Stargate Technologies, Inc.

Many small businesses have questions about the best way to answer their phones. Often it is about balancing the need to handle call volumes and still give great customer service.

Here are 6 ways your business can answer the phones. Seeing some of the alternatives may help you decide if what you are doing is best for you or if there is a way that might make more sense.

1) Ring Attendant Phone Only
This is a common scenario and can be effective unless you want all calls answered live and someone has to run to this phone when the receptionist is out.

2) Ring to a Group of Phones
This can be a great alternative where a call can ring to the attendant station and also to one or more other phones. When the attendant is out or overloaded other staff can then assist with answering as needed.

3) Ring Everyone
This is typically not the best way for calls to be answered. Generally there are certain staff who will be interrupted by having their station ring all day long. But in some cases this scenario can make sense.

4) Automated Attendant
Although this method is generally one that business owners to not want to inflict on their customers it has become so ubiquitous that people are used to it. Most of the reasons that people hate to use auto attendants have to do with poor programming of the menu options in the first place. If one of the options above is not right for your company then the AA is probably right for you.

5) DID (Direct Inward Dial)
DIDs typically require a T1 or PRI in most cases. T1s can be expensive for small businesses and may eliminate this choice for some organizations. Keep in mind that DID’s will change many things about how your organization works. For example if you have sales staff that gets calls to their direct line and that staff person leaves your organization you will need that line to be answered and that voicemail associated with that number to be check regularly by someone. Also the people who have that number will call if for everything. In other words they will call that persons number even with they want customer service or some other option. Then they will leave a message and often not get the attention they needed in a timely fashion. For many companies however the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. One major advantage is sales staff being able to get calls faster and easier.

6) Mobility.
Mobility is a fantastic option that is unique to the Avaya IP Office telephone system. It means that calls that ring to an extension whether transferred there or coming in on a direct line can ring on that station and on a cell phone at the same time. So if have staff that is out of the office much of the time this can be a great option. The call can come back to the office voicemail if not answered.

Plain Old Telephone Service.  The basic service providing standard single-line telephones, telephone lines and access to the PSTN.  This service provides no features, such as Call Waiting or Call Forwarding, just dial tone and the abiliity to make and receive calls.  POTS is always delivered on Loop Start lines.

Well if you are located in the Seattle, Bellevue area you will be hearing more and more buzz about Ethernet Over Copper (EOC) soon, if you are not already. You can expect the cold calling hoards employed by the many alternative carriers to be pushing this as a new talking point. “You need to at least understand how your competitors are using this new technology” they will say. Or that great old standard “I would like to show you how you can save thousands and increase your productivity with EOC.”  followed with “I’ll be in your area on Tuesday so what time works best for you 11am or 2pm?”

So what is Ethernet Over Copper and should you stop to talk to one of these salespeople? The answer is maybe. Depending on your business needs there is a chance that EOC will offer you some surprising benefits depending on your business needs.

One advantage is that EOC will be offering increasing savings over T-1s. The second benefit is that unlike DSL and cable the bandwidth is symmetrical. That is to say you get the same speed up and down. And with an increasing use of VPNs and VoIP and emerging SIP trunking lots of up speed is becoming increasingly important. So to get 5Mb or 10Mb up and down for less than the cost of a T-1 will certainly get the attention of many business owners and IT professionals in the area.

Another nice advantage of the technology is built in redundancy. Since it is delivered by copper pairs if any loop fails you still have the connection, only just a little slower, at least as long as some loops remain.

So if you decide to talk to one of these salespeople about EOC then make sure you don’t focus entirely on price. I would be more concerned with the provider’s backbone. Just a couple of DS3’s may not cut it when they start getting lots of subscribers to this service. And of course what is the reputation they have for responding to customer concerns?

 One potential source of help would be to talk to a company that installs phone hardware but does not provide carrier services. They have a perspective on the industry that can be helpful to you because they get to deal with all the carriers and see how the work. Give us call or post any questions you have here and we would be happy to help as well.

Public Switched Telephone Network.  PSTN simply refers to the local, long distance and international phone system which we use every day.  In some countries, it’s only one phone company.  In countries with competition (like the US), PSTN refers to the entire interconnected collection of local, long distance and international phone companies, which could be thousands.