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Basic Telephone System Features
Office telephone systems can be equipped with literally hundreds of features for switching calls and directing traffic. Market research indicates that most companies only use 5 to 10 percent of their telephone features. Instead of comparing features on a one-to-one basis, you should examine how your phone system is to be used. Limit your feature search and evaluation to only those options that will improve the workflow for your business.
All systems have the core features of hold, transfer, call pickup and paging through the phone or external speakers. However the user interface for these features varies from system to system so when you have narrowed your selection to two or three vendors, make sure you have a live demonstration of the operation of these and other features you require. Bring along a heavy telephone user from the office as they can often highlight poor user functionality that is evident on some telephone systems. Some of the other features that are standard in many systems and are of value to many organisations include:
Auto-attendant An auto-attendant is the recorded message that answers your phones and instructs callers how to reach the person or department they are looking for. If you have a high volume of calls or provide after hours support, this may be important - or you may value having a real person answer every call. If auto-attendant is relevant to your business, look closely at your needs as functionality varies significantly between products.
Conferencing Conferencing can minimise travel times for meetings but features vary widely. Consider how often your staff needs to make conference calls, and how many different people need to call in. If the conferencing features you need aren't readily available, there are other options for conducting teleconferences that you can purchase separately.
Direct Dial In (DDI) The majority of business calls are from people we deal with regularly. InDial uses ISDN technology to allow individual staff to have their own dedicated number so that these calls can be made direct to their extension without going via reception saving valuable time. In conjunction with voice mail, in dial provides significant benefits to most businesses.
Least Cost Routing (LCR) This feature automatically selects the most cost effective outside line for any number dialed from your office. For instance to minimise your phone bill, you may have all your long distance calls with Gamma or Opal and international calls with another network provider. LCR will automatically pick the correct (lowest cost) carrier for each call type.
Music-on-hold Music-on-hold is fairly self-explanatory - in most systems you have internal music source(s) or simply plug in a source of music to your system.
Night/Holiday Service This feature automatically assigns a different ringing plan for after hours, weekends or holidays. This allows you options such as directing calls to a courtesy message that your business only operates during business hours or if you provide 24x7 support, calls could be automatically screened and directed to service technicians as required.
Ring Groups Many organisations have single number for groups like accounts, sales or service. This feature allows calls to these organisational groups to be set up with different ring options for the phones within a group. For instance all phones could ring or one phone could ring 3 times and if it is not answered the next nominated phone in the group could ring and so on.
Tracking Calls (SMDR) SMDR or Station Message Detail Recorder provides details of all telephone calls, both internally and externally, made from every phone connected to the system. When used with Call Accounting software, It provides a tool to analyse the calling patterns within your company to identify operational inefficiencies and to reduce overall call costs.
Toll Barring/Class of Service With this feature you can limit access to international, long distance or mobile calls to staff who require such access as part of their jobs. If class of service is important, have a good understanding of what your requirements are as some products provide more sophisticated implementations than others.
Speed Dial Directory All systems have the capability to store 100s of frequently used numbers. Most products allow you to associate an alphanumeric name with the number so you can easily find using dial by name directory service. With caller ID, some telephone systems can display the name of the calling party if their number is in the speed dial directory. A feature to look for is whether the phone system allows you to import your phone directory from applications like Excel as this can save a lot of time in both set up and management of your speed dial numbers.
Basic Telephone Handset Features The selection of your telephone handset is important as it is the interface to the functionality of the telephone system. Most manufacturers have a range of telephone handsets that are differentiated on the basis of:
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