Essential Features That Business Phones Must Have
The one thing that customers hate is to be put on hold when they call up a business house. On the other hand, business houses do not want disgruntled customers. They want to provide the best possible customer support. Today, telecom systems coupled with information technology are providing excellent and affordable business phone solutions.
One of the essential features that business phones must have is the auto-attend feature. When customers call they hear a list of options. These include pressing particular numbers to reach a department within the organization. This feature can be changed after office hours and on weekends and holidays and the calls get routed to a helpline. This feature means that the calls by customers will never go unanswered.
Another important feature to have is some music being played if the customer is put on hold. Hearing nothing from the other end makes a customer think his call has got disconnected. But the customer should never be put on hold for too long as this will irritate him. The system should have more extensions than the business requires and each employee should be able to record a message that is played when they are not at their desks. Message recording (voice mail) is also required as this allows the employee to listen to messages and call back customers. Caller identification is another feature that a business phone system must have. With this feature the employee recognizes who is calling and can start the conversation by greeting the caller by his or her name. This feature makes the caller/customer feel important and valued.
Another required feature is call forwarding. This allows the employees to leave their desks and get the calls forwarded to the extension they are going to be at. Calls can also be forwarded to mobile phones and to home phone numbers of the employees. This feature adds a lot of value to the business as some customers can be very particular and they only talk to a particular employee.
The business phone system should be capable of handling conference calls. The conference call facility should allow internal lines to connect and to hold a conference call. The requirement of external number of lines will depend on how many people shall be in a conference call.
Business phone systems integrate fax, phone and internet solutions in one package. A feature that is becoming increasingly popular is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This feature allows the internet to be used for voice calls. This cuts down the cost of international calls drastically.
Getting a universal number like a 0845 number adds to the image of the business. The business may be located in one place or have branch offices and customers will just need to remember a single number to call.
There are a number of business phones service providers in the UK. Make sure that the solution they provide can be upgraded later on. There is a fierce competition among business phone service providers and you should be able to strike a good deal.
