RingCentral Online Blog

Communicating in Developing Countries with RingCentral

RingCentral customers have been sharing their stories with us since this company began. Now, I’d like to tell my story because besides working for the company, I am also a user and a fan.

I’m writing this post from a small 3-room stone house on a hilltop in Kenya's Central Rift Valley. In this scenic rural environment, I get up with the sounds of outdoors—namely the roosters and more than a dozen tweeting birds in an array of candy luminous colors. If I hear children playing, I know that the hour is getting too late.

For three months, I am working for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Africa as part of a master’s program with an Italy-based university. Since I started classes in November 2007, I have been in more than 25 different cities in six countries and three continents—through it all, RingCentral Online has been an invaluable asset to me.

For instance, while I may not have indoor plumbing here, I can feel rest assured that with RingCentral I am connected to business associates, partners, family and friends around the world, 24/7. (In Kenya, many people from the banker to the farmer have a mobile phone, and some of the more expensive models allow you to connect to the internet.*)

Through my wireless connection, I can retrieve voicemails in my email, send and receive faxes to people across the globe, and I can make inexpensive international calls from my laptop with my RingCentral softphone. The beauty of it is this: My US-based business associates, NGO workers and family members simply dial my RingCentral toll free number to get in touch with me and to leave voicemails. Then, at no cost to me, I can pick up the voicemails from my laptop.

It occurs to me that RingCentral is a good communications solution for US-based government and NGO workers and volunteers who travel overseas, particularly to some developing countries. With RingCentral’s Virtual PBX, they can connect with other workers and volunteers located in different areas across the globe. They can keep in touch by picking up voicemails in their email inboxes and forward those voicemails to multiple email addresses. With RingCentral’s Internet Fax and Fax from the Web component, they can send faxes to other organizations through their personal email accounts. Most importantly, they can always stay in touch and communicate new developments easier and faster—even from the most remote corners of the globe.

Note: If you're an NGO with a mobile technology solution that you'd like to explore but lack the technical skills, consider this: On October 29, the VON Conference in Boston will convene a group of world-class programmers to develop a mobile solution for the NGO with the best idea. The programming team will create an application using voice and text technologies in a manner that supports the goals of the selected nonprofit or NGO. While all ideas are welcome, areas for NGOs to consider include: Alert and notification services (e.g., mobilizing volunteers via SMS to gather at a particular time and place); Mobile data gathering (e.g., using mobile technology to record evaluation data/wildlife sightings); Mobile persuasion (e.g., using mobile technology to influence attitudes and behaviors, for example, encouraging people to vote or donate to your cause).

To be considered for this opportunity, NGOs/nonprofits from anywhere in the world are requested to submit a one page, or less, proposal including the following information: A brief description of your organization, or website link, and the specific program that could benefit from an enhanced communications application. A brief description of how you envision a communication application can improve your program. A brief description of how you would go about measuring the outcome of using this communication application. Organizational leadership contact information.

The deadline for proposals is October 20, 2007. Entries should be sent to: to: pmcape@gmail.com. The NGO selected will be notified by October 27, 2007.

All work on the application will be done for free, with emphasis placed on developing low cost solutions. It will be up to the NGO selected to obtain funding to implement the solution provided. For further information, contact: Patrick Murphy, pmcape@gmail.com.

*According to the World Bank ICT, 108 out of 1,000 people in Kenya are mobile subscribers.

Truffle Farmers use RingCentral to Help Manage Their Business

RingCentral Online spoke with NYC-based Aron Ponticelli of Piedmont Valley Truffles about how RingCentral helps him manage a business half-way across the country, in North Carolina.

Why RingCentral?

AP: I think RingCentral is tremendous. I was partial to RingCentral because of the Inc. Magazine review [June 2006] that I read, but when I called, that's what got me. The customer service at RingCentral is just tremendous, you'd be surprised at how rude some of the other vendors are. RingCentral set up the service for me and showed me all the tools: for example, the Call Controller that pops up on my laptop when the phone rings, how I can check voicemails on the Web...I mean all of that is great for us because it gives our business the flexibility we need.

We hear that a lot.

AP: I'm between North Carolina and New York a few times a month, and I really see RingCentral as one of my primary tools, along with my Blackberry and my laptop.

Because you're in New York City and your business partner/father is in North Carolina, it must be challenging to manage your business affairs.

AP: Yes. What I like is that RingCentral keeps a detailed Call Log. We're both on the road a bit. I'm a little more organized, but sometimes my father is out in the field or on the road and he loses people's phone numbers or the numbers get lost in his cell phone and he loses voicemails. This way, we can both keep track of calls. We get email alerts of new voicemails; I get them on my Blackberry. And I can see calls coming in, and seeing calls come in is something I really like because truffles are not my full-time job yet; I have another full-time job.

So separating all these aspects of your life is critical for you.

AP: Yes, having the ability to see calls coming in for Piedmont Valley Truffles is great so I know how to handle the calls appropriately.

You're also setting up a truffle distribution organization with the other farmers, and you plan to sell on the Web with your RingCentral toll free number.

AP: There are a lot of small growers now, with between ½-acre to 3 acres of trees, and they're going to sell their truffles to the local restaurants so the market is going to get saturated - then they'll look for someone to sell their truffles outside of that area. What we're going to do is set up a consortium or a co-op and sell the truffles for them. The way I see it, why give your profits to a middle man? The farmers always get paid the least amount of money, and there's no reason we can't run the demand side of the business as well. Chefs and restaurants in New York City are just the beginning. I'll sell on the Web, and obviously the toll free number from RingCentral is going to become more important there. It's where your higher margins are made because you're selling wholesale - about $800 a pound wholesale. That's where the money is made.

How will RingCentral help you manage all of this?

AP: It takes about three to four years to cultivate truffles and we expect an influx of calls during the next truffle season, December through March. As a way for us to manage things, we have the option to not take some of those calls and let them go to voicemail, which will be emailed to us. We can then look at the Call Log to see who called and when the calls came in. I have calls ring to my home and my cell and wherever else I may be. Also, I will have all of my truffle business calls and faxes centralized. I don't want calls going to my cell phone's voicemail or a different business email because I don't want them co-mingled with my other calls. It also allows me to make sure that other employees in the company are following up with important callers.

Your employees will also use RingCentral?

AP: We have a lot of farm workers we need to contact, and we will have a customer service department. And I really see that as we expand, RingCentral will be growing with us. I would like to build a sales team, who will be traveling around, and I know I'm going to be traveling all over, so to be able to manage that process is great.

I didn't realize truffles were being cultivated in North Carolina. Typically, this is not a product produced in the US.

AP: We're really finding that where grapes for wine can be cultivated pretty successfully is where black truffles can be as well. There's been a lot of success in cultivating truffles in the mid-Atlantic states on both sides of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which has an agreeable "terroir": the soil, sunshine, wind factors, etc. North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee share similar attributes to southern France and northern Italy.

How do you cultivate and harvest truffles?

AP: We bought seedlings inoculated with Tuber melanosporum, the Perigord truffle, from our partner Franklin Garland who was the first to bring inoculated seedlings to the US. He bought the process from the French in the early 1980s. You're taking either oak or hazelnut trees about a couple of weeks old and essentially you're