Office telephone systems
Office telephone systems seem to be one of those things that can either delight you or frustrate you. Nowadays many systems seem to come with a large array of features that business owners don’t understand and thus are unlikely to ever use.
Several studies have concluded the same thing – that only 10% of companies actually use all of the features on their own telephone systems.
If you are considering a future purchase, it would be wise to avoid going for the newest and shiniest model. Instead, go through the list of features on each setup and only look at those that will actually improve the productivity in your workplace.
Click here to view a selection of popular office systems
What do you look for in office telephone systems?
One of the most important features is the use of an automated answering service. I do not mean an answering machine but a recorded message (human or otherwise) that is played to every person who rings the workplace.
This message give instructions to the person who is ringing about how to reach a particular department based on the nature of their call. If you have a large volume of incoming calls and need some sort of queuing functionality then this may be the best option.
Real or automated?
Having said that, many smaller enterprises prefer to have a real person answer the phone as it provides a more personal touch to consumers and customers – people who are more savvy in this day and age about being placed on hold or diverted to overseas call centers for example.
Whether or not you choose to go down the automated phone or staffed phone route is entirely dependent on many factors including the size and profitability of your business, your budget and the type of business that you are in.
Voicemail, compatibility and ease of use of office telephone systems
Before you buy any phone system for small business, check to see if the office phone system you are interested in comes with any sort of voicemail features.
As the cost of a voicemail-enabled system is often expensive, it often pays to check if your existing service can be compatible with a new telephone system.
Perhaps more importantly, you have to make sure that the telephones are easy to use – it is the employees that are going to be using them in most cases and little training seems to be given on how to use them (I have been at one particular employer now for 7 years and everything I know about the communication systems I either taught myself or learnt from colleagues).
Having said that, you shouldn’t rely on the employees having to work things out for themselves though.
As a proprietor you cannot rely on your workers to be able to be adept at new things straight away and the sooner they get properly trained the sooner your productivity will improve. Intuitive and simple to use interfaces are the way to accomplish this.