How Business VoIP is Ideal for Working Outside Normal Business Hours

In the “old days,” business hours were typically from 9am to 5:00pm. However, on today’s business landscape customers aren’t interested in checking their watch (or more typically, the clock on their smartphone) before deciding if they should make a call. As noted by Forbes, “customers expect extended hours: 24/7 or as close as you can get.”

Fortunately, businesses – whether they are small firms or large enterprises -- that want to extend their working hours do not need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new staff; which in most cases is not just unjustifiable, but is outright prohibitive. Rather, they can switch to business VoIP, and instantly expand their capability to be available when their customers want to connect.

Here are some of the key ways that business VoIP is ideal for working outside normal business hours:

1. Forward Calls to External Phone Numbers

With business VoIP, instead of sending after-hour calls to voicemail, they can be automatically forwarded to any external phone number via customized business rules. For example, calls can be sent to a mobile phone, a land line, a call center, or anywhere else.

What’s more, it is simple and quick to create multiple rules based on specific customized factors, such as time of day, day of the week, location of the incoming call (e.g. local, national, international, etc.), and the desired calling party. For example, customers seeking technical support can be routed to a remote agent working out of a home office or off-site contact center, while customers seeking sales support can be routed directly to a sales representative’s smartphone.

And just as importantly: customers do not detect that their call is being routed across the city, country or even the world. They get the professional, seamless calling experience they expect and demand.

2. Forward Calls to Email

Another key way that business VoIP helps businesses work outside of normal business hours is by forwarding voicemails to designated emails (either as audio files, text files, or both). This dramatically improves response times, since recipients do not have to wait until they get to the office in the morning before checking voicemail.

3. Hunt Groups and Ring Groups

Conventional phone systems force businesses to choose between hunt groups (designated phone numbers ringing in succession) or ring groups (designated phone numbers ringing at the same time). However, with business VoIP it is possible to have BOTH hunt groups and ring groups. As such, there is an even greater likelihood that calls will be answered by technical staff, sales reps, or other teams.

Learn More

To learn more about how business VoIP can help you work outside normal business hours, contact the Votacall team today. Your consultation with us is free.

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