Getting Value from your phone system

Getting Value #5: Getting Value from a business telephone system
3/7/09

With all the different ways to communicate these days such as email, cell phones, text, etc; do you ever find yourself wondering why you still have a business telephone system? Well there must be a reason. After all, didn’t you go through a lot of trouble and expense when you acquired that system? You probably went through some kind of bid process: Got 2 or 3 quotes, compared features, and warranties, maybe involved some of your staff, asked about service contracts, and on and on……...

So, even though systems today are not as expensive as they were several years ago, they still represent a significant investment of dollars and time. Now here is my question for you: Where is the VALUE? What kind of INCREASE has this investment brought you? Where is the PRODUCTIVITY? The GAIN? The PROFIT?

The business telephone system is a portal into your organization; a tool for increasing productivity, enhancing customer service and generally providing a platform for efficient communications on all levels. That efficient communication will help your organization become more profitable.

Now think about this: If your telephone system was having some kind of negative impact on your business or organization, how would you know? Have you ever overheard an employee say something along the lines of “This phone sucks!”? How might this be affecting the morale of other employees? What about customers?

In order for any business phone system to bring value to an organization, it must be configured and programmed properly and according to who your callers are and what you want them to experience. All phone systems today are very feature rich. Even the smallest office telephone today system has many of features that, a few years ago, would only have been offered in systems with several hundred phones. How those features and applications are utilized will determine how successful you are at optimizing value.

So when is the last time you thought about any of those features that were so important when you first acquired that system? Most businesses forget much of their system’s capabilities, and many useful features remain dormant or undiscovered for years, when they could be solving communications problems and building customer loyalty on a daily basis.

Try this sometime: Pretend you’re a customer, and call into the number that your company or organization publishes, the number that customers normally call into. What happens when you try to obtain some information? Or get through to a particular individual? Or how about place an order? Did you get what you needed? Any problems? Get transferred to the wrong department? Or how about this: You get transferred to a voicemail box of a former employee who’s been gone for 2 years! Yeah, that will make a good impression on your customers!! So what will you do about it?

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Steve Melillo, President INS Technologies Call me: 973-787-1004 Or text: 973-632-5454