You’ve done everything right this time round! You took the advice of a qualified business phone expert and installed the newest and best business phone system you could get your hands on. (This was after a phone business expert carried out a thorough analysis of your business, staff and customer needs as well as your growth potential). In a nutshell, you have a new business phone system that matches your business’s needs perfectly but for some reason, you’re not getting much out of your new system.
Why is this the case? Perhaps your staff mistakenly thinks it’s hard to use the new phone system or they are just stubborn and want to hang on to the old system? Whatever the reason/s, you are missing out on offering your customers the best service simply because your new business phone system isn’t being utilized effectively.
This scenario isn’t new. Many business owners and managers fail to get the best out of their phone systems due to lack of knowledge, interest as well as inadequate training (please note our company offers full training). It’s important to note that resisting technological advancements has never benefited any business. Learning new ways of managing your business’s communication system can’t therefore be a bad thing.
Contrary to popular belief, business phone systems are easy to operate. Most employees are usually hesitant in adopting them because of reasons that can be dealt with easily with adequate training. Many new features of the best business phone systems are actually meant to make the work of employees easier.
If employees knew this first hand, they would be more receptive about new business phone systems. This is where training comes in handy. It’s important for business owners to deal with telephone companies that offer efficient training session (like us). Once you are done with us, you are assured that your staff will be able to utilize your new phone system effectively.
There’s absolutely no reason why you should invest in the best business phone system only for your staff to use it like any other regular phone system i.e. to make and receive calls only. If you’re keen on getting more information on how to get the best out of your new telephone systems, you are in the right place. Below are 6 mistakes you might be making and how to avoid them.
1. Failing to use the hot desking feature
Hot desking is one of the most useful but commonly overlooked features in new phone systems today. The feature allows you to direct your calls to other work stations when you are away from your desk i.e. when you are working in the conference room. Most employees don’t utilize this great feature when working from other work stations away from their desks. Instead, they have to run back to their office periodically to check their voicemail or have another co-worker do the same for them which wastes a lot of time. Use this feature. It’s a great time saver when you want to receive important calls from other workstations within office premises.
2. Failing to use the voicemail to email feature
New business phone systems come with the voicemail to email feature which automatically sends an email to your Smartphone when a voicemail is left on your desk phone. You can therefore listen to all your voicemail messages from your Smartphone from anywhere as you would if you were in your office. Many employees don’t use this feature which affects their response time to important phone calls. Failure to use this feature also makes it hard to follow up on important calls since the voicemail to email feature also sends voicemail messages to your computer allowing you to access the messages with ease in the future when need arises.
3. Failing to protect your business with the twinning feature
Twinning allows people to be reachable regardless of their location by calling one number. The one number can ring on your desktop, Smartphone, home phone, or whatever phone you like and customers have no idea where you are answering the phone from. In most cases, customers assume you are in the office since they only get your office number which can redirect calls to any phone you have access to at any given time.
From the above information, it’s clear that twinning protects your business if staff members decide to quit and work for any of your competitors. If you’re not using this feature which is available in most (if not all) business phone systems today, you aren’t protecting your business enough from your competition. Since all your staff members are assigned one phone number which then connects customers to your salespersons wherever they are, your salesperson/employees never need to give out their personal contacts.
As a result, your customer’s only know your business number if any of your employees decide to quit. Without twinning, your customers can call an ex-salesperson’s personal Smartphone number following them to their new employer (your competitor). It’s important to note that employees don’t like to give their personal numbers to customers so using this feature is a win-win for you as the business owner.
4. Failing to use the transferring voice messages feature
Another key feature in most new business phone systems today is the ability to transfer voicemail messages from your phone to another extension in your building. This useful but commonly under-utilized feature saves a lot of time. Voice messages get sent to the wrong recipients many times in work settings. And sometimes a voicemail message contains instructions for you but also pertains to another department in your company so you can forward these messages along to other staff.
Since you can transfer voice messages sent to your mailbox accidentally directing them to the right recipient, you save a lot of time you would have otherwise wasted relying the same message verbally. Furthermore, you can add to the voice message making communication more effective. If all your employees knew of this great feature and how to use it, you (the business owner) would see a sharp increase in efficiency since employees would focus on more important tasks.
5. Not setting unique ringtones
New business phone systems have the ability to give each and every member of staff a unique ringtone. Many workplaces with the best business phone systems are however guilty of using one ringtone on all phones which usually leads to confusion. Similar ringtones also waste precious time when employees have to run around whenever a phone rings (when they are away from their desk) only to find out it’s another phone. If you work in a shared office setting, each person should have a unique ringtone so that everyone knows when to answer their phone.
6. Looking up phone numbers every time you want to call
Many office workers are also guilty of looking up phone numbers every time they want to call someone. With the latest new business phone system, your employees never need to waste precious time doing that. All they need to do is save all their contacts on their desktop and dial directly from the desktop with the push of a button. This also makes sure all your employees know who is calling when their phone rings.
Summary
The above information summarizes the most common mistakes made with new business phone systems that cost business owners a lot of money. The best business phone systems are made to save your business time and improve efficiency which ultimately leads to great savings and revenues. It’s important to note that all the above mistakes made with new business phone systems can be dealt with effectively through proper training. You shouldn’t therefore invest in the best phone system without training your staff effectively on how to get the best out of the system. Effective new business phone system training sessions (like the ones we offer) are bound to get rid of staff stubbornness, underutilization of phone systems among other problems that stop business owners from enjoying all the benefits of investing in new business phone systems.
Contact us about your phone system questions.
