Big companies often have a leg up on smaller businesses: well-known brands, large advertising budgets, and media attention. And then there’s the regular distraction of IT issues that you try to juggle while growing your business. Sometimes, competing with the big guys can seem like an uphill battle.
The good news: You have a product or service that customers love. That means you’re on the right track!
The even better news: RingCentral can help give your brand a big-business look, feel, and professional polish… without a big-business price tag.
We’re always rolling out powerful new features for our all-in-one communications platform, and this last quarter was no exception. Here’s what’s new and exciting in RingCentral MVP, especially for small businesses.
Highlights:
- Move faster with enhanced tools and communication hacks
- Supercharge your CRM with Hubspot and Salesforce integration updates
- Save time on IT with these new phone capabilities
Move faster with enhanced tools and communication hacks
1. Forward calls in 1 click for holidays or breaks
Your team can now instantly forward all incoming calls with a single click in the RingCentral app. Whether going on a break or vacation, incoming calls can be forwarded to a recording, voicemail, a co-worker, call queue, shared line, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu, among others, to make sure all inbound calls are answered, even when you are on holidays.
This feature is available on both RingCentral desktop and mobile apps in June 2022.
💡Our small business tip
If any of your staff go on vacation, they can set all calls to be forwarded to your main business phone line or to a colleague. If you close your office, easily set up a fun, personalized announcement or voicemail and bring in your unique brand.
2. Auto Dialer for next-level customer experience
Call specific pre-programmed numbers as soon as your phone is taken off the hook. This is great for employees who need to automatically dial security personnel or an emergency response team on the job.
This RingCentral phone feature can expedite services by pre-programming numbers for phones to automatically make calls instantly, without having to memorize or manually dial phone numbers.
💡Our small business tips
If you operate a service business like a hotel or restaurant, you can automatically dial a concierge service or the front desk reception. For example, you can leave a phone out in the lobby for guests to pick up, and your city’s preferred taxi service is immediately dialed, differentiating you in excellent customer experiences as compared to competitive hospitality chains.
If you operate a nightclub, you can have a phone line programmed to automatically dial police or emergency services if your front of site staff need assistance in the late hours of their shifts, or escorting specific customers home safely.
If you operate a healthcare or medical facility, you can have a phone line programmed to automatically dial the local hospital you are affiliated with, in the event of an emergency.
3. Collaborative whiteboard across mobile and desktop
RingCentral Whiteboard provides a rich collaborative experience for hybrid teams—no matter where they work from.
The new Whiteboard allows you to draw, upload files, and brainstorm ideas on a near-infinite digital canvas. It also includes powerful unique capabilities such as a “Bring everyone to me” button and minimap to easily find people and jump to specific areas on the canvas:
💡Our small business tip
Flip your calls to video and start a whiteboarding session to create more engaging moments with your customers and vendors. Ideate on your next big milestone or brainstorm website ideas.
Whiteboard will be available in June 2022.
4. Customize fax cover pages on mobile and desktop
You can now customize fax cover pages by uploading custom designs or using templates to make fax submissions industry compliant, which is critical for industries like government, financial services, insurance, and healthcare:
You can also send, receive, and manage secure and confidential faxes anytime from any device. All you need is internet access!
💡Our small business tip
You can also upload your branded invoice templates to make sure you showcase your unique brand personality into your documents.
Custom fax cover pages will be available in June 2022.
Supercharge your CRM with Hubspot and Salesforce integration updates
Many small business sales teams live inside Hubspot or even Salesforce. It’s your lifeline to sales success. That’s why we’re making it even easier for you to connect with your customers within your CRMs.
5. Hubspot users can now access SMS, voicemails and faxes right in the app
With added capabilities for RingCentral’s Hubspot integration, end-users can now send and view SMS messages, access voicemail, access fax capabilities, and much more, right within the Hubspot app:
No need to toggle back and forth to RingCentral or any other app – spend your day in Hubspot and get all the tools you need to delight your customers.
💡Our small business tip
On average, customers see a 98% open rate and 7x engagement on text messages compared to email. It’s much easier to type out business SMS on a keyboard than a mobile-only texting platform. Interchange between your desktop and mobile experience anytime and pick up where you left off.
Bonus: you can login to RingCentral and start texting customers in minutes.
6. Salesforce users can now SMS customers and warm transfer calls to colleagues
With RingCentral’s newly enhanced Salesforce integration, users can now click to SMS from a contact in Salesforce, accessible via the Salesforce and RingCentral directory (one click and you are SMSing your customer!). Save time and reach customers faster using SMS.
Another exciting enhancement is that RingCentral and Salesforce users can now enable their Sales Reps to be able to warm transfer of calls from Salesforce to other colleagues:
This means that within Salesforce, reps can first speak with a colleague before transferring a call to them. This sets up the next rep for success with the customer and helps small businesses close more deals.
💡Our small business tip
Get your sales team to warm transfer calls as much as possible. Before transferring the call to a different employee, ask your team to pass on any relevant information so that the caller does not have to repeat themselves. The original employee can speak to the customer again to introduce the next person who will handle the call and assist the caller as well.
7. New apps tab in RingCentral desktop app
The Apps tab in the RingCentral desktop app has been redesigned to enhance the discovery and installation of add-ins, bots, and other integrations. Check it out:
A bot is a type of add-in that provides team messaging users with a conversational interface for completing various tasks.
For example, you can add in a poll bot, and everyone in the team can launch polls for the group to vote on, to quickly get back a pulse on what the team thinks about specific projects, updates and so on. You can also install the DocuSign integration through the add-ins, so that documents that are signed in DocuSign are immediately imported into the chat, easily searchable and stored in the RingCentral cloud storage.
It’s easier than ever for employees to connect RingCentral with the apps they depend on to save time switching between apps.
💡Our small business tip
Connect with the apps you use daily, such as Google, Microsoft, Hubspot, or others, to save time switching between apps. You can also use Add-Ins, and run quick polls with your team members to capture feedback and consensus quickly.
Save time on IT with these new phone capabilities
We’re delivering new cloud business phone capabilities that reduce critical IT management burdens and deliver time and cost savings for small businesses.
8. Line seizure for emergency services
You never want to imagine a crisis situation happening at your small business, but as a business owner you are responsible for the safety and security of your employees and customers in your stores, no matter what.
That’s why RingCentral launched this “line seizure” feature to assist in a crisis situation, where emergency service responders can work with business owners to immediately keep their employees safe on site. With your help, emergency services are able to lock down all phone lines within a particular environment (retail location or site) such that they can only make and receive calls to/from a phone number designated by emergency services.
This feature used to be offered primarily in traditional, on-premises phone systems only. This is one of the ways RingCentral is closing the gap of advanced phone capabilities between legacy phone systems and cloud VoIP systems.
9. Easy bulk uploading of new users
Get a bunch of new employees started in the RingCentral MVP system in minutes – just 3 easy steps! Save time and get employees onboarded faster, so they can start contributing to your business on Day One.
RingCentral makes it easier for business owners to add new users in bulk than ever before, through more intuitive interfaces, drag and drop fields, additional columns for bulk information import, better error handling and feedback mechanisms in the admin portal.
10. A new Resource Center to enhance employee self-service onboarding
The Resource Center on desktop and mobile has been enhanced with additional pages, along with a new look and feel. Check it out:
It’s now easier than ever to discover features in the RingCentral app to help you get started, explore new features, get support, and submit feedback.
Take on the big box with these powerful updates
Giving your small business a big-business feel isn’t as complicated (or expensive) as you might think. By working with the right software and maximizing their features, any small business can cast a larger, more professional shadow in the marketplace. RingCentral is here to help you do it!
See new features in action: Check out a webinar
Now that you’ve read the overview, it’s time to get hands-on. We have tons of helpful webinars to make sure you’re getting the most out of RingCentral and all of its growing features. Click “Browse webinars” to get started:
Originally published Jun 14, 2022, updated Nov 08, 2023
