We’ve written in the past about how virtual numbers can help you avoid a dangerous winter commute, but there are many other ways to leverage the benefits of a cloud based phone system in order to "weather the storm". Lately, we've been witnessing the power of Mother Nature at work, from the wet El Nino rain in the western states to the heavy snowfall in the east which has left many workers stranded. This has no doubt affected SMBs, forcing some businesses to close the doors early. In many cases though a cloud based phone system could have prevented any lost revenue by allowing them to keep the “doors” open virtually. Here’s how a cloud based phone system can help winter proof your business:
- Call routing with a professional auto attendant. The Auto Attendant is the hub of automation for your cloud based phone system. It answers, routes, and manages your calls for you so your company always sounds professional. Easily add more numbers or extensions and control when and how your calls are routed and answered. This is particularly useful when your workforce is dispersed or when changes to the system need to be made remotely.
- Call forwarding with features. You can connect your incoming business calls to you or your staff wherever you choose, on any device. You can also have calls routed to multiple employees simultaneously. No more worrying who made it into the office, you can make sure no call gets missed. Although even if it does, the cloud based phone system also comes with Professional Greetings to give an optimal experience for callers.
- Outbound calling to make office calls from home. With some cloud based phone systems, you can place outbound calls directly from within the management console. For example, with Cloud Phone, you can simply enter the number you want to call and the number where you want to connect from. The system will dial the number, and once connected, it will also dial you. Why is this important? Well if you are snowed in at home you can still make calls to customers as if you are sitting at your desk miles away. (Hmmm, come to think of it maybe we shouldn’t wait for a snow storm to use this feature. Making office calls from the beach sounds even better!)
- Virtual numbers can offer temporary or permanent coverage. As we covered in our recent post, virtual numbers are phone numbers that are routed to an existing calling device, such as your office phone and/or mobile phone. If a call is missed, callers will be forwarded to voicemail, which can be personalized with a professional business greeting. These can be particularly helpful for seasonal promotions, special events or perhaps an after-hours support number that you publish to your customers.
- Disaster recovery: if a storm takes down your office, you won’t lose everything. Another perk of the cloud based phone system is when an outage occurs or natural disaster strikes, calls can be automatically rerouted to another office. Creating even more peace of mind and preventing financial loss, since the managed solution involves storage of activity, all of the call data can be backed up.
Taking advantage of a cloud based phone system can offer big upside for small businesses, especially during these winter months. These are just a few of the ways offerings such as Cloud Phone can help keep business communications flowing. We’d love to hear how a cloud based phone system has helped your business this winter. Share your stories in the comments here or on our social media pages - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.