Redefining Employee Connectivity: Why Your Phone is More Than Just Another Endpoint

Remote, hybrid, and in-office work arrangements all stand to benefit from the ever-augmenting features of a business phone system. How a phone will be used is entirely up to the business, and the beauty of today’s phone system models is that they are entirely customizable to your employees, customer’s needs, your security concerns, and so much more. Your business phone is much more than just another endpoint — it’s a lifeline. Here are some of the features that can optimize your communications.

What is a business phone system?

All of the devices and infrastructure that make up your phone system allow you to interact with your customers and clients in a more unified way. This is defined by the business itself and its commercial needs; for some enterprises, an entirely cloud-based communication system that is VoIP-enabled will be preferred; for others, a more traditional setup is a better alternative for connecting employees. You’re likely already familiar with the more fundamental benefits of business phone systems like call forwarding, voicemail, and conference calling. Any setup can be made to drive greater efficiency within your organization.

Top 6 Business Phone System Features

These modern attributes all give today’s enterprises a clearer and more reliable approach to internal and external communication. Medium-sized enterprises can especially benefit from upgrading their systems to one of these features:

1. Unified Communication

Managing all of your voice, video, and messaging services can be made more efficient by bringing them under one roof. In doing so, your team will find it easier to locate important customer data, make contact, manage communications, and build more personal relationships with your customers. Plus, there is a significant cost savings in managing all of this together.

2. Voice Intelligence

The power of AI is well-noticed within communication systems. Businesses can use tools like machine learning, Natural Language Processing, and real-time speech recognition to learn from their communication with customers. Conversation notes are more easily transcribed and recorded. Team members can receive real-time answers to customer questions. Managers have greater control or more options in how they study and supervise their team’s performance. Like many other operations, there are so many possibilities for AI within the business phone space.

3. Auto Attendant

You may know this as a Virtual Assistant, Automated Receptionist, or by one of its many other names. A well-devised auto attendant can save teams time and help customers get the information they need without having to wait for a live attendant. Call routing, general business information output, and company directory look-up can drastically cut back on the amount of time taken from your team, especially if you receive a high volume of calls. You can cut out some of the more advanced customer inquiries through self-service options for bill pay, password recovery, appointment requests, patient data, etc.

4. CRM Integrations

Many modern business phone systems can be paired with CRMs, allowing for even greater synergy between internal operations. It is usually unnecessary and even impractical for teams to work across multiple platforms to manage customer data. Instead, you can bring this information, analytics, conversation history, and so much more to work in parallel with one another.

5. Sticky Agent

One of the most common complaints about customer service systems is calling the same line and having to re-explain the same situation to a new person each time. The idea behind Sticky Agent is simple: it prevents customers from blindly calling in as a new entry each time. Instead, they are connected to the agent they talked to before or even a member of the same team.

6. Call Analytics

Understanding your business’s call data enables you to make smarter business decisions. Your phone system can track peak and slow call periods, call duration, queue time, abandonment rate, employees’ communication patterns, and so much more.

Boost your operational efficiency with business phone system infrastructure

You should always look for ways to improve operational efficiency as an organization. Yet, beyond this, you should also look for ways to bolster your security and connections. While it may seem counterintuitive to introduce new technology into your organization in an effort to improve security, the safeguards business phone systems have in place make them excellent at this task. From moving your organization to a secure cloud to encrypting customer and employee data, there is no shortage of ways in which business phone systems can benefit your company. If your business is located in the Columbus, Akron, or Cleveland areas and needs assistance implementing new business phone system technology within your organization, reach out to us at Warwick right away for all your needs.