Remove some of the frustrations towards your IT team with a hosted phone system that enhances staff productivity.
As the IT manager, you probably bear the brunt of the majority of grumbles from colleagues for all manner of incidents and IT frustrations within the business. Many users bitterly complain that their IT team hold them back and slow them down, instead of providing them with the tools they think they need to get ahead.
In the ideal world your IT team would have unlimited time and resources making it easy to provide a complete service that users within the business so often demand. Whilst this is the ideal, it is unlikely to be achievable by the vast majority of IT teams. So, how can you build a voice service that your users love, that’s simple to manage and that leaves you with more time to focus on other tasks? The following scenario will show you how this is possible, simply by making one small change to your existing phone system.
The challenge
With the recent growth in mobility and demand for flexible working, more and more businesses are investing in virtualising their IT environments. This gives their employees access to the network, files and office applications from anywhere via an internet enabled device.
Whilst many companies have invested a lot of time and money into virtualisation projects or moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud, few remember to move their voice services too. As a result, many staff are left using mobiles to make and receive business calls whilst out of the office which can be costly for the business and cause frustrations for staff. This can not only cause losses in workforce productivity but also have a detrimental effect on customer service delivery if customers are unable to get through to the right people as and when they need.
Legacy ISDN technology, whilst the trusted solution for many businesses and IT departments, is most likely to be the culprit that is preventing your business from seeing the efficiency gains expected from implementing a more flexible working environment.
The solution
If you’ve already spent a large proportion of your IT budget on projects to enable more flexible working practices it’s understandable that you might be reluctant to make any further changes to your infrastructure right away. However, with advances in IP-based voice technology, making the move from ISDN to a hosted phone system could end up actually saving you money on your current IT spend. What’s more it could also improve productivity throughout the business, making for a happier workforce as a result.
With a traditional fixed telephony solution users rely on the IT team or in many cases, their telecoms provider to implement any changes to the way their business calls are handled. This process can be time consuming and frustrating for everyone involved.
By moving to a hosted phone system the burden is taken away from the IT team. Local administrators are able to manage and configure the system via an easy-to-use web portal – meaning changes can be made according to different departmental needs. Even better, employees can manage calls easily and effectively themselves setting up call twinning, diverts and log in using your unique profile on other devices when hot-desking. Additional features such as CRM integration, softphone and mobile app to make and transfer calls over the system via mobile devices further maximise individual productivity.
A hosted IP telephony solution can meet the needs of any sized business and is capable of serving hundreds of employees.
So what?
With only a minimal capital outlay, moving to hosted voice can provide your business with a reliable and proven communications service to meet the differing needs of all stakeholders.
By making the switch not only will you benefit from a cheaper and more flexible phone service, your colleagues will also be grateful for the invaluable benefits a hosted voice solution can bring them.
Whilst a hosted phone system won’t guarantee that you’ll become the most popular person in the office overnight, it will certainly go a long way towards reducing the moans and grumbles directed towards IT from unhappy employees.
