By Jeff Brodie
As business owners what do we need to do when considering new communications solutions for our business. Well first things first, we must focus on the basic needs.
* Make outbound calls
* Receive Inbound Calls
* Do we want direct dial
* Do we want live answer
* Do we want Automated Answer with Dial by extension
* Do we want voicemail
Then let look at areas of our business? Where can we improve?
* Technical Support/Customer Service/Help Desk
* Sales Order Desk
* Reception- Traffic Director
* Sales
* Administration
* Accounting (AP/AR)
* Legal
* Operations
What areas of the business are we focusing on to create bigger business opportunities or greater efficiencies for our business?
* Sales: Implement call distribution, Findme-followme, Remote Extension, Voicemail to Email, Contact Integration
* Support/Service: Call Queuing, Logging, Call Recording, Service Analysis, Customer Satisfaction
* Teleworker,Mobile Worker opportunities
What other benefits can we look for?
* Advice based businesses would benefit from Telephone Conversation Recording
* Staff Telephone use and productivity
* Reduction of Long distance through reduction of Cell Phone usage (Soft Phone, IP Phone etc)
* Improved ease of communicating with your company for your customers
What areas of my business are we looking for efficiencies in either staffing or productivity?
* Are there tasks that could be automated
* Self Serve systems
There is a lot to think about when it comes to selecting a telecommunications productivity tool for your business; like in accounting a calculator is not the whole solution, just a tool we use to double check our numbers, a telephone is just the end or the beginning of the conversation. It is what we can do between the end points to improve our business that will help us chose a system to fit our business.
