When you are moving office you have an ideal opportunity to review the way in which your current telephone system works for you and your clients and consider new technology that may give you an edge. There are many new and emerging technologies which could have a positive impact on your organisation and you should consider these at this time alongside your decision to take your existing systems with you or install new.
Here are just are just a few of the newer telephone technologies you may wish to consider at this time:-
1) Voice mail – most business use voice mail for personal answerphones for staff phones which reduces the amount of lost messages, saves time on taking and distributing messages and makes the user more responsible for managing their own messages using the technology. It is important to note however that voice mail systems can also deliver the following technologies which can improve the efficiency of your telephone system: –
Greeting messages – if you greet your callers on 1 ring cycle, thanking them for calling and then confirm their call will be answered shortly, they will actually wait longer for an answer before hanging up as opposed to just hearing a constant ringing tone.
Auto attendant – this technology provides combines the above greeting message with providing options for the caller to select different departments by pressing a number or holding for reception. If you set this up correctly without too many options and callers are still answered quickly enough it can be a very effective way of reducing the number of caller waiting for an answer at your reception positions which means shorter answer times.
Call queue announcements – This technology simply interrupts your caller waiting for an answer with a message such as “your call is in a queue and will be answered shortly” and this is a proven technology to reduce the number hang ups before the call is answered. It is true to state however that if you don’t answer the call quickly enough and the message is repeated many times this can lead to a frustrated caller.
2) Call Logging – a call logging system can help you make improvements with your telephone system by providing you with the facts about what is happening right now. For example a call logging system can tell you how many calls a day you receive, what your average answer times are, how many minutes a day your callers can’t get through and would hear and engaged tone and how many callers are hanging up before being answered. Once you have the facts about what is happening right now, you can start to implement changes and monitor the results clearly.
3) Voice Over IP telephones – with voice over IP telephones you can easily extend your office phones out to remote locations such as home workers and other offices giving more options to ensure you have someone available to take the calls quickly.
4) Mobility twinning – This feature simply makes your mobile phone ring with calls that appear on your desk phone giving you the options to pick up the calls when you are not at your desk.
5) Trunk to trunk Transfer – this feature allows to answer a call in the office and then transfer the call to any number, not just the other phones in your office.
6) Computer telephone integration – this feature basically connects your telephone on your desk to your computer to enable out dialing from your data base by just clicking a button, alternatively you can set your data base to automatically screen pop your caller contact record when the phone starts ringing and your PC recognizes the number.
7) Call recording – when it comes to staff training or dispute resolution, call recording can prove to be a very effective technology to improve customer service levels quickly.
Simply contact us now to arrange a no obligation telephone call or meeting, we will not charge you anything for good advice so you really do have nothing to lose.
We hope the above information is useful to you, if you would like assistance in understanding your best options then please contact us, alternatively you can download our telephone systems buyers guide as useful reference material or even run a quick quote to obtain a budget cost for a new telephone system in less than 60 seconds.
