One of the great things about modern VoIP phone systems is that you don’t have to give everyone the same telephone.
In the old days, if you had an office full of people, you generally had an office full of identical phones. Everyone had a handset on their desk, connected to the same physical phone system.
With VoIP, things can be much more flexible.
The right phone for the right person
Some people still love having a proper phone on their desk – and there’s nothing wrong with that. A good VoIP handset gives you physical buttons, a familiar handset and features such as transferring calls, putting customers on hold and seeing who is calling.
But not everyone needs one.
Someone who spends most of their day working at a computer might prefer a softphone – an application on their PC or Mac that turns their computer into their business phone. Add a headset and they can make and receive calls without ever picking up a traditional handset. You’d be surprised how liberating it can be to have two hands free, and to not have to balance a phone under your chin!
Then there are people who work from home, travel between offices or spend most of their time visiting customers. They can use a mobile app instead, giving them access to the same business phone system from their smartphone.
And these options can all work together.
One system, several types of phone
Imagine a company with ten employees.
The reception team might have traditional VoIP handsets because they are constantly answering and transferring calls. The sales team might use softphones with headsets because they spend most of their day working at their computers. A manager might have a desk phone in the office but also use the mobile app when working from home.
They can all still be part of the same phone system, with the same company numbers, call routing and internal extensions.
That’s the clever bit.
You don’t need to choose between desk phones, computers and mobiles. You can mix and match them according to how each person actually works.
It can change as your business changes
It also means your phone system doesn’t have to be fixed.
A new employee might start with a softphone while working from home and later have a desk handset when they move into the office. Someone who spends more time travelling can switch to using the mobile app. And if your business takes on another member of staff, adding another user doesn’t mean installing another traditional phone line.
VoIP is really about giving people access to the same business telephone system in the way that suits them best.
So rather than asking “Which telephone system should we buy?”, it might be better to ask “How does everyone in our business actually work?”
Once you know that, you can build a phone system around your people – rather than making your people fit around the phone system.
At Simpatico, we can help businesses put together a VoIP solution using the right combination of handsets, desktop softphones and mobile apps. Whether you have a small office or a larger organisation with people working in different locations, we can help you find a setup that works for you. Contact us for more information.
