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“You don’t need all of your customers to be able to reach you. Just the ones you want to keep.” A voice processing system allows you to handle every call, and to act on it as immediately as you see fit. First, let’s get one thing straight - we call it a voice processing system because voicemail is merely a component (albeit a significant one) of the whole thing. Click here to go to the voice processing cheat sheet from PHONE SYSTEMS 101. Let’s start at the end, here. The back-end of the voice-processing system – voice mail - is the part most folks are familiar with. It’s typically where a call ends when you’re not at your desk. It allows callers to leave personal messages, and allows individual users to receive (and retrieve) those personal messages. We’re sure you’re familiar with that feature. But there’s a whole bunch of other features you may not be familiar with. Would you like to have the system notify you via cell-phone when you’ve got a new message? And what about sending your voicemail to your e-mail as a .WAV file attachment? Or how about giving callers the option to be transferred to your cell-phone by pressing a button? Or automatically copying that message to your assistant? Playing a different greeting when you’re not in the office? Recording the call? Voicemail has come a long way, baby. The front-end to the system is the automated attendant. Just what it sounds like, it allows callers to direct their own calls, dialing by extension, by department, by name – whatever you want. Although it is less expensive (and takes less potty breaks) than a live attendant, it may not completely replace her. (Or him.) So if you only want the automated attendant to come on after hours or as a last resort to “live answer”, it can certainly be configured that way. What’s more, a single voice processing has the capability to give callers as many front-ends as you’d like. This enables multiple companies under one roof (perhaps with employees-in-common) to share a phone system with ease, each maintaining their own unique identity to callers. |
