Phone Systems Can Save Big Money

Did you hear about the company that moved into fancy new digs? They have state of the art everything with the best of ergonomic chairs, keyboards, perfect lighting, and carpeting that will look great forever. Sound expensive doesn’t it? But for this company I should mention that the cost of their new space is cut in half.

The first thought you probably have is that they were given a sweetheart deal to move to an area that has no running water and the builder is trying to attract other companies to his property where you don’t see another living soul for days.

But the answer to this much lower cost for space lies in their new phone system. It’s not just that the phone system was purchased at a good price. It’s that the system allowed the company to move and only take one half of their employees with them.

Sounds cruel, but the half who didn’t go to the new space are happy about the whole thing because they now work using their home as their base of operations. There are a lot of moms who would like to be home when their kids get home from school. They can take a few minutes to get them straightened away before they go back to their work but they know where their kids are and what they are doing.

Some of us remember when everybody had their own office. The inside offices didn’t have windows so they were lower on the pecking order than those with outside offices because they had windows. Then because office space costs went so high things evolved to the point where everybody except the CEO has a cubicle. A cubicle where it is difficult to receive visits from clients or fight with your significant other on the phone without everybody else knowing about it. And why should a company pay for office space for sales people who are in the office maybe once a week for a couple of hours for a meeting?

When you call a large travel agency to book your next trip, chances are you are talking to someone working from their home. It’s the same for a lot of services we use our phones for these days. If their manager wants to listen in and coach the employee while they are talking to the customer they can do it from a thousand miles away.

While this might cause some in management a bit of concern because they can’t see what their employees are doing all the time, for the most part this is making for more satisfied employees and higher productivity. And that’s what the business owner wants.

The employees take their IP phones with them and hook them into their laptop wherever they may be. They could be at home, at the airport, in a customer’s office or sitting on their back deck as long as they have an Internet connection. Nothing has to be lost in terms of work accomplished just because someone is not in the office. The point is they are at work no matter where they are.

This wonderful phone system that has cut costs and increased the level of communications to a much higher level than ever before is an IP based system. Instead of the office being in a static location the office is wherever they happen to be.

These virtual offices allow the employee to do everything they can do just as if they were in the third cubicle on the right hand side when you go down that corridor.

Having an IP system allows for voice messages to be read as an email and replied to in the same fashion. That way nothing gets misinterpreted or misunderstood, making for happier customers.

Employees say that they actually work harder when they can decide whether to do an hour’s work before the kids get up in the morning and require their attention before heading off to school.

As for the boss; he or she is pleased that expenses are down and productivity is up.