HELPING LEADERS BECOME
B E T T E R S T E WA R D S .
CLOUD-BASED, Cost-Effective Church Communications Presented by: Intulse
Table of Contents HOLD THE PHONE!
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For the most part, church leaders don’t think much about their phone systems. More often than not, phone service and Internet is bundled and rarely thought of again … until it falls short of what the church wants it to do. From an efficiency — and even ministry! — standpoint, it makes sense to move your phone system to the cloud. (Don’t worry: it’s easier than it sounds.) Keith Goodling, Chief Strategy Officer at Intulse, explains.
GROWING PAINS?
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As your church expands to multiple locations and campuses, your communications platforms should grow, too — particularly your phone system. Unfortunately, however, this is often an afterthought. Here, Keith Goodling, Chief Strategy Offi cer at Intulse, walks you through the process.
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Cloud-Based, Cost-Effective Church Communications With ChMS integration, the church can get good data on who’s calling, why, and who they’re trying to reach. Whoever answers can quickly pull up that person’s information and get some background. When was the last time somebody talked with this individual or his / her family? Who at the church did he / she talk to? How can we best serve this person? What’s going on in his / her life?
In plain English, what is “the cloud”?
For the most part, church leaders don’t think much about their phone systems. More often than not, phone service and Internet is bundled and rarely thought of again … until it falls short of what the church wants it to do. From an efficiency — and even ministry! — standpoint, it makes sense to move your phone system to the cloud. (Don’t worry: it’s easier than it sounds.) Keith Goodling, Chief Strategy Officer at Intulse, explains.
What happens to a church’s existing phone service if it decides to move to a cloud-based system?
What shortfalls do you see in most churches’ phone services? Goodling: Uniquely, a cloud-based system affords more mobility and access to the phone system without staff needing to be at a specific location or desk. It handles multiple calls simultaneously and quickly connects callers with the people they want to reach. A cloud-based system is also better for after-hours and emergency calls. While a staff member is on call, she might try to manage those calls with a personal cell phone. That’s not very effective or efficient. In contrast, a cloud-based system lets her use and leverage the phone system even when she’s not on campus.
Integration with church management software (ChMS) is an option. How does that work? Goodling: We’ll integrate a cloud-based phone system with any ChMS provider that allows us to. Basically, the ChMS must have an open application programming interface, or open API, and be willing to allow another piece of software to communicate with it. In the church space, we’ve already integrated with Elexio. If a church is interested in discussing integration, they just need to call us; we’ll reach out to their ChMS provider. They’re usually interested in working with us because it makes their software an even more integral tool at that church. churchexecutive.com
Goodling: It’s a collection of computers — sometimes referred to as a data center — remotely located and accessible via internet connection. Take Gmail, for example. All your emails are remotely stored in hard drives far away. When you log into Gmail and open an email, it fetches that data from the cloud. Basically, our phone system routes each call the same way: through and to the cloud. So, a church doesn’t have to rely on the integrity of old copper phone lines, or even a private branch exchange (PBX), which can be very expensive to buy and maintain. With a cloud-based system, a church never has to wonder, What happens if the power goes out or if we lose our internet connection? The power didn’t go out where the cloud servers are located, and neither did the internet. (This is especially important in the event of an emergency, when churches often function as central resource or command centers.) Another benefit is when a pastor is using his personal cell phone while he’s on call. With a cloud-based solution, he can use his cell phone to get calls, but access the church’s phone system when calling somebody back. He’s reachable, but he isn’t sharing a personal number that could be called or texted at any time. Also, if Pastor A is on call, Pastors B and C can be put on back up. So, when Pastor A is busy, rather than the caller going to voicemail, the system rings Pastors B and C, simultaneously.
Goodling: We make sure the transition is seamless, with no down time. When complete, a church can discontinue its old service, which should save money every month. A lot of churches are concerned about maintaining their current phone numbers. We plan for that; they keep their existing published phone, fax and toll-free numbers. In some cases, when a church moves its phone system to the cloud, there might be a brief period of time when they have two phones side by side — their old phone and their new phone — so staff can get familiar with the new phones. Meanwhile, the old phones are fully operational until the system is ported over to the cloud. Also, before we set up the new phone system, we provide a questionnaire to assess how the church wants its call flow to work — if, for example, certain buttons need to be programmed as one-touch (frequently dialed numbers, popular extensions and so on). After a while, if a church discovers it wants its system to work a different way, we’ll make those changes free of charge. Aside from the documentation and live, video and web-based training we provide, this really makes the learning curve more manageable. We don’t want users to experience the panic of, I’ve got this call, but I don’t know how to transfer it! or I might cut off this person because I don’t know which button to push! Keith Goodling is Chief Strategy Officer at Intulse in Elizabethtown, Pa. He has been involved with technology and software applications since Y2K and has served as a cross-cultural missionary, church elder, and currently as a small group leader and coach. Every member of the team at Intulse is a small group leader or ministry worker and highly involved in their local church. Additionally, most of the core team spent 12 to 15 years building and selling a leading ChMS system.
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Seamless Setup & Support You Can Count On When it comes to your phone system, connecting with the right partner can make all the difference. Our partners count on us to deliver solutions that support their ministries, and we deliver. We take time to get to know every Church we serve, and offer support and training to help you get the most out of your phone system. We make setup a breeze and deliver reliable, personal support and ongoing service you can count on.
Feature-rich phone systems. Awesome service. Experience the Intulse difference.
What is VOIP? VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. Intulse phone solutions harness the power of high-speed Internet and the latest cloud-based technology advancements to deliver secure, reliable communication tools that maximize the potential of today’s technology. Plus, it’s delivered with smart, budget-friendly pricing.
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Connecting What Matters Wherever You Go Church VOIP Phone Solutions
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Flexible Phone Solutions that Power the Way You Do Ministry From one extension to hundreds, Intulse VOIP phone solutions provide you with a flexible, feature-rich communications system that can grow and change with your organization – now and into the future. We work with organizations of all sizes to harness the power of our unified communications tools– delivering seamless scalability, HD-quality voice, and features that power mobility, collaboration and efficiency.
Bottom line = we GUARANTE you save money over traditional phone providers.
Predictable Pricing. No Hidden Fees. Enjoy the convenience of predictable pricing with no long-term contracts and no hidden fees. One phone provider, one bill, one set price – it’s that simple. It's the Intulse difference.
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First-Class Features at Your Fingertips By choosing Intulse, you get the power of a featurerich system that can be customized to best-fit how you do Ministry. Our communications specialists work closely to help select and implement features to ensure you get the most out of your system. Empower Mobility
Stay connected wherever you are – in the office, in the car, at home, anywhere – on your terms! You’re in control of how and where calls are routed. No need to give out your cell number. Use your main number to seamlessly route calls to your cell phone when you need to be readily available. Return calls from your cell phone using the softphone app, and leverage the power of your Intulse phone system from your mobile device. Voicemail to email and missed call indicator make it easy to ensure important calls aren’t missed.
Increase Community Connections Put an end to busy signals with virtual receptionist technology. Use call queues to manage inbound calls. Your virtual call center can be customized to fit your specific ministry needs.
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Cultivate Collaboration Multi-way calling and conference capabilities are at your fingertips, giving your team the power to connect with each other and your members with the push of a button – from anywhere!
Drive Efficiency & Productivity Integrations with many popular ChMS platforms allow seamless connection to the tools that power your Ministry. Benefit from greater insight to member needs and automation.
Harness the Power of Control Control is at your fingertips with our easy-to-use dashboard that gives you the tools to manage your phone system. The convenience of scalability and setup also makes it easy to add or remove extensions as the dynamics of your team changes.
Make The Better Call Reach out to request a free phone system evaluation, and learn how Intulse can benefit your Ministry today. 844.446.8857 | Intulse.com churchexecutive.com
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Cloud-Based, Cost-Effective Church Communications
Growing pains? As your church expands to multiple locations and campuses, your communications platforms should grow, too — particularly your phone system. Unfortunately, however, this is often an afterthought. Here, Keith Goodling, Chief Strategy Officer at Intulse, walks you through the process.
When multisite churches expand, do they typically reestablish their current phone system, or do they opt for a different system?
How the right phone system can keep church staff connected — even across multiple campuses
and troubleshoot the on-premise phone system. Otherwise, the church will need to purchase an expensive service contract from the reseller of the system. Since hosted and cloud options almost always come with some type of software application for administrators and users, the learning curve is smaller, especially for those end users.
What are the benefits of a cloud-based phone system? Goodling: All extensions are connected and part of the same system, regardless of location. At the same time, each campus can have its own local phone number that people can call. When that number is called, the call is delivered to the central campus while retaining the caller ID. Much like how call centers function, the call can then be transferred to
Goodling: The new site for acquisition is typically looked at as its own business unit that needs specific local utilities, including internet, a phone service, and possibly a phone system. The exception to that rule are the churches already using the cloud — especially with regards to a phone system. These folks are in great shape to simply add the necessary quantity of handsets and/or phones to their current solution. The new campus simply becomes an extension of the main campus.
What are some common struggles churches might face with their existing phone systems when they decide to add new locations and/or campuses? Goodling: Those using a traditional model of phone service delivered via copper wires, or those using an expensive on-premise PBX solution, end up with redundant costs. They also might have an expensive hardware investment with the new campus, and no ability to transfer calls or communicate efficiently between the locations. Each campus becomes a unique and isolated unit.
Cost-wise, if a church is planning on expansion in the future, what phone system provides the best stewardship of their funds? Goodling: The hosted cloud VoIP solution is the strongest candidate, in my experience and opinion. Initial setup costs are much lower for not only the expansion campus, but the main location as well. The monthly recurring fees for the system, service and support are fixed and predictable. Expansion is as easy as adding users, and this cost is known in advance.
What is the learning curve like for adding any new systems? Is there a correlation between cost and ease-of-use? Goodling: An expensive-capital-investment, on-premise solution will require someone on staff to know how to configure, manage, maintain 10
the correct person(s) at the right campus location. The system can even deliver auto-attendant greetings specific to the number/location the caller was trying to reach, including options for reaching staff members that can best serve them.
What options should churches be looking for within their cloud-based VoIP phone solution? Goodling: A good cloud-based VoIP offering is going to include some level of unified communications, or ‘UC’ as it’s often referred to. With that, there will be options to collaborate, communicate via texting, messaging and easy conferencing from both inside and outside the confines of the system. It will also include an app or dashboard that shows, in real time, the presence of users such as if they’re on do not disturb (DND) or are away from their desks. This can provide valuable insight into a person’s availability to meet a need quickly — especially in situations where timing is critical. Keith Goodling is Chief Strategy Officer at Intulse [ www.intulse.com/markets/ churches ] in Elizabethtown, Pa. He has been involved with technology and software applications since Y2K and has served as a cross-cultural missionary, church elder, and currently as a small group leader and coach. Every member of the team at Intulse is a small group leader or ministry worker and highly involved in their local church. Additionally, most of the core team spent 12 to 15 years building and selling a leading ChMS system.
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