More and more companies are switching to VoIP phone systems. In the United States alone, over 35 million VoIP lines were added between 2010 and 2018 — a 670% increase. VoIP phone systems are capable of delivering better call quality, higher scalability, and advanced phone system features at much lower costs. This is a win-win. Businesses are realising that VoIP brings many benefits that save both time and money. Here are six of the most productivity-boosting phone system hacks that every good VoIP phone system should offer.
1) Use Feature Shortcodes to Improve Agility
Having lots of features on your business phone system is great, but only if you have the ability to navigate and activate those functions quickly and easily. Shortcodes provide phone systems users and administrators a shortcut to save time by letting them execute tasks with the press of a couple of buttons.
Business CLoud Telephone system allows administrators to select shortcodes from a list of options or to create their own custom shortcodes to activate features such as call parking, turning call recording on and off, switching caller IDs, or playing a custom audio file. Shortcodes are just 2 digits, improving memorability. They can even be used when you are in the middle of a call.
2) Use Call Parking for Efficient Call Handling
Call parking is a phone system feature that allows users to place a call in a “parked” status to be retrieved from any line. This frees up the phone line for other calls. Call parking helps businesses to better manage their calls while providing the customer with the same experience as being placed on hold.
Call parking is also useful for employees who don’t have a dedicated phone line. When an incoming call is parked, they can simply retrieve it by dialling a shortcode.
Users can even move locations. For example, if the receiver of the call needs to move to another office to take a call privately, they can park the call and pick it back up on another VoIP phone.
3) Set Account Permissions with Member Roles
Some employees may need additional access to certain features of your phone system. However, unrestricted access can result in employees accidentally making changes to your business-critical infrastructure. For example, you may want your staff to be able to listen to call recordings, but not be able to delete a call route. Establishing custom roles and permissions is a great way to ensure that you protect the data integrity and security of your VoIP phone system.
With an intuitive dashboard, administrators can create and modify permissions easily with member roles. Individual users are given their own login credentials and custom permissions can be granted to those users. Cloud Telephone System allows administrators to set up an unlimited number of member roles giving you the full power to ensure that every employee has the appropriate access. The best part is that the dashboard can be accessed remotely from any web browser.
4) Automate Call Routes with Time Diaries
Depending on the time of day, you may want your VoIP phone system to route calls differently. For example, if your company manages a large commercial office building, you might want daytime calls to go to the property management office and after-hours calls to be routed to the security desk.
Connect in Cloud VoIP Diary feature not only allows you to customise your call routing based on the time of day or day of the week, but you can also direct people to a voicemail box, a custom audio message, or directly to your mobile phone.
Time Diary routing also allows businesses to plan ahead for unique events such as business closures and holidays through rule exceptions on certain dates. Automating this feature gives you peace of mind to know that your calls will go exactly where you want them to go.
5) Create New Features with Our VoIP API
It’s important that companies have complete control over the systems they rely on to run their business. Traditional phone systems allow for little flexibility; businesses must use them exactly how they were designed. With VoIP, your phone system is built on an API (Application Programming Interface) which functions like the platform’s operating system.
Connect in Cloud allows its customers to pull call data and build custom features and tools with open access to our VoIP API. If your business needs a feature or special functionality that doesn’t come standard with VoIP service, you can have your in-house developer simply modify or integrate the phone system into existing programs, apps, or computer systems. For example, a business can create a custom mobile app that can be used to handle support calls.
6) Pull Call Data with Webhooks
Data and analytics are powerful tools in today’s world. Webhooks, sometimes referred to as web callbacks, are automatic notifications of special events such as incoming calls or voicemail delivery. Webhooks can also be used to push call data to another program or website to create custom stats such as most active customers, peak call hours, and average call duration. Use this information to drive important business decisions.
Connect in Cloud Cloud Telephone features have ready-to-use Webhooks or you can create your own with minimal coding. Webhooks are automated, so you don’t need to manually check for updates. Instead, the data comes to you when you need it the most.
