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Basic Telephone System Features |
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Basic Telephone System Features
Office
telephone systems can be equipped with literally hundreds of features
for switching calls and directing traffic. Market research indicates
that most companies only use 5 to 10 percent of their telephone
features. Instead of comparing features on a one-to-one basis, you
should examine how your phone system is to be used. Limit your feature
search and evaluation to only those options that will improve the
workflow for your business.
All systems have the core features of
hold, transfer, call pickup and paging through the phone or external
speakers. However the user interface for these features varies from
system to system so when you have narrowed your selection to two or
three vendors, make sure you have a live demonstration of the operation
of these and other features you require. Bring along a heavy telephone
user from the office as they can often highlight poor user
functionality that is evident on some telephone systems.
Some of the other features that are standard in many systems and are of value to many organisations include:
Auto-attendantAn
auto-attendant is the recorded message that answers your phones and
instructs callers how to reach the person or department they are
looking for. If you have a high volume of calls or provide after hours
support, this may be important - or you may value having a real person
answer every call. If auto-attendant is relevant to your business, look
closely at your needs as functionality varies significantly between
products.
ConferencingConferencing can minimise travel times
for meetings but features vary widely. Consider how often your staff
needs to make conference calls, and how many different people need to
call in. If the conferencing features you need aren't readily
available, there are other options for conducting teleconferences that
you can purchase separately.
Direct InDial The majority
of business calls are from people we deal with regularly. InDial uses
 ISDN technology to allow individual staff to have their own dedicated
number so that these calls can be made direct to their extension
without going via reception – saving valuable time. In conjunction with
voice mail, in dial provides significant benefits to most businesses.
Least Cost Routing (LCR)This
feature automatically selects the most cost effective outside line for
any number dialed from your office. For instance to minimize your phone
bill, you may have all your long distance calls with Optus, all calls
to mobiles with Primus and international calls with another network
provider. LCR will automatically pick the correct (lowest cost) carrier
for each call type.
Music-on-holdMusic-on-hold is fairly
self-explanatory - in most systems you have internal music source(s) or
simply plug in a source of music to your system. Find out more in our
Message On Hold Buyer's Guide.
Night/Holiday ServiceThis feature
automatically assigns a different ringing plan for after hours,
weekends or holidays. This allows you options such as directing calls
to a courtesy message that your business only operates during business
hours or if you provide 24x7 support, calls could be automatically
screened and directed to service technicians as required.
Ring GroupsMany
organisations have single number for groups like accounts, sales or
service. This feature allows calls to these organisational groups to be
set up with different ring options for the phones within a group. For
instance all phones could ring or one phone could ring 3 times and if
it is not answered the next nominated phone in the group could ring and
so on.
Tracking Calls (SMDR)SMDR or Station Message Detail
Recorder provides details of all telephone calls, both internally and
externally, made from every phone connected to the system. When used
with Call Accounting software, It provides a tool to analyse the
calling patterns within your company to identify operational
inefficiencies and to reduce overall call costs.
Toll Barring/Class of ServiceWith
this feature you can limit access to international, long distance or
mobile calls to staff who require such access as part of their jobs. If
class of service is important, have a good understanding of what your
requirements are as some products provide more sophisticated
implementations than others.
Speed Dial DirectoryAll systems
have the capability to store 100’s of frequently used numbers. Most
products allow you to associate an alphanumeric name with the number so
you can easily find using dial by name directory service. With caller
ID, some telephone systems can display the name of the calling party if
their number is in the speed dial directory. A feature to look for is
whether the phone system allows you to import your phone directory from
applications like Excel as this can save a lot of time in both set up
and management of your speed dial numbers.
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