Archive for the ‘Business Telephone Systems’ Category

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Why choose Telcare’s productivity boosting software?

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

At Telcare, we always ensure that we offer the most complete telecoms solutions, so that they work hard for you and are a real benefit your business.

Here is a quick reminder about call recording and call management options which are available, designed to boost your business in terms of the customer experience, employee training and evaluation, and overall productivity.

We offer a number of solutions that can be tailored to your own individual business needs. As with all our products and services, we’ll assess your systems, your set up and your budget, and recommend a cost-effective solution that can be merged with your existing telephony systems – as well as allow room for expansion in the future.

While space does not permit a full description of what each product does, here is a taster …

Call Management

From having the ability to add important information to a recorded customer call that can be delivered in a report, to sophisticated call logging systems, these services will give you an in depth understanding of what your customers need and want.

How may it help your business?

This will enable you to streamline processes and see any “gaps” that may need to be filled in terms of staff training and business communications (such as information on your website, within brochures etc).

Digital Recording – including mobile phone calls

The service provides tamper proof telephone call recording across a number of PBX brands and telephony conventions. Recording can be made over a combination of digital, analogue or IP phones and can be set up to interface with almost any combination of recording inputs and media output requirements. Mobile phone calls can be archived along with voicemails and text messages too.

How may it help your business?

Call recording may be mandatory to comply with government regulations in some industries (such as personal finance) and which will help you achieve your compliance and risk management objectives.

Recording calls can save you time if there is a dispute over “who said what” – as well as being a very useful staff training and development tool.

PC Screen Recording and Performance Management

PC screen and voice recording work simultaneously to see how accurately information is keyed in while an employee is dealing with a telephone call. Performance management packages offer a number of ways in which the handling of calls are monitored – without the need for you to sit in silently on a live call.

How may it help your business?

These services enable you to effectively monitor employee performance, as well as customer satisfaction, helping with training and evaluation. Good customer service helps retain customers while training staff increases productivity.

Speech Analytics

This is an audio search engine which can phonetically search for and retrieve individual recordings to assist with your business needs.

How may it help your business?

Speech analytic software is designed to increase operational efficiency, improve productivity, and aid a rapid response to market conditions. It provides real time access to valuable intelligence about clients and staff.

Call Handling

Designed for contact centres, there are two solutions, offering inbound call-handling and queuing services, providing auto-attendant functionality and increasing outbound call services.

How may it help your business?

These systems can reduce employee idle time by speeding up the outbound calling process as well as call progress analysis and call scripting.

So, if you are looking to improve all or any of the following – customer service, staff performance, capability, and competency – and from proven technology, then why not get in touch today? We’d be very happy to tell you more.

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Thursday, December 13th, 2012

Telcare’s Guide to Telephone Etiquette

No matter what your position within a company, the way you answer and deal with a customer telephone call will reflect on the whole organisation. If you answer the phone, you really do have to remember that you are offering a service. Being professional and helpful will make the customer feel appreciated, valued – and more likely to stay with you.

On the other hand, being disinterested, rude and / or unhelpful when answering the telephone will probably drive customers away! They are obviously calling you for a reason, so do your best to help!

Of course, while it is common sense to be professional and polite on the telephone, it can often be easy to forget the “rules” – particularly so if we are distracted or busy, or if you have work experience staff in the office.

Here at Telcare we share some tips on the Do’s and Don’ts of telephone etiquette …

  1. DO smile when you answer the telephone – it really makes a difference to how you sound to the caller
  2. When answering the telephone, always identify yourself and / or the company – saying just “Hello” means the caller will have to ask if you are such-and-such a business
  3. The above point is particularly important for people who work from home – DON’T let children answer the telephone – or get a separate work-only telephone line installed
  4. DON’T answer the telephone if you are eating / drinking / chewing – no one likes to hear munching and slurping on the other end of the phone!
  5. DON’T say that someone is in the loo / making a cup of tea / missing etc if they receive a telephone call. Say that they are in a meeting and take a message – much more professional!
  6. If the person the caller wants to speak to isn’t in the office today, DON’T ask them to call back tomorrow. If you cannot help them yourself, take their name, telephone number and a short message – and make sure you pass the details on
  7. DON’T use slang; swear; or carry on another conversation in the background
  8. DO listen – many of us are guilty of not fully focusing on a telephone call!
  9. If taking a message, DO repeat it back to the caller to make sure you have taken it down correctly
  10. DON’T let the telephone ring more than three times if possible
  11. If you need to put someone on hold, ask their permission first and thank them
  12. DON’T interrupt a caller – and never engage in an argument. Always be polite and sympathetic
  13. DO return telephone answerphone calls and messages promptly. If you are apathetic dealing with a customer, they will take their business elsewhere
  14. Finally, ensure that any new or temporary members of staff take a look at these tips before letting them loose on the phones!

We hope these reminders will be useful to you. Whether you are the receptionist or the Chief Executive, the office telephone is a shop front to your clients – so make sure you portray the most professional image possible!

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6 top tips on auditing your telecoms

Saturday, August 25th, 2012

Are you paying more than you should be for your telecoms? This may seem a strange question to ask, but we often come across businesses that are paying for services they no longer use or need. For example, in the last few months alone, we have found that two new customers were overpaying by around £550 and £850 a year respectively!

One was paying twice for his broadband, while the other was paying for telephone lines he no longer used – both easy things to overlook when you are in the midst of running and managing your business.

Of course, we appreciate that carrying out an audit on your bills and telephony systems may not be high on your list of priorities – so that is why we have come up with our top pointers on what to look out for. These are all quite simple things to check out, but could make you some attractive cost savings …

  1. are you being charged for lines you are no longer using? Maybe you have downsized your workforce, but still have the same amount of lines coming in?
  2. are you paying for something you thought you had cancelled? For example, maybe you switched broadband providers and kept your old broadband running until your new one was up and working, then forgot to cancel the original agreement?
  3. are you using an old, non-efficient system that costs you more to get the service you want? One example of this is a new customer who previously did not have the facility to transfer calls internally. Every time she received a call, she’d ask the caller to leave a message. She would then have to get the person they needed to speak to, to call back. This was not cost nor time effective for anyone – as well as portraying a rather unprofessional image;
  4. are you paying for a service and maintenance agreement that could be cheaper elsewhere? Take a good look at what your agreement provides and how much it costs – just as you’d shop around when buying a new TV, taking a bit of time to get a few alternative quotes for your maintenance agreements may be beneficial;
  5. do you make lots of calls to mobile phones? If so, could you get a better tariff? There are tariffs designed specifically for businesses who call mobile telephones a lot;
  6. and on the subject of tariffs, are you still on the most cost-efficient tariff overall? Telephony service providers often update or bring in new tariffs, so you may find one that is more suited to your calling habits.

We hope these pointers have helped. However, if you want us to carry out a full audit of your telephones systems, please feel free to get in touch. You’ve got nothing to lose and, potentially, only savings to gain!

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Mobiles vs. landlines for business use

Friday, August 10th, 2012

With businesses starting up, often on a very limited budget, or where there is just one person, using mobile phones for business (instead of a land-based service) can be a popular choice. While there is no doubt, however, that a mobile phone means clients should be able to reach you as and when they want to, here at Telcare we feel there are some real advantages to having an office telephone system rather than being just a mobile phone based business. Here’s why:

  • above all, having a landline number looks more professional. Clients and potential clients can see that you are a fully fledged business, rather than a “man / woman with a phone”;
  • a land-based service gives the impression of a company, with an office and staff – ie. a genuine, serious, business;
  • can you really give 100% to the customer whilst on hands-free driving along a motorway, shouting at them over the noise of the road? It’s not a great way to transact business. Conversations can often be misunderstood in terms of what is actually being said, and no one likes being shouted at!
  • people often prefer to call landlines as not only is generally less expensive, but it feels more convenient, as you know that the person answering will be sat at their desk – or not! There is nothing more annoying / frustrating than ringing someone on their mobile and they are on the train (so the signal keeps breaking up) or they ask you to call back in ten minutes as they are “just getting a sandwich”;
  • ringing a landline gives you a central point of contact – in mobile-only businesses where there is more than one person, a customer may become frustrated ringing first one mobile, then another, in a bid to get through to someone;
  • having a landline gives you back control with the client “emergency” calls (you know, the ones that happen at 10pm on a Sunday night when you are a Monday-Friday 9-5 business). Mobile phones only can make you too accessible;
  • there are many services that landlines provide that mobiles may not – eg. “hold”, “divert” “transfer” etc. You can even divert calls from your landline to your mobile if you want, if you still want to give your customer means to get in touch with you wherever you are;
  • some mobile phone users like the idea that by giving a mobile number only, their clients will not know their location. However, non-geographical landline telephone numbers are available, too. These are numbers where your location cannot be determined by your telephone dialling code. So, customers may get the perception of you being in a big city, even if you are in fact working in a garden shed in your back garden in Dartford! Plus, you can retain the number even if you move (for example, if you upgrade to bigger premises) without having to change all your stationery!

So, as you can see, having a landline number really could be beneficial to your business.

We appreciate that someone starting up a new business may think it is too expensive to get an office telephone system. However, this is not the case. At Telcare, we have a number of small business telephone systems solutions that won’t break the bank – which in the long term may even help improve your profits as your image becomes more professional.

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Great telephone maintenance myths

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

Here are a list of some of the great telephone maintenance myths and the associated reality:

  • modern phone systems don’t need maintenance – if only that were true! In practice, modern systems require preventative service and maintenance and deciding to economise on that might be a risky step to take, given the criticality of modern telephone systems for a typical business operation;
  • you can find a telephone engineer easily when you need to – it might be unwise to put that to the test in a crisis. If you would prefer to rely on something other than luck, you may wish to consider a telephone systems maintenance contract with a reliable and professional provider;
  • the latest business telephone systems are totally fault tolerant and can’t go wrong – once again, would you wish to gamble on that assumption? In practice, even the highest quality systems with the greatest degree of resilience may suffer technical failures. If they do, the difference for you between disaster and inconvenience might be the quality of your telephone systems support contract and the people that are providing it;
  • it’s best to ignore helpdesks and go directly to known experts – tempting as that may be, you may see the problems it might cause when (e.g.) your direct contact has to go home sick and nobody at their organisation knows a problem is in progress because the helpdesk haven’t logged it. In practice, the helpdesk function may be critical in diagnosing and helping to remedy your problem – and trying to bypass it may be ill-advised;
  • you can find private individuals to do your maintenance for you cheap – that may possibly be the case but how you assess their capabilities in advance? Even if they were capable of providing an excellent service, in the event they are on holiday or off sick and you have crisis, what would you do? What would happen if they caused a problem in your system and then were unable to resolve it? These are all things to think and be cautious about;
  • a new system is under warranty and all costs are covered there – in practice, your warranty may be subject to your system being professionally maintained. Fail to do so and elements of your warranty may be invalidated. So, even if budget constraints are in the air, economising on your telephone maintenance and assuming your warranty will cover you, might not be a smart move.

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Supporting Siemens telephone systems

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

A byword for quality, telephone systems from Siemens may help your business to grow and prosper. Yet there are a few points that you may wish to bear in mind if you are to maximise the benefits obtainable:

  • any telephone system, however well-made and state-of-the-art it is, may need routine and regular maintenance – just as is the case with a motor vehicle;
  • ignoring this maintenance may increase the frequency of problems and outages – things that may cause you huge difficulties in terms of business continuity;
  • arranging for emergency problem resolution is typically less cost-effective than preventing problems arising in the first place;
  • through services, such as ours, helpdesk and telephone systems maintenance contracts just might help you avoid operational problems – and that must be a sensible objective for any small business;
  • of course, however well your system is maintained, there is always still the inevitable risk of problems arising;
  • when they do, it may be safe to predict that your first requirement will be for an urgent contact point in the shape of a helpdesk with access to expertise;
  • the first stage in problem resolution is usually diagnosis and you may be surprised at how frequently that can be conducted speedily and efficiently over the phone;
  • in some situations, it may also be possible to resolve the problem through telephone contact, thereby avoiding the need for on-site visits;
  • if on-site attendance is required, you may also wish to have the peace of mind of having a service level agreement (often known as an SLA) in place that will document average service times in terms of getting an engineer to your premises;
  • typically, it is more cost-effective and efficient to have a contract and agreement in place rather than simply to end up frantically ringing around trying to arrange ad hoc support in the event of a crisis;
  • such an arrangement may also ensure that your support company and their helpdesk, fully understand your system in advance of any particular issues arising;
  • if that is not the case, precious time may be lost while your support staff try to learn the intricacies of your individual system before they can begin to attempt to diagnose the origin of the problem, let alone remedy it;
  • we would always be only too happy to discuss with you, the nature of support and maintenance services for Siemens telephone systems available from us.

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Non-geographical numbers and how your business may benefit

Friday, April 20th, 2012

There was a time when a business relocation meant not only all of the traditional logistical challenges involved in getting people, equipment and furniture from A to B but also the need to potentially change your telephone numbers.

In fact, at one time even moving a relatively short distance within the same major city may have resulted in the obligatory need to change your telephone number, with all the implications of that for things such as stationery, business cards, advertising and so on.

If your move were over a significant distance, your entire telephone number including dialling prefixes would also have needed to change.  In fact, today that may still be the case unless you choose non-geographical telephone numbers.

Why retain your existing numbers?

In the past, the effort associated with ordering and printing stationery carrying a new telephone number, may have been a significant cost and logistical inhibitor.

It may be fair to say that today that remains an issue, although perhaps proportionally not as significant as it may once have been.

What may be far more serious today are things such as:

  • you may have worked hard to get your phone number to be the first number of instinctive choice for your clients.  Essentially, it may be seen as part of your brand and changing it may undermine much of what you have previously achieved in these respects;
  • existing advertising may have an intended lengthy shelf life but that may be totally undermined if it cannot be left in place due to the fact that it is now carrying a number that is no longer correct;
  • you may have relationships with customers and suppliers who interface directly and possibly even automatically with your systems through dial-up services – they may all need to be notified and their systems changed if you intend to change your number.

Are there options?

Assuming that some of the above effects are unpalatable and ‘do nothing’ is therefore not a serious contender, you may be faced with one of two choices:

  • re-route your calls from your original number to your new geographical based number, wherever that may be;
  • adopt non-geographical numbers as your strategic solution.

The former option may be perfectly viable and even desirable, particularly in situations where you may wish to maintain a token physical or marketing presence in your original location.

The second possibility may offer the attraction of meaning that you are free to locate your business wherever you wish and however often you may need to move, your number stays the same and goes with you. It might be particularly appealing to newer businesses that have no legacy numbers to deal with.

So, no need to change stationery, issue number change notifications to customers or scrap existing advertising in a hurry, should you need to relocate your business.

These options may be something worth considering further and we’d be only too happy to discuss them with you.

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Cold calling on the telephone: what can you do about it?

Friday, April 6th, 2012

There are some types of unsolicited telephone call, typically described collectively as cold calling, which may prove to be a serious nuisance for some businesses and individuals.

If you have never experienced these calls, you may be relatively fortunate.

A Parliamentary Report issued in August 2011 reported that in 2009, OFCOM received around 6,600 complaints about silent and abandoned calls* – both examples of this genre of cold calling. OFCOM also estimated that over 22% of the UK population experienced silent calls on their landline in the period February-August 2011.

If these are an occasional occurrence, you may be able to shrug them off as a relatively infrequent irritation, however, in some situations they may become a more noticeable nuisance and even, at times, potentially distressing and disruptive.

What are they?

Advertisers have always sought to find new ways of bringing their products and services to our attention.

There may be nothing fundamentally wrong with yet there are some fundamental principles of human psychology that some advertisers may overlook.

Those relate to the fact that many people may have no major objection to impersonal passive advertising such as in the newspapers or on the TV. However, they may feel uncomfortable and the victim of unwanted intrusion, if approached on the street by salespeople or through door-to-door sales techniques.

Some people believe that cold calling is the telephone system equivalent of those intrusive sales techniques.

In practice, cold calling may include:

  • unsolicited sales telephone calls to your business or private numbers;
  • silent calls / abandoned calls – having answered a call, you are then automatically disconnected or you hear nothing at the other end (these may typically be associated with automated dialling systems used by some sales organisations);
  • automated dialling calls – aimed at fax machines, resulting in the transmission of unwanted sales materials etc.

What are the effects?

Such calls may prove to be a serious annoyance as a matter of principle or they may also cause disruption to your time management.  In some cases, they may tie up your telephone or fax lines at critical times.

To some extent, the net effect will depend on both your tolerance levels and the frequency/duration of such calls.

Your options

The link to a UK Parliament paper below provides an excellent overview or the options available to you in some detail.

As a first step, you may wish to register (free of charge) with the TPS (Telephone Preference Service).

By law, organisations making telephone marketing calls, must check with the TPS before dialling a number in order to see whether or not the owner of the number has registered that they do not wish to be called for sales purposes.

If your number is so listed on the TPS, it should stop a significant percentage of the calls reaching you (estimated at 85%*).

A second sound idea may be to ensure that your personal or business telephone system is equipped to display the calling number in order to enable you to choose whether or not to answer it.

Under current legislation* automated calling systems must display a number capable of accepting a return call, though this may be difficult to enforce in the case of calls originating from outside the UK.

Thirdly, if a problem appears to be persistent and you are able to identify the source, you may be able to make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office*.

Finally, remember that your telephone services provider may be able to facilitate the tracking of persistent nuisance calls in order to trace, block and possibly pursue further action against the perpetrators.

*Source:

UK Parliament – www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06033.pdf

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Small business telephone systems cost – colleges and schools

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

Although colleges and schools may be interested in new small business telephone systems, cost may sometimes be a factor that causes concern up-front.

Education – the background economic reality

Few sectors are under such economic pressures as that of education.

This leads to an understandable focus on cost and sometimes the tendency to put off making a decision on a new business telephone system, as long as is possible.

This occasionally masks some unpleasant cost-related realities about the ongoing use of obsolete systems:

  • their cost of ownership (running costs) may be soaring away – particularly in situations where you are frequently needing to call out engineers;
  • the risk of a fundamental and perhaps irreversible total systems failure, may increase on a day by day basis and that may lead to a corresponding decline in the robustness of your own establishment’s disaster recovery or continuity plans;
  • your professional reputation may be suffering, both with third parties (parents, investors, education boards etc) and your own colleagues and possibly pupils.

The longer you put off the decision, the worse these effects may prove to be.

Small business telephone systems – cost and balance

Contrary to some expectations, a new small business telephony system does not have to be an expensive, flagship-type project. Theoretically, it might comprise as little as two connected handsets!

What is typically important with any new office telephones system is not, in itself, the sophistication of the technology that it offers but rather its suitability for your individual requirements

In the case of some schools and colleges, those requirements may be relatively complicated. They may, for example, include things such as providing what is called a backbone network, one that may carry various forms of data traffic, including telephony, around the establishment.

In other situations, the requirements may be far more basic, involving only effectively being able to make internal calls from extension to extension and providing the capability to make external calls also.

Of course, whatever your requirements are today, they may change tomorrow and it is imperative that any solution has the capability of being easily and cost-effectively expanded should the need arise.

A range of options

We would welcome the opportunity to work alongside you, so as to help you understand what the new generation of office telephones system may be able to do for you and even more importantly, what you need from technology in order to support the way you manage your own day-to-day operations.

The outcome of this requirement analysis may not be a single proposition but in fact a spectrum containing a number of options that may vary in several respects both in terms of the facilities they will provide and of course, cost.

In terms of small business telephone systems, cost is something that is critically important but so is the ongoing management and development of your own operations. It may pay to think of the two things together at all times.

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What is the best business telephone system?

Monday, March 12th, 2012

If you are planning to spend money on a new office phone system, a number of questions may spring to mind including that of, what is the best business telephone system?

Here are some other questions we have come across during the process of advising our clients on how to take advantage of the latest advances in business telephony systems.

What is the best business telephone system?

Although this is an understandable question when contemplating a significant investment, it is also question that is impossible to answer in abstract.

The best office telephones system for one type of business, such as a small manufacturing company, may not be the same as the best system for a veterinary practice or a college etc.

It is typically necessary to look closely at the characteristics of your business and to perform an analysis of requirements, prior to reaching even a provisional conclusion.

Doesn’t a higher price always buy you a better system?

Not necessarily, no – at least not in terms of optimum solutions for your situation.

Of course, there may be no dispute that purchasing solutions from quality providers, such as Siemens business telephones, may offer a range of advantages including resilience and high-quality systems etc.

Even so, the emphasis should be on finding and purchasing a suitable and cost-effective solution rather than one which is considered to be either cheap or expensive, as such labels may do nothing to indicate to you whether the solution is fit for purpose in your context.

For example, you may pay extra for a system that is capable of supporting video conferencing but if it is not something you have any need for at the moment, you may be paying for redundant functionality.

How do I know that a system purchased today will meet my needs of tomorrow?

A fully frank response to the question is, you don’t.

Few areas of technology are moving at the same pace as communications technology and it is impossible to say what the technology may be like in five, ten or fifteen years time.

Strangely, to answer the question, it is necessary to look to the past.

Technology has changed massively over the last decade or two and the lesson to be learnt from this is not that change must be predicted but that it is necessary to look for systems that are built on technology architectures that mean that they will be better positioned to adapt to change as it arrives.

Once again, this tends to highlight the importance of purchasing solutions from major established providers who have a track record in the past of adapting to change and accommodating it on existing technological platforms where possible.

That is why companies such as Siemens are often mentioned in the context of the best business telephone system – as providers of reassurance and continuity and not just here today systems.

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