How To Make Remote Workers Accessible Via Your Phone System

If you have a mobile workforce, employ Work-at-Home Personnel, or you have satellite offices, it's important to tie all your workers together in a unified phone system for easy access so your callers can communicate with them by calling your main phone number.

Some PBX phone systems allow programming extensions to route calls to remote locations. If you have that feature, create extensions for all remote personnel who need to be accessible through your phone system.

Remote Forwarding

Consider how the transfer should be done. If your remote personnel have a home answering machine with a greeting that does not make sense for business calls, then it is best to use a "call screening" feature so that the caller does not hear the personal greeting on the home machine. Call Screening lets the recipient of the call hear who's calling before they connect. Then they can select to connect or to send the caller to voice mail. The default is to go to voice mail. So if their answering machine answers, the caller does not hear that greeting. They are sent to voice mail on your business phone system and they hear the more business-like greeting from that mailbox.

Proper Use of Extension Cellphones

If your remote personnel are in the field and not at a specific fixed location, then they probably are using cellphones. You can do the same thing as above, program extensions to route calls to their cellphones.

In this case, you may want to consider the fact that missed calls left in voice mail may not be picked up and returned in a timely manner. A solution is to disable call screening and let all calls drop into their cellphone's voice mail if there is no answer. The benefit is that they will not have to check for messages in two places. They just need to check the cellphone, which probably has a message-waiting signal to indicate a missed call.

Keep in mind that the caller WILL hear the personal greeting on the cellphone if there is no answer. So the greeting has to be correct for the business use of the phone if this method is used.

Another thing to consider is how your remote personnel pick up their messages. If they spend most of their time in front of a computer, they may prefer having messages routed to their email as an attached WAV file. Most Virtual (hosted) PBX services include this ability. But in-house phone systems that don't interface with the Internet can't do that. If you are a small business with a limited budget and if this is an important feature, then an in-house system may not be right for you.

Proper planning is required before haphazardly assigning extensions. The final result will make a great impression on your callers when they find it easy to get in touch with the appropriate personnel to achieve what they have intended. This benefits both you and your clients in a positive way.

A customer had asked...

Our company has many employees working from different remote locations. We would like to give them extension numbers on our phone system that can be forwarded to their cell phones so that our customers can call our main office number and get through to our remote personnel by dialing their extension.

Do you offer this service? What are the options and the pricing?

There are two options...

In-house phone system
Hosted automated phone service

Both provide the ability to customize your own automated phone system with your own company greeting and your custom option menu.

In-house Phone System

When you buy your own in-house system you have no additional costs for equipment. But you do have to consider the cost of your phone lines. You'll need additional lines if you want the system to handle multiple callers.

In-house phone systems are great for small to median sized companies. But if you have dozens or hundreds of employees then it may be more worthwhile to use a hosted service where you pay a small monthly fee. These fees can add up, however, so if you have a really large company you need to figure a compromise between buying a larger in-house phone system vs. paying ongoing monthly fees for a hosted service.

If you want your own equipment in-house to transfer your callers to your remote personnel, then you need your phone number coming in on multiple lines to allow several callers to be handled without busy signals. This is known as rollover. All callers dial the same main number, but additional simultaneous callers rollover to the next higher available free line.

You have to also consider how long they talk once transferred, as they will be tying up that line. Some phone companies offer a feature called "transfer and release." It releases the line after the transfer so it is free for another caller. With that, you may get away with having only one line if you don't have too much traffic. But if you have a lot of callers, the next caller will still get a busy if they call before the prior caller was transferred. It's best to use multiple phone lines with the proper sized phone system.

There are two sizes of the VoicePro, which is our in-house solution. The VP206 can support up to six remote workers. The VP412 can support up to 12 remote workers.

Hosted Automated Phone Service

Now I'll discuss the second solution, a hosted service. These can handle virtually unlimited callers. So no need for you to install expensive phone lines or equipment.

iTeleCenter is our most selected of hosted services. They give you a toll-free number that you use as your own. Or you can use your own number if you have one.

The customization is done via a web browser control panel. You can record and upload your greeting and program a menu of options for your caller to select. And you can create individual extensions and specify to where they should ring. That can be your personnel's cell phones or home phones.

Pricing...

VoicePro

There are two sizes of the VoicePro. $199 for the VP206 (2 lines, 6 extensions) and $499 for the VP412 (4 lines, 12 extensions).

VoicePro Details

iTeleCenter

iTeleCenter has two plans. One starting at 9.95 per month and you pay for the minutes used. They have different usage prices based on volume ranging from 6.9¢ down to 3.9¢ per minute. They also have an unlimited plan for $49 per month. Both plans offer a 14-day free trial period.

iTeleCenter Details

iTeleCenter Unlimited

Let me know if this was helpful or if you have any other questions.
Glenn Stok
Stok Software, Inc.