The advantages of using integrated telephone systems

Most of us have a mobile phone, email and an office phone, which may or may not have a voicemail service. Some of us also have Blackberrys (Smartphones), or use instant messaging or text messaging. So how do our customers know what is the best way to contact us? And how do we know when our customers or colleagues have left us a message?
According to primary research by Avaya, 38% of lost revenue was due to the unavailability of a worker when needed.
Communications within businesses are not always unified. Email is not integrated with voicemail systems, voicemail systems are not integrated with mobile phones, mobile phone contacts are not linked to the directory on the office telephone system. You may also have two telephone numbers, two voicemail services, an email inbox and an SMS inbox.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could bring all this together through your telephone system? Your voicemail is delivered to your office phone, your mobile phone and our email inbox? What if you could answer a voicemail by email or an email with voicemail?

Unified Communications, as it is known, is the ability to bring all our communications solutions together in a simple and more cohesive way. By using a single number for contact, our customers always know how to get hold us and we don’t have to disclose our mobile phone numbers. Calls will be routed by the office telephone system to wherever you are.

When you’re on the road it can be difficult to read or respond to emails. By using text to speech technology, our emails can be read to us and we can reply just as easily using speech recognition software.

So how can Unified Communications solutions in a telephone system differ from standard business telephony systems?

Unified communications puts more information in the hands of management enabling better, more informed decisions to be made.

Customers receive a better level of service, as they are more likely to be routed to the intended person first time.

40-70% of all mobile phone calls are made in the office. By routing calls from mobile phones through the office telephone system, call costs can be greatly reduced.

A telephone system with unified communications solutions gives your business a competitive advantage. In fact if your business telephony systems do not incorporate some kind of unified communications, you are at a competitive disadvantage to those that do.

Keith McGregor is a partner of Strawberrysoup, a web design agency with offices in Chichester and Bournemouth. Strawberrysoup specialise in creative web design, content managed websites, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and graphic design