Business telephony: how to adapt easily to teleworking?

Basically, you know the heart of the matter: your company can't do without the telephone to operate, you have a basic functional installation on your premises, and... your employees telecommute a (large) part of the time!

Indeed, the amount of time spent by your team - especially your sales force - telecommuting has followed the successive waves of restrictive measures over the last 24 months. And as a pragmatic, well-informed surfer with a clear view of the conditions, you know that the waves will continue and that telecommuting will become a permanent new habit in the world of work.

That said, this acceleration is not without its day-to-day operational issues. This is particularly true for the follow-up and management of telephone calls with your customers and prospects, when your sales staff and the rest of your employees are no longer physically in the office every day.

So how can you quickly and easily adapt your business telephony to this new organization? Here are some tried-and-tested ways to do just that!

(Re)take control of company telephone numbers

One of the major problems with telecommuting is that some employees start using their own cell phones to communicate with customers.

When it's a business cell phone, it's not always easy, as it creates additional constraints in the event of vacation, absence or departure to ensure continuity on your customers' calls. You can quickly find yourself with customers who have no one at the end of the phone, often in high-stakes situations (which is why they're calling you). This can significantly increase customer dissatisfaction and generate internal instability.

But when your teams, powerless to do anything else, start using their personal mobiles to call your customers, things get even hotter for the company. You no longer have any control over calls with your customers and prospects!

To adapt to teleworking, there's a simple first step: use virtual telephone numbers, known by your customers and prospects. From there, you can dissociate phone numbers from the hardware you use. And this makes things much simpler, especially if you use a cloud telephony solution behind your virtual numbers.

It's now possible to make and receive customer calls on a business landline, directly from your own cell phone , for example!

Adapt your telephony solution to your employees' environment

Not the other way around! In the office, workstations are pretty much the same. All your sales staff have a computer, a good Internet connection and a fixed and/or cell phone to make their calls.

In the case of telecommuting, everyone's environment is much more different. Some will have a fixed workstation at home, while many will have only their mobile (and personal in most cases). Some will have a very good Internet connection, others much less so.

How can you ensure that everyone in your team is in the best possible condition to communicate with your customers by telephone ?

Once you've mastered the telephone numbers known to all your customers, using virtual numbers - ideal for telecommuting - you'll be able to make sure that everyone in your team has the best possible conditions for communicating by telephone with your customers.When you telecommute, the ideal is to be able to do whatever you want behind these numbers, giving you the flexibility you need.

In concrete terms, you can opt for a telephony solution that works :

• with the telephone network, by redirecting calls to landlines and/or mobiles,
• and VoIP, with a softphone to receive/pass calls from a web browser.

So you can cover all your employees' configurations:

• fixed lines,
• professional and personal cell phones,
• good or poor quality Internet connection, etc.

To adapt easily to telecommuting, it's a good idea to have a telephony solution that's flexible enough to work, whatever the use case.

Give employees autonomy to manage their own calls

Well, you've got more control over your numbers and a flexible solution that adapts well to each employee's environment. Now, how do you avoid having to call on your IT team every time there's the slightest change to be made?

Empower your employees!

The expression is perhaps a little strong, so let's say instead: equip your employees with tools that enable them to be autonomous in organizing the management of their telephone calls themselves.

With a cloud solution, you give them access to web and mobile interfaces to :

• view their calls,
• listen to their messages,
• make calls,
• manage their availability (presence, vacations, absences),
• configure call overflow to a colleague, and connect to CRM, among other functions.

E-mails have the right to software that's simple and pleasant to use, so implement the same kind of solution for calls.

With a dedicated console, each sales rep is a user of the telephony solution who can act on his or her calls and interact with other team members. In this way, each salesperson is autonomous in managing part of the telephony solution he or she uses on a daily basis to communicate with customers.

Give managers the means to monitor their teams effectively

One of the major concerns for managers when telecommuting is introduced is to have the right tools to support, monitor, refocus and train the teams for which they are responsible.

With a cloud solution, the manager has an overview of his team's call management. They can easily monitor each other's activity, with real-time reports to ensure that calls are picked up or transferred when this is not possible, and that all customers or prospects are called back.

Thanks to detailed user management, he can access each sales rep's call log and help him organize his call flow. In the event of unforeseen absences (sick leave or childcare, which are relatively frequent at the moment), the manager can configure a period of absence by activating call redirection to another member of the team.

This transparency, coupled with individual autonomy, creates a great deal of trust and security within each team. Unknowns and suspicions are eliminated, and everyone works efficiently to serve your customers. It's a win-win situation for customers, sales reps and managers alike.

But how can this be achieved quickly and cost-effectively?

Digitization! And the French market offers a variety of SaaS solutions for business telephony, which can support you according to the nature of your needs. These tools have the advantage of simplifying your teams' day-to-day work by :

• giving employees autonomy, flexibility and transparency ;
• bringing control and visibility to company managers;

To implement these solutions at a reasonable cost, without having to involve your team in a major change management process, you can opt for a solution that modernizes your current installation and operation, without changing everything. French company Dexem, for example, allows you to set up cloud solutions to manage your calls, on top of your existing installation, without replacing it.

This allows you to adapt quickly and progressively to teleworking, while still operating efficiently on site, and taking advantage of a host of new features, to continue to have direct, humanized contact with your customers via the telephone.

It's definitely the right time to equip yourself!

Telecommuting has become a major trend, and has been given a real boost by the measures introduced to deal with Covid-19. Companies and employees alike have seen that it is possible to continue to perform with telecommuting "at scale".

A large majority of employees are now very much in favor of it, in hybrid or full-time mode. Some employees, in agreement with their company, have even decided to move elsewhere in search of a better living environment. And, of course, many companies are also reaping the benefits: increased productivity, employee loyalty, easier recruitment, lower premises rents, among others.

Telecommuting is set to become the new norm in the world of work.

To support this change, remain competitive in your markets and provide your employees with the right tools, telephony is essential! It's a particularly privileged means of communication for recreating proximity and trust with remote working. It's definitely the right time to equip yourself!