Ways to get the most out of your telephone system.

Long gone are the day when your telephone system was just a way to share lines between employees and route calls. Today’s modem phone system can do so much more. In this article we shine the spotlight in some productivity-boosting features you might not have realised you could do with your office phone.

1.       A single contact number – twin your phones
Ever struggle to keep tabs on multiple phone, with multiple numbers? Mobile twinning could be the answer. Instead of giving out separate office and mobile numbers, you will just have one. When somebody calls that number, all of your specified phones will ring simultaneously – whether your office phone, mobile or remote office. That way, wherever you are, people can contact you. So you won’t miss ant valuable calls from customers, suppliers, or the boss. You might also see this feature called ‘dynamic extensions’ or ‘mobile paring’.

2.       Seamless home working
Productivity shouldn’t stop when employees can’t get into the office. That’s why more and more businesses are letting employees work from home. The benefits are obvious; saving money on office overheads, widening your pool of potential employees, as well as improving work-life balance.

But there are a couple of concerns. How do you maintain a professional image? How can you prevent costly phone bills from calls to and from the office? The solution is linking remote workers to your office phone system.

Armed with a broadband connection and IP phone, any employee can become a virtual extension of the business telephone system. They will have access to the exact same functionalities and features as in the office. Callers still reach them via the number and all calls to and from other extensions in the office are free.

As they are part of the office system and on the same number, callers won’t have a clue that the person they’re speaking to is actually sat at home.

3.       Screen popping – greet your customers as people, not as numbers
Ever had to wait on hold while a ‘system’ loads up your details? Wouldn’t it be a lot better if the person on the end of the phone knew all your details as soon as they pick up the phone? With screen popping, they can.

It is all done by linking your phone system with your database or CRM system. When a call comes in, the system recognises the number instantly. It then ‘pops up’ the associated account details and other stored information on screen. So the person receiving the call can see details of previous calls, know that the customer has an outstanding bill, or how they prefer to be addressed.

4.       Presence (Instant Messenger) – know who is available
You will probably be familiar with Instant Messenger tools like Microsoft Communicator. Well, this software can also be included on your phone system. So instead of wasting time routing calls to people who are out of the office or away from their desk, whoever answers the call can see who’s busy or available and route the call to the right place. The likely result is that enquires are dealt with at a much quicker pace and more customers are happy with the service.

5.       Visual Voicemail – all your messages in one place
Keeping on top of your messages can be a chore. Checking your Blackberry at the end of the day and seeing a previous un-noticed voicemail is far from ideal.

Your telephone system can route all of your messages, including voicemails, into a single email inbox. So you can visually see incoming messages in a single view, and deal with them in the priority order that you choose.

6.       Conference Calls
Rather than setting up a separate conference call account, most business telephone systems come with built-in conferencing. So whether you need to set up a quick three way call, or set up a dial in conference for 20 people, it can be done through your system.

7.       Personalised on hold messaging – make the most of waiting times
With over 70% of calls to businesses being left on hold time for over 43 seconds, that’s an awful lot of time wasted spent listening to music. Instead, why not dill this space with marketing messaging or other pertinent information?

For more information on our bespoke telephone systems.