“The world of work is changing” is the understatement of the century. Thanks to lockdowns, remote working and office closures, how colleagues communicate with each other is going through a revolution.
In this turbulent time, there are essentially two types of companies: those that have moved to the cloud and those that still use telephone systems. We aim the content of this article at the latter. What follows is for businesses that love phones and still rely on them to communicate internally and with customers.
But how do you turn your current phone system into a communication powerhouse given current trends? Let’s take a look.
Invest In VoIP
If you haven’t done so yet, get an IT company to set up a VoIP system that workers can use either at home or in the office.
Why VoIP? Because it brings the benefits of traditional landlines and the cloud.
For instance, imagine being able to forward voicemails as emails to your colleagues. That would make life much easier.. You can also add sophisticated features such as call queuing and automatic dialing, increasing colleague productivity.
Add A Second Line To Your Phone
Sometimes you don’t want to buy a second business device but, at the same time, you don’t want to hand out your personal phone number to customers and colleagues. In this situation, you can use services that add a second line to your phone.
These let you take business-related calls during office hours and give you freedom to block calls when you’re done.
You can also use these services for your colleagues’ phones as well. So, for example, some businesses use cloud-based services to transfer calls between team members and deliver auto-attendant functions.
Add Smart Transcriptions
Modern VoIP systems are also changing the way that business record calls. Instead of relying on human minute-takers, they use machines to do the hard work for them. For instance, many phone communication systems are compatible with AI-based deep learning voice recognition algorithms.
These listen to what people are saying and then immediately record the information in written format. They then categorise it by phone call and make it easily searchable with index functions,
Softphone Technology
You don’t actually need physical phones anymore to make calls to people. With VoIP, you can essentially turn any device into a handset, so long as it has a microphone and speaker. VoIP allows communication via the internet by converting analog signals from human voices into digital signals that they can send over the internet.
App Integration
Lastly, sophisticated companies are integrating their traditional phone systems with apps that link voice communications to company data.
For instance, many phone services now link up with CRM systems from vendors like Hubspot or Salesforce. Reps can simply click customer profiles and then the VoIP will automatically call you from the software.
You can also log all your phone activity and share information via the cloud, meaning that colleagues don’t need to ask customers the same questions each time they call.