Monthly Archives: November 2011

My First Week at Versature

November 29, 2011 - Admin Team

My name is Jessica and I have recently joined the Admin team here at Versature.

I got the position after a 4 stage interview process, which proves that management take the hiring process very seriously. The first step was answering some standard questions in an email. I was later told that out of 60 applicants, my responses put me within the top 10%, so that was encouraging.

The second stage was a phone interview, and after answering a number of questions about my background and experience, my interviewer’s very last question was “If you were able to be on any reality TV show, which show would you be on and why?” That was a fun twist that really got my brain working. I guess he liked my answers cause I moved on to the third stage! (BTW, it was Amazing Race because I like to work in small teams and wouldn’t mind travelling the world!). The third stage was an in-person interview with 3 people .. talk about intimidation! Actually, the interviewers were all very easy-going so they quickly made me feel at ease. I went home feeling good about my interview, and so when I got the call for the 4th stage, to come in and meet a few more people and get my job offer, I was ecstatic.

The First Few Days …

When I first came through the door I thought I was going to be thrown into a massive week of information overload. But to my surprise, Paul and Jonathon explained that they think it is beneficial for new employees to understand all aspects of the company before jumping into a new job. Sitting with the different teams at Versature to get a feel for what they deal with on a daily basis, I felt it was a really refreshing approach. It has helped me learn more about the business and what customers are experiencing and in turn, what they might expect from me.

First, I had the opportunity to work with Bryan in the Sales Team. I found he really listened to the clients needs and never pushed anyone in making a decision. Later on in the week I worked with Jon & Tom in the Provisioning Team. As someone who knew very little about Hosted PBX phone systems (like most of the people who were signing up), it was reassuring how patient and understanding they are with new clients. They took the time to understand the business challenges the client wanted to solve and within a matter of minutes the clients’ custom phone system needs were met. One of the best parts about Versature’s cloud based phone system is that it is very flexible and powerful, which is why Jon and Tom’s job is so important.

Working with the different teams, I noticed a few distinct patterns ….. amazing customer service and they CARE!!! Wow, that is a first for a telephone company. It is really refreshing to know that when you call Versature for information you reach a technician or customer service person from right here in Canada. Another wonderful feature is you don’t have to go through a million prompts then be on hold for 20 minutes before speaking to a live voice, at Versature a live person is only seconds away.

After a week in the trenches it’s time for me to learn my real job now. Looking forward to working with Julie and Susan this week. I’m feeling the pieces are finally coming together and I’m looking forward to the challenge. Being the one picked out of 60 applicants shouldn’t add any extra pressure on me, should it? Nah!

Thanks everyone for an amazing first week and I can’t wait for more.

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Encouraging Signs

November 26, 2011 - Paul Emond

Tobias Lutke from Shopify had some interesting comments on his twitter feed recently about startups and entrepreneurs which inspired me to write this ..

There’s plenty of reasons to be worried about the economy these days. Scan your favorite news source and you’ll find that if the Greeks or the Italians don’t push us into recession or worse, then the American’s unsustainable deficit and subsequent currency devaluation is not only going to cause a depression, but maybe even send us back to the dark ages.

This might be heady thinking for a small business entrepreneur from Ottawa, but I see encouraging signs at the grassroots level, that in my opinion, are poised to deliver us into our next expansion period. I have been an entrepreneur for 20 years, and never have I seen small-scale entrepreneurship being celebrated, encouraged and supported as I have over the past few, locally and in cities and towns across North America.

Almost twenty years ago I delivered my first business into an environment that was not kind to startups. In those days there were no incubators. You hung your shingle out and through sheer force of will, networking, and cold calling, you built your business. I must say that I was lucky to find business owners and managers who didn’t think my youth was a deterrent, although most business was done through the old boys network (or so it seemed to me). Entrepreneurs, and specifically young entrepreneurs were not celebrated like they are today. I think Mark Zuckerberg and company have a lot to do with changing that perception.

It is clear that startups and young entrepreneurs are the talk of the town, and rightfully so as they are pushing the envelope and trying new things. It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur! There was no Dragons Den in my day, nor was there groups supporting entrepreneurs like MaRS in Toronto and The Code Factory in Ottawa. I am encouraged by the sheer numbers of new businesses that are being started by recent graduates, downsized corporate workers and serial entrepreneurs like myself. This isn’t moving money around and repackaging worthless securities like they were doing on Wall Street, this is real grassroots entrepreneur activity, the level of which I don’t think we’ve seen before.

I wasn’t encouraged to become a business owner .. actually it was quite the opposite. I was told that it was too risky and not a great way to raise a family. Sentiment has changed on that front and all this focus and stimulation we are bringing to bear can only be good for the economy as a whole.

I’m looking forward to the next expansion period, powered by entrepreneurs creating value with their creativity, hard work and determination. As Tobi said, ‘It’s up to us!’. Entrepreneurs can deliver us out of this economic malaise .. I know we are definitely up to the task.

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An Introduction to Versature’s Support Team

November 25, 2011 - Support Team

André is looking forward to his car being wrapped like this too ~!

Hi, my name is Andre and I lead the 1st and 2nd level support teams here at Versature. Versature’s support team is, in my opinion, one of the key strengths of the organization. Implementing Voice Over IP technologies remotely in Small Business environments across the country can be a daunting task, especially considering the various degrees of IT knowledge these different small and mid-size companies have. The team here have all the tools and expertise to remotely diagnose and remediate any issues that might occur, whether it’s internet related, phone related or even an issue with your local network (we’ve seen plenty of these over the years).

When calling Versature for support, we strive to make your experience heads and shoulders above all the rest. First of all, our technicians are not just customer service representatives, they are all trained technicians coming from various backgrounds in IT and Telecom. This varied knowledge allows us to learn from each other, grow as a team and most important, serve you better! We don’t outsource our support, all of our technicians are employees and work right here in Canada, save for one who works out of a remote office in Chicago (that’s the power of our solution … when you by chance get Ray on the line you’d never know he’s actually at a different location).

We also like to keep the same technician involved on the issue from the start. If they are unable to fix the issue right away, instead of escalating the issue to another person, they will instead seek help from them and resolve the issue themselves. We only escalate issues to other departments when it is absolutely necessary. Have you ever felt rushed when calling other companies for support? That’s because most call centre agents have statistics they need to meet. I know because I used to work in one of those large call centres for a cableco. We don’t do things that way! Our goal is always to resolve your issues as quickly as we can, but if an issue requires an hour or more of our time, we will gladly take the time to make sure things resolved to your satisfaction.

Another thing that makes our support team stand out is our commitment to help you fix issues that are outside of our control. We won’t stop our support at “Your router is the problem” or “your internet connection is poor”, we will make recommendations where appropriate and we will even send you equipment pre-configured for your environment in order to make your service perform as you expect it to. And finally, for those who are on larger networks, if the issue is deemed to be network related and you don’t have access to troubleshoot with us, we will always be willing to talk to your IT and assist them in any way we can!

Versature’s support team is the largest group in the company, currently consisting of 7 individuals and growing. We pride ourselves on the support that we provide and we’ll continue to invest in this area of the business to ensure that we are the best in the business. If you are a Versature subscriber and require support, just pick up the phone and dial 611, send an email to support@versature.com or visit our online customer support portal called 611Online. My team would love to hear from you.

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Versature’s BYOD – Why We Recommend Polycom Phones

November 23, 2011 - Paul Emond

Preface : BYOD = Bring Your Own Device. With Hosted PBX services and SIP devices becoming more mainstream, inevitably we are finding customers that already own SIP equipment that is, on paper, compatible with our service. This blog post was written to address our thoughts on BYOD and how that effects a quality-focused provider like Versature.

One of the best things about using standards-based technologies like SIP (SIP is the underlying technology that we use to run our service, as do many other providers) is that our Hosted PBX service can support a number of different phones and devices. The fact that our service *CAN* technically support many different SIP devices doesn’t necessarily mean that is a good idea, and you’ll find that we push back if we feel that the devices you are currently using or intend to use with our service is going to cause you grief.

We recommend Polycom phones and have since we started offering this solution in 2003. We use the Polycom phones first and foremost because of the quality of the sets. Polycom, if you didn’t already know, is the company that pioneered the spider-like speakerphones that were a fixture in corporate boardrooms over the past two decades. The Polycom phones deliver an excellent end-user experience while at the same time allow us to make changes remotely through a provisioning server. We can even reboot the phones remotely if necessary.

Whenever a prospective customer comes to us with existing phones that are not Polycom, I’ll be honest, if the number of phones is not substantial we attempt to get them to switch them out for Polycom. The user experience of Versature combined with Polycom phones just can’t be beat. We use Polycom phones internally and test frequently with them, and the guys on the support line know them intimately. In most cases it makes sense to sell your existing phones and replace them with Polycom.

If your existing investment in phones is substantial, say more than 30 phones, then we can have a look at using them with our service on a case-by-case basis. Some phones will work with effort (Cisco, Linksys), others will be difficult or will provide low quality (Aastra, Snom, Grandstream), while others will not work at all (Mitel, Nortel, Avaya). In those cases we’ll work with you to see if there is a fit, or we might recommend you try another provider. Versature knows that as a business owner, you have very little patience for low quality phone call experiences, and we take our reputation in this area very seriously.

If you do decide to move forward with your own phones, know that it will be up to your organization to support them. We will provide a username/password combination and our proxy server information, and it will be up to someone in your organization to enter and maintain that information on your phones. To be clear, we don’t force companies to purchase their Polycom phones from us, and if you already have Polycom phones we can easily integrate them into our system. It’s only the phones from other manufacturers that we are talking about here.

I hope this provides a bit more clarification with respect to our BYOD approach and gives you some insight into why sometimes we are a little rigid with respect to the equipment that we are supporting. In the end, it is our reputation and your ability to do business that is on the line … sorry for the pun .

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An Introduction to Versature’s Sales Team

November 17, 2011 - Sales Team

Bryan in his "natural element" Sales people are a different breed, don't you agree

My name is Bryan and I am very proud to be part of the Sales team at Versature. I understand that “Hosted PBX” and “Cloud-based Phone Systems” are new technologies to most people. As such, a large part of my job is to educate and inform. Our website does a great job of getting information out, but sometimes having me there to put context around it, and to help shape our offering to our client’s specific needs, goes a long way to reassuring potential customers that our solution is an ideal one for them. I really enjoy that aspect of my job.

In my discussions with business owners and managers, it is surprising how many of them will express similar sentiments when they call :

They are fed up with being asked to sign long-term contracts
They are tired of being treated like their business doesn’t matter
They don’t want to have to sign a yearly maintenance contract
They expect standard features like Caller ID, Voicemail, Voicemail to Email, and 3-way Conferencing, but don’t want to pay more for them
They’d like advanced features like Auto Attendants, Call Recording and Fax-to-Email, but not if they have to spend thousands of dollars on a new module or software upgrade.

Does this sound like you? The salesperson in me is dying to talk to each of these points to let you know why Versature is so much better, but I was told to keep it relatively sales-free. What I can tell you is that we are not your parent’s telephone company, and our entire team works hard to prove that each and every day.

Some of the questions I get are also pretty common, like :

1- Can I keep my number?

Most probably, we can currently port numbers from 363 different cities across Canada, growing all the time

2- Can I keep my existing phones?

Probably not, our technology requires the use of high-tech Voice Over IP phones from manufacturers like Polycom.

3- How long will it take to get setup?

We can usually have you up and running in a week or two.

4- Do you provide an installation service?

Versature’s partner network of IT firms are able to provide installation services in your local city, and is a good idea if your company is larger than 25 extensions. Below that, most of the time our customers will choose to self-install the phones as they come pre-configured and plug-and-play ready.

5- Where are you based out of?

All of our staff, including our helpdesk and sales staff, are proudly based out of Ottawa, and are focused on servicing the needs of Canadian businesses coast-to-coast.

I look forward to contributing to this blog over the coming months, along with the rest of the Versature team.

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NEVER, EVER pay for phone lines again

November 15, 2011 - Paul Emond

Come with me for a short stroll down memory lane so that I can explain why you should never, ever pay for phone lines again. ;-)

The year is 1999 and I am in the process of purchasing my first business phone system. After reviewing multiple vendors, I choose an NEC phone system from a local telecom reseller. In parallel, I work with Bell Canada to purchase phone lines to tie into my new phone system, making sure I purchase extra so that my customers won’t get a busy signal.

Little did I know that I was setting myself up for so much pain and angst.

It wasn’t an issue with NEC or Bell Canada per se, it would have been the same whether it was Nortel, Avaya or Panasonic equipment, and it really didn’t matter if you were dealing with Bell, Telus, Allstream or Rogers. This is how most businesses purchased phone systems back in the day, and much like travel agents, music stores, and print newspapers, it was an industry that was ripe for change and renewal.

Over-Sold and Poorly Sized

As other entrepreneurs can most probably relate to, I ended up with an over-sold and poorly sized phone system. Being very enthusiastic and just a little optimistic, I overestimated both the number of lines and the number of extensions that we needed; yet it was nearly impossible to determine actual line use and was therefore impossible to right-size our investment. Once I had purchased the telephone system, I wasn’t able to easily change it as the business evolved and we learned what we really needed.

It was painfully clear that traditional phone systems – and traditional phone companies – simply weren’t able to address my needs as a business owner. We desperately needed a different way of thinking.

Historically, and even today with the majority of providers, you’re forced to choose how many phone lines you will require. Most businesses overestimate the number of phone lines they will need and then fail to revisit that decision over time. Why should a business-owner keep expensive phone lines in service that go unused for months at a time? I think the real question to ask yourself here is why traditional providers have made it so hard for businesses to manage this cost.

With Versature, you pay per extension, not phone line. Versature manages the number of lines so that you can continue to be productive on your busiest day, without worrying about your customers receiving a busy signal. Most customers start out with between 5 and 20 incoming lines (depending on size) and we manage that resource for the customer. It’s something that we can dynamically change on the fly. What’s more, outbound calls don’t count against these lines (outbound calls are unlimited), so you always have those lines available for incoming customer calls. This makes it much easier for us to manage and for our customers to benefit.

We believe it’s time to change the conversation. If your phone system provider is asking you how many lines you need, you need to move on. Pick a phone system provider that is forward-thinking and will manage your line usage, so that you aren’t choosing too few lines (causing your customers to receive busy signals), nor are you choosing too many lines and bleeding your hard-earned revenues out through your telecom expense for no reason.

While you’re at it, choose a provider that doesn’t lock you into a 3 or 5 year contract with auto-renewal .. ah, I digress, that is a blog posting for another day.

In closing, I’ll just ask when was the last time you booked a hotel through your travel agent? That ship has sailed and so has the need to pay for phone lines.

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An Introduction to Versature’s Provisioning Team

November 11, 2011 - Provisioning Team

Jon is not allowed out of his office until all phones are provisioned.

Hi, my name is Jon and I lead Versature’s Provisioning Team. We’re a small team whose main responsibility is to “onboard” new customers as well as handle moves, adds & changes for existing clients. Each new client is assigned a dedicated member of the team who works with them one-on-one throughout the deployment of their hosted phone system.

The first step is to call the new client to answer any questions or concerns they may have, inquire as to how they envision the Hosted PBX system to work, discuss their network and make recommendations to ensure optimal call quality. A followup email is sent requesting information such as a list of names and desired extensions for each phone user, billing/admin/tech contacts for future changes and shipping details.

Another key piece of the transition to their new phone system is porting numbers from the previous provider. The ability to port a client’s number that’s been with them for years is essential. All that’s required by the client is a copy of their most recent invoice and a signed copy of the Letter of Authorization which provides us the ability to act on behalf of the client and initiate the transfer.

In addition to working with new clients, the Provisioning Team manages inventory levels, ships replacement equipment, works with the support teams to address technical concerns and completes any client changes once they are setup.

Provisioning staff have been especially busy over the past year as we’ve been slowly migrating existing customers to our V2 platform, a process that is expected to be completed in the coming months. On a personal level, the best parts of working in the provisioning department at Versature are getting to know new clients, helping customers to understand how a hosted phone system can improve the way they do business, as well as working within the team environment here! Versature allows me to work from home on a semi-regular basis, and that really helps out with childcare. There are definite benefits to working at a company that empowers people to be as effective remotely as they are in the office.

I’m looking forward to contributing to this blog and highlighting some of the fun things that go on here at Versature.

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Enter the Dolphin

November 10, 2011 - Paul Emond

Today marks the culmination of 6 months of work on a rebranding effort for Versature, made possible by our friends over at Northern Army. Overnight, we rolled out our new logo, our new website, our rebranded “Dashboard” application, updated voicemail templates, new phone logos and more. A number of different people were involved to coordinate this, and I’m happy that it went off without a hitch.

The first thing you will notice is the new logo. We’ve moved away from the stylized “V” that we’ve had since the company began, to the more modern and iconic symbol of the dolphin. As highly evolved communicators, the dolphin seemed like a natural fit. We also like the playful attitude of the dolphin, and changed the tone of our website and other marketing materials to match.

The mostly monotone visuals with splashes of colour to draw your attention seemed modern and fresh to us. We’ve mimicked this look on our blog, our twitter site, our Dashboard Application and heck, even our invoices got a new look. This refresh has been a long time coming, and we’re happy reveal day is finally here.

Many thanks to Ryan, Rene, Mandira and Brad over at NA for their creativity, professionalism and dedication, as well as all the different staff members at Versature who were instrumental at pulling off this overnight coordinated “shock and awe” rebrand strategy. Great Work!

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Are You Remarkable?

November 04, 2011 - Paul Emond

I attended a luncheon yesterday and was reminded of a book by Seth Godin called “The Purple Cow”. In it, he talks about finding ways to make your products “remarkable”, that traditional advertising is too cluttered to matter, and that the only way to break through is to reach out and target people who can be advocates and spread your message through word-of-mouth. The best example of this way of thinking in the real world is, of course, Apple.

At the luncheon, one of the attendees had a bit of a different take on Seth’s mantra. He feels that along with a great product, you should also make everyday mundane business decisions remarkable. I hope he doesn’t mind if I share his story.

When Nazim‘s company was looking for new office space, they were brainstorming about ways to make this routine business need into a story that people would be interested in. Businesses go through the motions on things like office moves, christmas parties, anniversaries and even record sales months without anyone knowing .. the trick is how to make them “remarkable”.

Here was their solution. In the centre of their new office digs, on a raised platform, they installed a fully functioning DJ booth. Have a look at it here. Now that’s outside the box thinking! They did a bunch of other things as well, but you know it was the DJ booth that got all of the attention.

Along with the great “office vibe” something like this can generate, they also got some attention from the Globe and Mail and other publications like this one. We’re actually planning an office move in the next year and I’ve started thinking about what we can do to make our new space remarkable. Thanks Nazim!

How many other routine decisions do we make as business owners that we could jazz up with a little creativity? Probably a lot of them. It’s something that my team is going to be thinking about as we drive our growth to even higher levels over the next 18-24 months.

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The Beginning

November 03, 2011 - Paul Emond

Being tasked with writing the first post for our new blog makes me a bit uneasy. Staring at the blank page and blindly writing whatever comes to mind had me quoting Troy McClure from the Simpsons .. you know the line .. “You may know me from such films as Don’t Hang Up On Me and Sent to Voicemail 2“ I also had that classic quote from Austin Powers (“Allow myself to introduce … myself”) which seemed funny to me while writing it but in retrospect is way too cheesy to begin a blog with.

It’s hard to be the first but I’m about to be in very good company. It’s our intention to have a number of key staff contributing to this blog, and hopefully by breaking the ice in this way they will feel more comfortable to let their own personalities shine through as well, while talking about some of the cool things that we are doing here at Versature. This will be a collaborative blog, with contributions from the founders (Jonathon Moody, Adam Sherman, and me), provisioning staff, support staff, sales and others.

We’ll be blogging about the company, the things we are working on, questions we are getting and answers we are giving, as well as other random thoughts about our industry, startups in general, cool technology, etc…

It would be amazing if we had some customer and partner interaction on the blog as well, which we will encourage through the comments. We’d really like this to be a community, so if you have an opinion, thought or comment .. please .. we’d love to hear from you.

This is just the beginning. Looking forward to the discussion this creates.

Paul Emond

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