Virtual phone services abound, each one eager to offer businesses a terrific experience when it comes to making and receiving calls without the need for one or more land-line connections. With that in mind, virtual phone services are offering up a variety of other features to improve value and draw potential customers. RingCentral, meanwhile, just recently added a few of its own to put out a powerful new value proposition that's great on several levels.

The new RingCentral (News - Alert) features include an impressive array of pieces, starting with the new Call Park feature. Call Park allows a phone service to do just that: park calls in the cloud, allowing anyone in the organization to retrieve said calls. This means that, should the intended target be unavailable for some reason, someone else can pull the call from the cloud and address said caller. If the intended target is only unavailable for reasons of geography—said target is out of the office, for example, but available to talk—the call can be recovered by that person even remotely.

An intercom feature allows users to contact other users within the office itself, including some customization features to allow only specific users to use the intercom function. There's also a new business SMS function for sending professional text messages from a business number, and a new RingCentral app that works with Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) tools. This may be one of the most important new features RingCentral will offer up, as it can directly patch into the sales department's efforts and potentially help bolster the bottom line.

The new expansion of features at RingCentral is going to likely bring in plenty of help for businesses, and not just the obvious improvements at the sales level. The Call Park service alone, for example, will better allow users to stay in touch with customers and colleagues alike, improving communication throughout an organization and increasing the likelihood of better overall performance. That's before the issue of saving money on long distance or international calling bills comes into play, a very clear possibility when it comes to a virtual phone service. This is especially useful for an office running on a mobile workforce concept; being able to route calls to the cloud and have said calls readily retrieved by a target means less voicemail frustration for incoming callers, more answered questions, and a happier potential customer.

Additionally, RingCentral will offer some extra help on this front with a new webinar, scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 2 p.m. ET. The webinar is entitled “Is The Cloud Reliable Enough For Business Communications?” and runs down a slate of topics associated with the use of cloud-based communications systems like the trends behind cloud business communications, and how solutions like those offered at RingCentral can make cloud-based communications work for business. There will even be a successful case study from the director of IT at DMEautomotive, David Lachicotte, who will describe how DMEautomotive made the transition.

The increasingly wireless nature of office contact systems means that a virtual phone service is more likely to become the norm rather than the exception, and having a good handle on the options available allows for the best chance at a successful integration. RingCentral is a great place to start looking, or perhaps to start looking for a new virtual phone system.