As traditional PBX phones gradually fade out in this age of incredible innovations, many businesses have adopted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to satisfy their communications and collaboration needs. Considering all the mouth-watering benefits of VoIP, there is no doubt that this is a smart move. If you own a business, you should make VoIP your friend, too. However, if you’re already using VoIP to scale your business, there is a huge chance you’ve not fully harnessed its potential.
You probably already know and are using a handful of the VoIP features, including the Auto Attendant, Call recording, Call Queues, Voicemail-to-Email, Video Calling, etc. If so, your business productivity and efficiency have improved. However, this blog discusses some lesser-known VoIP features that, if used right, will boost your business productivity tremendously.
This is a type of call transfer where the caller is put on hold while a call transfer agent or customer support representative communicates with the appropriate recipient, usually another agent.
For context, think of a business with different departments such as Sales, Admin, and Human Resources. If a customer wants someone in Sales, the customer support rep tells them to hold, reaches out to the Sales department, and informs them of the caller’s needs before connecting both parties. Where a recipient in the Sales team is unavailable, the customer support rep simply transfers the call to another member of the team. In this way, a client can be sure that he’s speaking to the right person.
Attended transfers are warm, personable, and make the customer feel valued. They also give the recipient of the call in the appropriate department the right background information to serve the customer better. Thus, it’s a win-win for your business– your customers experience higher satisfaction levels, and your agents have higher resolution rates.
This feature serves the same function as the attended transfer with a slight difference. In this case, the call is bumped from one person to another in the appropriate department without any communication whatsoever. Customers hear a dial tone as they’re put on hold, and the call is transferred. If a call recipient/agent is unavailable, the call is bounced to another agent within the required department, again without introductions. Blind Transfer comes in handy where no interaction is required between the one transferring the call and the extension receiving it.
This type of call transfer is also called Cold Transfer, perhaps because of the coldness or impersonal approach it takes. But for all its coldness, it does have its advantages. Consider a situation where someone in Accounts receives a call and realizes the customer actually needs someone in Sales. The accounts personnel simply puts the call on hold and transfers it to the Sales Department. That way, he frees up his line faster for other callers relevant to his department.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to decide when you wish to receive calls or when not to be disturbed without leaving clients stranded? That’s exactly what the VoIP Time Conditions feature can do for you. It allows you to route your calls as needed at a particular time. Is your lunchtime between 12 and 1 pm? Have your calls routed to a colleague. Will you be in a meeting by 8 am? Send your calls to the front desk so they can talk to someone instead of being sent to the cold voicemail you hardly check. In essence, you can define as many time conditions and corresponding actions as possible. Done properly, you’ll never miss important calls or leave clients stranded and guessing. This makes your business appear more efficient and be better for it.
Whether we want it or not, disasters do happen. And when they do, most businesses go under fast, especially those who did not invest in a disaster-proof communication setup. The Disaster Resistant Setup feature in VoIP ensures that your business continues operating even if you do not have a physical base of operations. This setup may include a phone kit that you can start using when you get to a safe location with broadband internet after a disaster. This will give you access to all the features you had before. It will be like you never left the office.
There are a plethora of VoIP features out there that can make your business more efficient, productive, and effective. However, the features you can get depend largely on the VoIP service provider you choose. With Supreme Call, you’ll have lots of features to choose from. We also help our clients discover what features are most suitable for their business. Contact us today and watch your business grow beyond your imagination.
