generate new material to ensure each affiliate ecommerce structure is refined to its maximum potential for conversions and commission to be earned. You can count on us for that.

When asked about the product offerings, FreedomVoice provided the following brief product descriptions.

FreedomVoice Toll Free Number Service
As a virtual business phone solution designed to help small and home-based businesses present a professional image, FreedomVoice Toll Free Number Service includes a nationwide toll free number, an automated attendant greeting to answer calls, follow-me-live call forwarding, multiple voicemail boxes, Internet faxing, and more.

AdTrakker Call Capture
AdTrakker is a lead generation phone service built primarily for the real estate industry. AdTrakker provides real estate agents with a toll free number hotline and 100 advertising extension recordings that they can use to provide callers with 24/7 automated information, including listing details, free industry reports, buying and selling tips for prospects, and more.

FaxFreedom Internet Faxing
This virtual faxing solution gives entrepreneurs and small businesses the ability to send and receive faxes online. The service provides the customer with a local or toll free virtual phone number for dedicated faxing, along with an easy-to-use web interface for checking new faxes and creating outbound faxes directly from documents on their computer.

Internet marketers who are interested in becoming a FreedomVoice affiliate can learn more by visiting the FreedomVoice affiliate website.

FreedomVoice is seeking a Web Developer who has advanced skills with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.​ You must have a solid understanding of our products and services as well as a passion for our technology and how it benefits our customers.​ Our ideal candidate will have an overall sense of marketing and be able to contribute to the team in more than just web programming.

Responsibilities Include:
• Update and maintain legacy websites, as well as code and implement new ones from scratch.​
• Cut out PSD files into clean table-less CSS.​ Note that we are not looking for a graphic designer, but someone who has a good aesthetic sense and works well with designers.​
• Code intuitive user interfaces to interact with our services, such as online administration programs and shopping carts.​
• Work as part of a team to ensure all design projects support business goals, branding and maintain the current design standard for FreedomVoice.

Requirements:

• Intricate understanding of PHP

• High skill level writing current standards-compliant XHTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

• Ability to create pixel-perfect coded sites from PSD mockups.

• Proficiency hand coding and using other standard programming tools.

• Expertise using Adobe Creative Suite, most importantly Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, Fireworks, and Acrobat.

* Ability to slice graphics for efficient implementation.

• Proficiency using Microsoft Office.

• Detail-oriented and highly self-motivated.

• Outstanding organization and time management skills.

• Must be able to take direction, work well as part of a team, and independently.

• Ability to work in a fast-paced team environment managing multiple projects with challenging time-critical deadlines while maintaining the highest possible quality.

• A strong portfolio that demonstrates coding experience.

• Candidates should have Bachelor’s degree in programming, web design, multimedia, marketing, communications, business, or related fields.

• Ideal candidates will have 1-3 years experience in web development, but we will consider exceptional recent graduates who have had internship or other experiences.

Extra Credit:

• Experience with SVN

• Knowledge of MVC Frameworks

Apply for the position.

Who is FreedomVoice?​
FreedomVoice is a rapidly growing, successful and profitable 13 year old technology organization providing a wide array of superior business tools for small businesses.​ Our products include virtual phone systems (www.​freedomvoice.​com), online faxing products (https:/​/​orders.​freedomvoice.​com/​faxfreedom) , lead generation call capture systems for real estate (http://www.​adtrakker.​net)​, and hosted VoIP PBX systems (www.​freedomiq.​com).

Why FreedomVoice?​
FreedomVoice is an energetic, fast-paced company that derives its strength from our talented team members who take pride and ownership in the continued success of our company.​ To encourage that passion, FreedomVoice provides an environment in which employees can grow with the company and rewards effort and excellence.​ We provide one of the best benefit packages available including full health and dental and four weeks of total time off.​ To encourage a team environment, the company holds birthday dinners once a month at restaurants of the employees’ choice, as well as promotes goals, which when met result in a luxurious vacation for you and your partner.​ FreedomVoice is a wonderful place to work filled with warm and friendly faces.

In this webinar, Candice Malmstrom, Director of Marketing at FreedomVOICE, and Tim Paulino, FreedomVOICE Affiliate Manger, discuss the program and give inside tips for potential affiliates.

Learn more about the program on the FreedomVOICE Affiliate Program Website!

We’d like to share our social media success story thus far.

After utilizing social media sparingly for 6 months, we’ve already seen admirable results on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. We now have over 1,700 followers on Twitter, 3,200 video views on YouTube, and 230 fans on Facebook. Our social media efforts have increased brand awareness, lead generation, and conversions. And a lot of that success has come as a result of our blogs.

Both the FreedomIQ Hosted VoIP Blog and the FreedomVoice Toll Free Number Blog are growing in popularity each day. The blogs currently have hundreds of visitors each month, and we expect that to be in the thousands before long.

We know that fans do not come easy, and we’re very thankful to everyone who interacts with us through social media. It’s been a lot of fun creating content we are passionate about, and we look forward to making lots more in 2010.

Follow us on Twitter.
Become a fan on Facebook.
Visit us on YouTube.
Read the FreedomIQ Hosted VoIP Blog
Read the FreedomVoice Toll Free Number Blog

Quick Stats – # People Using Social Media Sites:

• On Sep 14, 2009 Mashable projected Twitter to have 18 million users by End of 2009
• According to the Facebook Blog they are 200 Million Strong
• Friday, October 9, 2009 YouTube reaches over one billion views per day
• LinkedIn: over 50 million

While this may be true, this video does an excellent job of presenting the benefits of a FreedomVoice toll free number and virtual phone system. If you’re still trying to decide whether FreedomVOICE, a toll free number or virtual office service is right for you watch this video. Even though it’s an older profile, the benefits of the service still shine through.