Office Telephone System – Checklist for Medical Offices

Medical offices such as the dentist’s clinic, doctor’s clinic and laboratories need to have an effective communication system to be able to tender quality health care to their patients in or out of their facilities. It is then a must for these health care professionals to secure a reliable office telephone system to do the job for them. Below is a quick checklist on what an ideal phone system should be for these offices.

Adequate capacity – One of the most important aspects that medical practitioners need to look for in an office telephone system is the capacity. It should have enough phone channels to accommodate all incoming phone calls. Just imagine if someone tries to call you because of an emergency and your phones are busy then what a catastrophe it could be. It also important that incoming phone channels are separated from outgoing phone channels, this will ensure that the incoming capacity will remain intact regardless if you are making tons of outgoing calls.

Professional greeting message – A medical practitioner should have a well designed greeting message that will capture that trust of their callers whilst not being too fancy at the same time. Patients do not want to stay long hearing a recorded messages but a brief one that welcomes them to your office is also a must.

Reception phone – A reception style handset is also a must to assist the receptionist to her or her job more efficiently. These handsets usually have dedicated buttons to easily navigate to the features of the phone system. This will reduce waiting time and improve call handling capabilities of your office.

Secured lines – Any information that involves the health of a person should be kept private. So leaking information is a big NO for medical practitioners. It is then a must to secure an office telephone system that will ensure the privacy of all the conversation between the doctor and the patient.

Dedicated extensions – every doctor should have a dedicated extension in their operation area or desk this will ensure that they can get a important phone calls without having run up and down the clinic to get to the reception.

Call forwarding options – Last but not the least is the ability to forward calls to a mobile, other landlines or to any number. This will ensure that all calls are addressed immediately regardless whether the clinic or not.

Things to Consider in a Business Phone Plans for your Office Telephone System

After spending countless of hours and resources in choosing the best office telephone system for your business you now have to spend the same effort in finding the best business phone plan to marry to it. Whether you decide to go VoIP or stick with a traditional line the following criteria will still apply and you can weigh all possible option with it.

Dial rates – Obviously the dial rate of a business phone plan will be the number one factor, the cheaper the dial rates the better, make sure that you tabulated local, national, international and mobile call rates in a spreadsheet across all the plans and or providers you are looking at and see where you can save. 

You can also prioritize the dial rates where you are most likely to call at. For example plan A has cheaper landline and international calling charges but has slightly higher charges on mobiles whist plan is the exact opposite then choose the plan based on your calling patterns. If you call landlines more often then go for option A, if you are always calling a mobile phone then go for option B.

Number of lines and its cost – Another important aspect that you need to look into is the number of lines a business phone plan has because this will directly dictate the number phone calls you can make and receive simultaneously. Come to think of it this way, even if you have 10 extensions connected to your office telephone system you won’t be able to maximize it if you do not have enough lines. Remember it is important that callers do not get the engaged tone if they call you so take a little to estimate how many calls you make and receive. You can also use your old call accounting report to aid you with this matter.

Additionally line rental cost is also important so make sure that you do a comparison check of it across plans and providers.

Free internal calls – Another aspect that you need to look into is internal calls. Are you able to make as many internal calls as you wish without being charged? You should, because these calls are only using end to end connection between your office telephone system and charges should not apply to it.

Quality and up time – last but not the least is the quality and uptime, you are running a business and it is a must that you have a business grade line. This will ensure that calls are transmitted in crystal voice without interference or jitter. A good up time on the other hand ensures that your phone lines are working 24/7 and if issues persist the duration it last before a fix is applied.

VoIP Office Telephone System – Connecting Virtual Offices

Virtual offices or remote working set up is fast becoming a trend in the business sector. Many professionals are looking to work off site or at the comfort of their home, business owners also favor such set up to save on rental cost and other associated cost in renting an office like electric bill, Internet and maintenance. The benefits of virtual offices go in mutual ways thus home based jobs are becoming a common sight these days.

Connecting your virtual offices is a must to be able to simulate a physical office set up and your VoIP office telephone system will play a pivotal role in doing so. How? Here are the features that will make it all possible.

Multiple locations – This feature will enable you to situate any extension in practically any parts of the world as long as you are able to connect to the internet. This means that you can give an extension to your sales staff in Sydney, another for your technical support staff in Melbourne and so on. Regardless of whether the extensions are scattered interstate or across globe it will still work as if you are in the office. 

This means that your support staff can answer support calls coming from your main business number and your sales staff can answer inbound queries from your main the number. The same way if any staff calls out your main number will be displayed as the caller ID and not a local number in their area.

Menu system – To further enhance your callers experience, you can integrate a well structured menu system so calls can be screened by department and be transferred to the concerned staff directly. A menu system will also help in making your business seem bigger and not giving a clue to your callers that you are running a virtual office.

Call monitoring – Since you will be working away from each other it is then important for the business owner to monitor who’s on the phone and who’s not either from a webpage or from the handset itself.

To better understand how it works here’s a quick example how VoIP office telephone systems can help you effectively deploy a remote working set up. Click here

Important Points to Remember before Purchasing your Business Phone System

Before purchasing a phone system for your business it is best that you focus your time first in identifying what you really need. Various phone systems in the market today are designed to cater different needs and different businesses. Although there are fully customized systems it is still centered towards your requirements thus it is important that you get it right to avoid costly mistakes and to acquire the best possible communication system.

To help you identify your needs below is a simple list of phone system guide broken down into the different aspects telephony solutions:

 Number of extensions – probably the first thing you need to consider in a phone system is how many people with dedicated extensions are there in your office. Count it accurately and consider all possible additions within a month’s time frame so you can set it up as soon as possible. However, if you are looking to expand or add more extensions within 3 months or more then it is not advisable to purchase the phones just yet.

Number of concurrent calls – The next thing you need to put in mind is the number of concurrent phone calls you expect to make and receive. This is dictated by the number of channels tied up to a number. Let’s say you have 3 incoming lines on 1 number then this means that your number can receive 3 simultaneous calls at any given time. Be sure to get this figure right, too much channels will force you to pay excessive line rental charges whilst not enough lines can cost you a sale if customers kept getting the busy tone.

Telephone numbers – You should also decide at the earliest stage whether you will need a new number, move an existing number from your former provider to the new or perhaps acquire a toll free number.

Features set – The next thing you need to determine is the set of features that you will need, do you need an automatic greeting message, a menu system or perhaps an out of hour’s mode? Jot down all the features that you need in a piece of paper but segregate the features that are nice to have but not necessary.

Target call rates – Obviously the cheaper the call rates the better, however, it is still advisable that you set a realistic target range across local, national, mobile and international calls so you won’t go overboard your budget.

7 Compelling VoIP Office Telephone Features

Hearing the word VoIP always denote savings, well true enough, VoIP office telephone systems can potentially save any business by as much as 70% on their phone bills because of cheaper calling charges and lower line rental fees.  But apart from the savings VoIP phones are also rigged with tons of features that can conveniently improve your communication system with your customers.

Without further ado here the 7 compelling VoIP office telephone features that will not fail to catch your eyes and make your life easier.

Multiple location – VoIP office telephone systems uses the Internet to call out or receive a call, this means that it is not bounded in any premise and can be used practically anywhere around the world. You can take your phones wherever you are, plug it in an Internet connection and it will always work like you never move location.

Cloud integration – have you always wanted a central communication system in place? With a VoIP office telephone system you can literally integrate all cloud based system with your phones and work as if they are one. Integrate a CRM, an SMS service and even a website. All this is doable with just a few simple programming.

Multiple Businesses – Today most entrepreneurs are running multiple small businesses at once, having a phone system for each business is just isn’t viable because of the cost nor having to do it all on one traditional phone because it is just unprofessional to ask the caller what business they are calling. With a VoIP office telephone system you can run multiple businesses under one phone system and have a dedicated greeting message for each business and a dedicated number. The system can be programmed to notify you what number the caller is coming so you can answer accordingly and sound BIG despite doing it all on one phone system.

Custom IVR – Do you need a menu system, a professional greeting message or a customized on hold message perhaps? All this is doable, record your own messages or have a voice actor do it for you. Either way you will surely get a personalize touch to it and make your business seem bigger.

Cloud call recording – Record your calls and retrieve it from any computer or smart phones to verify orders or double check if your customer service representative is doing his absolute best to help your customers.

Automatic out of hour’s mode – Set your phones to automatically play your out of hours message when the clock hits 5 pm. Send calls directly to your message bank to tomorrow’s follow up or divert them to your mobile. Either way, this feature will ensure that you still get the sales lead whilst away from the office.

Enhanced follow me – Got multiple numbers or always on the go? Now, you don’t have to worry of missing a call ever again. With VoIP you can integrate all your numbers in queue system so it will automatically ring all your known numbers consecutively so you can pick up wherever you are.

Why Pre Paid Business Phone Plans is best for VoIP

VoIP is becoming one of the fastest growing communication solutions in the market today because of the many benefits that it brings to its users. Savings, better capacity, innovative features and customization options being on top of the list. However, did you know that you can even push these benefits by simply opting for a pre paid business phone plan as oppose to settling for a post paid plan?

Pre paid business phone plans are not a common sight in business communication but with VoIP it is becoming fairly popular because of its benefits.

Security – Although VoIP is generally secured through a process called encryption, it is best if you will still have a second line of defense in place. Many security experts would agree that mitigating the risk is as important as the primary defense. Y acquiring a pre paid VoIP business phone plan you are mitigating any risk that you may be exposed to in the event that your VoIP line has been hacked.

How? Take this example for an instance. If your phones have been hacked and you are connected to a post paid plan then no one knows how much your bill will be at the end of the month. With a pre paid business phone plan only the current credits on your account will be at risk. If you have $10 then only the $10 can be used up.

Low balance alarm notification – Further to mitigating the risk the low balance alarm notification will let you know your current credits and will let you determine whether your credits are running low faster than usual so you can inform your service provider to address the issue immediately.

Better call accounting – Unlike post paid plans that you will only know your bill and call usage at the end of the month a pre paid plan will allow you to check your usage and cost on a regular basis, usually several times a month or depending how much you are putting in your account. This will let you manage you cost more efficiently.

Increment payment – Some businesses just don’t have the upfront funds at the end of the month to settle bills forcing them to make partial payments and incur interest over time. With a pre paid plan the payment option can be in increments because you only need to reload whatever amount you can comfortably afford. This will prevent you from spending business money that is not intended for bills but probably for payroll or development.