What is the best business phone system for Remote workers?

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 16:44

Business phones systems and business communications needs are changing all the time. Nowadays more and more people are working from home or in remote offices. Many SMEs have already moved to replace their traditional fixed lines with VoIP phone systems as the importance of being able to communicate and function across multiple offices becomes more paramount. Utilising home workers is done for many reasons and today those home or remote workers can still be part of an office telephone network even when they are miles away from the office. So what is the best type of business phone system for remote workers?

Hosted VoIP networks using and IP phones can offer multitude of benefits to businesses who require flexibility to use their office phone away from their office, but still be connected to the network. 

How do remote workers use the office Phone System?

Using an IP phone at home is easy. You plug the phone into an ethernet line, tap a few buttons and then the home worker is on the office network. Meaning that the homeworker phone will have its own extension number on the network and can be called both externally and through the internal network. Also calls within network are free and any calls made to external numbers will be put onto the main office bill thus eradicating any expenses claim forms.

It also means that an employee can work at home and feel a part of the office while continuing their work as normal. The benefits for this can be huge. Imagine entire call centres or answering services can be deployed where the employees are miles apart. This is also extremely advantageous for employees who simply can not get into work, either on a short term basis or for people who actually have long-term physical issues of getting to work. These employees can then be ingratiated to the telephony network and not feel separated by not being in the office.

Remote Working on a business Telephone System

An example of this is a small charity and customer of Voicenet Solutions. The charity offers help and support to people who are affected by drug addiction and required a call management system that would allow them to take more calls, deal with messages more efficiently and allow them to connect their central office with home workers whilst substantially reducing costs.

The Charity opted for VNcomplete from Voicenet Solutions a fixed-cost, pure hosted VoIP package which has QoS Broadband and Cisco phones included in the package. Cost savings, though obviously important to any business, especially charities, are not the only to opt for hosted VoIP. The Charity offers an advice and information service to the public and due to the nature of the calls that come through, having a reliable telephone system is an absolute necessity.

The Charity rely on the help of volunteers to work non-fixed hours. Many of the calls come in late at night, being in an office was simply not conducive to offering the best service. The Charity's new phone system means everyone can now more readily work from home and can ’hotdesk’ the phones. The phones can also be set on a call pattern, thus giving people time off after each call, or diverting to available numbers. Taking calls has proven to be so much easier and enables a charity to offer an even better service as well as attracting more volunteers.

If you would like more information about remote working and the right type of business phone system for your organisation and workforce then please get in touch.