With working from home now becoming a “new norm,” it helps to find ways of improving productivity, efficiency, and employee engagement as business tasks are increasingly taken off site.
Clear, consistent communication is essential to any workplace no matter the setup. While working on site has the benefit of keeping in close contact with colleagues, a remote workplace may require the extra effort to replicate this convenience (or at the very least, maintain ease of communication).
Here are five ways a quality Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system can make working from home easier for you and your employees.
Convenient communication tools
Working with a VoIP phone system (or cloud-based phone system) allows you and your workers to share the same phone system despite working from different, remote locations. Plenty of VoIP services typically include audio and video web conferencing in their plans, allowing employees to easily connect with one another when necessary. Plus, these are generally easy to set up; all that’s needed is a stable, reliable internet connection.
A quality VoIP service can also provide you and your workers with your own full-featured, business desk phones for remote work, removing the need for workers to use their mobile or home phone lines. This provides greater security and privacy when communicating with customers or clients over the phone.
A mobile app may also be provided for you to easily access these VoIP features via your smartphone.
Advanced management options
A VoIP phone system’s greatest strength is the multitude of call handling and voicemail options it provides users. Employees can make use of all the traditional features of a regular phone — with additional, innovative functions.
These include the option of integrating your voicemails with your email inbox, allowing you to easily access these messages from a laptop or smart device. Some services may even transcribe a person’s recorded voicemail — a convenient option for those in a noisy environment.
A VoIP system also has the option of configuring incoming calls so that they ring all your available devices. Alternatively, the system can ring each device individually until the call is answered, avoiding potential missed calls when you need to step away from your desk.
Massive cash savings
By having an efficient, productive remote workplace (tied together by a quality phone system), you reap the benefits of greater profits and reduced costs related to on-site equipment, electricity, office rent, and other expendables. A VoIP phone system even helps you minimize charges related to long-distance calls.
Additionally, without the need for separate landlines, a VoIP system simplifies your billing process. Employees don’t need to spend time tracking their remote landline or mobile use and preparing expense reports for your approval. Instead, you get one report that includes all phone lines in your system, sparing everyone the extra time and energy.
Greater oversight
A cloud-based phone system allows for a clearer assessment of productivity, efficiency, and communication among remote workers. Employers can better monitor phone activity, which is an especially valuable tool for overseeing phone-based personnel (i.e., sales representatives and customer service). This enables businesses to outline ways of further improving business performance.
Additionally, your IT staff can have greater control over security, implementing intrusion prevention systems, access restrictions, and data encryption when and where necessary. VoIP phone systems are also typically compliant with security and auditing requirements (i.e., mandatory call logging).
When managing a remote workplace, communication should be your utmost priority. Founders Technology Group takes pride in its state-of-the-art VoIP business phones, providing features such as conference calls, voicemail transcription, automated phone attendants, and many more. Improve business efficiency while working from home — inquire with our experts today.