Every few weeks we service a client that has invested thousands of dollars into products that are not working for them. No matter what band-aid you may place on them, they have wasted their money and the equipment will not work. Oh, they can talk on them all right, but to transfer a call, initiate a conference call or transferring a call to an individuals voice mail becomes quite a endeavor. The blindness of office personnel to others on the telephone creates an added weight to those within the office and those that endure the "chasing down" of employees to see if they are on the phone can be quite time consuming.
Internet sales companies who do not come to your office for the site visit is a wrong move as well. The phones that you will probably choose do little more than what you have and they will not come to your office to train you. Buying from the passing computer geek is not any better. Because what they work on is, get this, a computer not a phone system. When you decide the $150/hr was too much, then who will service your needs?
To processing calls that involve customer needs, questions or requests it is critical to have a business telephone system for the office that works reliably and efficiently. So what do you think you need in an office communication systems. Watching numerous companies through the years I have come up with a few items that I think are necessary.
- The phone system needs to have the ability to push one button for anyone in the office. Let's face it, we're human and visual is good.
- It needs to work with what I use for storing my numbers. If you use Outlook or Act and you are constantly turning your head to dial a number, you are wasting time. Right Click and dial should be the practice.
- When I put someone on hold, the experience they are having should matter to the one that put them there. Playing something so they know they are not forgotten is essential and gives you an opportunity to inform your caller of something you do or are doing.
- I should not have to have to hold the handset all the time and if I need to get up and walk across the room, I should have the ability to do that. Interfacing with a headset is critical.
- Voicemail, it keeps messages from lost pieces of paper. Relying on another person to take an appropriate message and deliver it is a thing of the past. Lost clients and lost opportunities is what paper messages are.
- Email of the voice mail message. It allows for storage, forwarding to employees and training to better handle a callers needs.
- Caller ID that displays both the name and number of the caller. This can be a life saver especially when you know they are not calling to say hi.
- Calling another office worker, redial, paging and conference calling should be able to be done without a training seminar.
- The equipment should be warranted, reliable and should not cost a years revenue to acquire it, it also needs to be installed by a reliable company. Check certifications and references! If they are not certified by the manufacturer, you can be in for a ride.
- In today's world, if we want to change dial tone types it needs to migrate. Today VoIP, IP, SIP and digital are all necessary platforms and a mixture of them may be necessary.
- Internet and remote accessible so that we do not have to wait hours and pay for trips to the office to administer the system when necessary.
When considering a business telephone system purchase, remember price does not equal cost. This year's tax code for Section 179 Deduction has increased. So let's say you get all the bells and whistles plus a couple of computers, new software and a new server. Your entire purchase is $ 12,000. If you were in a 35% tax bracket, you save 4,200 and the final cost would be 7,800 for the server, computers, telephone system with a 5 year warranty and installation!
Install the security system with remote monitoring that you need and rather than go to another vendor, use the Rottweiler BACR program to finance it. So for 24 months it is interest FREE. And because you used the BACR program, the warranty is doubled on the computers plus you recieve some additional benefits as well! That would save you an estimated one thousand dollars and you have what your office needed.
Now you have put the tools in the hands of the ones who actually do the work, making your office more productive with the most important asset in the office....the people.
