Office Products - Telephones and Communication Accessories

Office products like telephones and communication accessories have been the cornerstone of modern business technology. The computer has been turned into an almost obsolete machine without the ability to reach the internet or use the newest telephonic wizardry. Today there is more traffic on the world wide web via mobile devices than there are computers hooked up to the Internet.

These are a few of the more important developments that have revolutionized the realm of new telephone and communication technologies.

Audio Conferencing or Audio Tele-Conferencing

Conference calling is a telephone call where the caller may have the audio of an incoming call be listened to by multiple parties, they already having been patched into the audio conference. The called parties may only be able to listen in and not speak, or they may have the ability to actively participate during the call. This is loosely defined as audio tele-conferencing (or ATC). When using conference calling there may be a special device in the room allowing audio to be heard throughout an office from several feet in any direction or greater range.

Companies using audio conferencing will usually have a service provider that is the creator of a conference bridge, or a special device for linking of telephone lines. The participants can use the conference bridge to get access to an ongoing conference call by dialing a specific telephone number for connection to the conference and possibly a PIN code. This is much more advanced than when it first evolved with analog signals.

PBX Phone Systems

Private Branch Exchange (or PBX) is a private network for telephones within any company. PBX phone systems allow users to share multiple outside telephone lines. A PBX system connects all of a businesses internal telephones and connects them for external phone calls also. All phones have access to the public switched telephone network (or PSTN) which is usually maintained by the company itself. Today there four basic options for PBX systems.

They are known by their names as PBX, Hosted/Virtual PBX, IP PBX, and Hosted/Virtual IP PBX. Internet Protocol transmission of calls or IP PBX is a software driven PBX phone system. It is a solution to task management and delivery of certain services which normally can be made difficult to support with ordinary PBX systems. It also is much less expensive to add in most business situations.

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol (also known as Voice over IP, or VoIP) is internet related transmission technologies and communication protocols specifically for delivering voice and multimedia over IP networks. Any time you hear the terms Internet telephony, broadband telephony, or broadband phone; these are synonyms referring to VoIP. Internet telephony is anything that is a communications service provided over the internet including voice calling, fax, SMS, or messaging requiring access to a PSTN, as with PBX phone systems.

In simplest terms VoIP uses IP protocols to break a voice signal into audio codecs which encode the signal as digital audio over an IP network and does this via what is called an audio stream. The common uses of VoIP in technology today are Mobile VoIP, Software VoIP, and IP Phones. VoIP is what allows you to still make calls or send text messages if you have a portable device that connects via any WiFi or 3G network. There is more to this technology than meets the eye.

Technology and Tools to Boost Up Your Real Estate Dealings

The real estate world has seen a dip in the dealings be it leasing, buying or selling, especially in the recent times. In today's tough economic times, making a new customer is challenging and so is retaining an existing one. Real estate agents have to be at their marketing best at all times and for it they need to be tech friendly.

You might be the best at what you do, but until you communicate it in the right way with the right tools, your efforts might be getting wasted. Technology and communication need to go hand in hand and failure in this issue can see you lag behind compared to your competitors. More importantly, there needs to be a balance between the two and to bring that balance in your profession you need to be working on both the aspects simultaneously. Everything from client communication, connecting with new customer database, sales pitch, after sales service and other such interactions need to be done effectively with the help of technology.

Being in the real estate business, you might have noticed that the presentation or bidding of a real estate agent lacking in the technological aspect affects the whole deal. So instead of avoiding technology why not adapt it to fare better as it will assist you in ways you couldn't have thought possible. All you need to do is incorporate a few of the technological tools in your everyday dealings making it swifter for you and effective for the customer.

Here are some tips to get you started.

    Smartphone

If you are still using your old mobile phone it is time you switch to a smartphone with a data plan that lets you incorporate database tools. It will prove to be really helpful when you need to contact your prospective clients no matter if you are in the office or out on the go. You can do it all from your smartphone be it sending or receiving emails, browsing property websites, downloading real estate related news apps, communicate instantly no matter where you are.

    SMS marketing

SMS marketing is an highly effective way to keep in touch with your regular clients and even getting acquainted with new ones. Make it a part of your client communication strategy where you can send notifications, inform them about new properties on the market, send reminders for installments, invite them for property related events, send them links, details and other market related information.

    Email communication

Emails have become an essential feature when it comes to client communication. It is a quick and convenient way to reach out to property agents, builders, customers especially when it comes to commercial property clients. Make sure to use the best data software for both your computer and smartphone so you can send and receive e-mail even when on the go.

    Software

Many software packages are especially designed for the real estate industry and are available at affordable prices to assist the real estate professionals. You can integrate it in your system for database entry, facilitate management of broker, staff, leads, quotes, customer account, auditing and other processes. The softwares are designed to meet the ever-growing demands of the real estate industry and can be used by all, developers, builders, contractors, infrastructure developers.

    Website

Your personal website can boost your clientele and your work reputation as it will be easy for clients to know all about your work increasing the trust and dependability factor. They will have a gateway where they can access your property listings and inspection information related to all the properties that you have on offer.

    Presentation software

While presenting a property to many clients or a team you could make use of presentation software with the help of which you can add site photographs, 3D images, manage content, basically create an awesome visual experience for the client giving your property bid a boost.

All these and more can be a part of your everyday dealings when it comes to presenting, negotiating, selling or closing a deal. Like every other field, real estate too is embracing technology and it's time you too go for it.