The Easter holidays will soon be here, which means holiday time for staff – particularly if they have children and have a limited time to get away during the school holidays.

No matter what industry you are in, holiday periods bring a whole host of things to consider when it comes to your phone system. It’s important to make sure you manage calls well when your business is at reduced capacity.

How do you answer those calls when numbers are lower, and teams are potentially smaller?

Hunt groups

There are lots of ways that your phone system can and should be able to help you when it comes to handling lower staffing levels. Hunt groups allow certain phones to be grouped together; when someone rings that designated group, each of the phones associated with it will ring.

And of course, because there is a group it means that the call is still answered even if a member of the group is unavailable or away from the office.

Automated attendant

When staff levels are lower a key to communications success is ensuring that someone still gets to the right person as quickly as possible when they call. One method of doing this is through an automated attendant. This can lower the need for reception staff who may become overrun with calls and ensure that calls are directed to not only the correct team but also the person that is available within it.

Call forwarding

If someone isn’t at their desk for a few days, a week or even longer, it makes no sense for calls to be sent through to their phone resulting in either no response or them leaving a voicemail message. Your phone system should allow you to easily forward calls from that number to the most relevant person to handle enquiries.

Working from home

If staff are working from home then you should also be able to forward calls to their mobile. What if your employees don’t have business mobiles? VoIP could be a great option for you as it allows them to plug the phone into any internet connection and be contactable on their usual direct dial number.

Productivity

We know that when it comes to having people working remotely – productivity is key. An employee who’s cut off from the rest of the organisation by not being able to attend meetings or share documents is going to be far less efficient. So, the question is, does your phone system also allow you to integrate video conferencing, share documents in meetings or hold vital conference calls, all without additional IT infrastructure and costs?

What about charges

Some providers will add charges each time you forward a call. If your current provider is charging you sky-high rates for call forwarding, then get in touch with us as we may well be able to cut those costs.

Not working how you’d like?

As a business, we’re quick and adaptive, just as your phone system needs to be. If something needs tweaking or you need our help, then our experienced team are quick to respond.

Contact us

If your business operates a hosted phone system, you should have all the tools you need at your disposal, so you don’t miss a single call. But if not, when was the last time you reviewed your system?

Want to talk to us about your business and how you’d like your phone system to work for you? Give us a call on 01237 420010.