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These days, office phones are basically computers on your network. VoIP stands for "Voice over IP", which is a fancy way of saying that the phones work over a computer connection, not the old standard phone lines we all used to have. Years ago, if you had small business with about ten employees, you may have needed to get at least five phone lines to make sure that at least half of your team could be on the phones at the same time. If a sixth call came in, that would end up getting a busy signal. With VoIP, you can have as many simultaneous calls as you want, and it all works over your Internet connection - no "phone lines" needed.
With a computerized phone system, you also have a lot of options about how to manage your system. Here are a few highlights of things that will be helpful to know about, and at the end of the article we have a link to a more comprehensive guide to voicemail. Note that all the details specifically relate to Ekaru deployed phone systems with our partner GoTo, but if you're on a different platform, you may have some of the features as well. In general, with a VoIP phone system you get a LOT of features.
Set Up
As you get started, be aware that a voicemail box is pre-built for each user so you don't have to do anything to create it, but for you will want to customize your greeting, and also in this day and age, make sure you change the default password. Also, for convenience, you can have all voicemails sent to your email with transcription (it's not perfect, but makes it very quick to watch for important messages). Detailed instructions are included in the link at the end of this post.
Check Voicemail
With advanced technology comes a lot of choices. You have multiple options to check your voicemail. You can retrieve voicemails from your personal deskphone, your desktop app on your computer, your mobile app on your smartphone, dialing in from any remote phone, and from another desktop in your office. I find that if I get a lot of calls to go through, the fastest method for me is to use the desktop app, but know that you have many options. Details instructions are included in the link at the end of the post.
Manage Voicemail
Here's where you can get a lot more options for managing your voicemail. You can change your password, delete voicemails, forward voicemails to another box, change your settings, change your greeting (great if you have a special event or promo going), add a temporary greeting for a vacation/holiday, remove a temporary greeting, and transfer a call to voicemail. This last feature is a feature that's pretty helpful to avoid unnecessary interruptions. If you know for example that someone is in a meeting, or they asked to not be disturbed except for high priority calls, you can transfer a live call direct to another person's voicemail without interrupting them.
For more detailed instructions on how to work with any of these features, here's a link to a comprehensive guide from GoTo - Everything voicemail, all in one place. Included are detailed instructions and some videos. Take a few moments review some of the features - you'll find things here to help you be more productive. Also, you'll save yourself the last minute stress of trying to update a greeting while you really need to rush to the airport.
If your office is working with an out of date phone system, contact us to set up a demo of what's possible today!