Nextiva Quote

I am almost ready to move forward with the upgrade on your BBP. I just have been contacting companies for the VOIP service I now need to replace Skype.

I have a reply below from a representative at Nextiva. Nice guy. Quick and professional. I tried to ask all the important questions to this company from the reading I did online at your website (FAQ etc) pertaining to their VOIP service and what I need for your BBP. I think I could use them with your newest release of the BBP we discussed over the past week. Can you review his answers to my questions and let me know what you think? Anything else I need to ask him?

Yes, we have tested the Nextiva VOIP service and it is going to work for Voicent software. We also have a KB article about how to setup Nextiva VOIP service for Voicent.

Q: He mentioned that Xlite does not support call transfers. Are you aware of this? Any other free softphones out there that do support this transfer I need? I do not want to have to spend more money on softphones.

There is no need to buy softphone software. Actually, Voicent software is acting as a softphone when configured to use SIP service. You do not need to use x-lite in order to use Voicent software. Do not worry about the call transfer, as Voicent software does support it as long as each line has at least 2 channels, one for the original call, and the other for the transferred call.

Q: He says that each line supports two channels. I am not sure how this translates into your BBP software. Does that mean I need to buy 4 lines from Nextiva to run a 4 line autodialer with call transfer on each? After all….the BBP system will be paused if one person chooses to transfer. I want to buy as few VOIP lines as possible. Can I get away with buying 2 lines with 2 channels to run a four line BBP system? Or three? The monthly cost is now over $120/mth which is a lot more than Skype’s was……

A channel can be considered as a separate phone line. So if each Nextiva line offers 2 channels, you only need 2 lines to make 4 simultaneous calls. However, as explained above, if you need to transfer call to regular telephone, you need an extra channel for that. So in that case, you need 4 lines to make BBP calls.

To save money, you could consider to use a different kind of call transfer, i.e., call transfer to computers instead of phones. When a call is transferred to a computer, you do not need an extra VOIP channel for the transferred call. The call is simply transferred to a networked computer that is running Voicent RemoteAgent software and the phone audio is transferred to the computer speaker and microphone. When a call is transferred, a window will pop up on the agent’s computer, a ring tone will be played over the computer speaker, and an agent can talk on the phone by using a computer headset. The RemoteAgent software is a free Voicent software, but you do need the Enterprise edition to have the call transferred to a different computer.

That is great! It looks like I can use Nextiva. Please note that I plan to use Nextiva’s VOIP service ONLY through a softphone…. instead of buying hardware from them. They said that was possible and fine. I do not want to buy the hardware.

There is no need to buy any hardware from Voicent or Nextiva.

Q: If I only use a softphone to make the calls for me (Nextiva)….can I still use the free Xlite softphone to make the calls and have the call transfer feature work fine? Would it be your software (not theirs) that transfers the call? Was he wrong about saying the Xlite would not work?

You can still use X Lite softphone to make or receive calls. But that has nothing to do with Voicent, so you won’t be able to use X Lite to do call transfer.

The call transfer can only happen when you use Voicent software. When you use BBP to call a customer, you can then transfer the call to another phone number after the customer pressed a key. Again, Voicent software does not need to use Xlite.

Q: Can I run calls through a computer’s network as you stated (using your remote agent software) if the person taking the calls is not in the same building as the computer running the Voicent service? Can calls on the four lines be transferred to the SAME remote agent?

Yes. The RemoteAgent software can connect to networked computers over the internet. So an agent can work at home and receive transferred calls from office.

Yes, calls on four lines can be transferred to the SAME remote agent. However, a call will be dropped if the RemoteAgent is currently busy with another call. In order not to dropped the transferred call, you have to design your message and make the transfer as “queued transfer” by using Voicent IVR Studio, which is another tool sold separately.