If you have a mobile workforce, VoIP systems provide the flexibility to effectively communicate with customers and staff.
The mobile workforce is a truly incredible innovation for traditionally office-bound jobs. It used to be that computer work required employees to come in and use the office’s workstations on the office’s internal network. But now, with everything secured on the cloud, it’s possible to log in and get your work done from almost everywhere. But this still created the problem of having to switch between ‘in-office’ and out-of-office phone numbers. This confused clients and blurred the lines between work and personal life.
Until VOIP. If your office is embracing the mobile workforce mentality, then VOIP is the solution to all those little complications that we’ve been tackling in an effort to become truly mobile. If your office has been considering upgrading to VOIP for the mobile advantage, it may help to understand the many different types of mobile workforce that VOIP can support. Let’s take a closer look.
1) In and Out of the Office: Client Liaisons and Project Managers
Some professionals really need the freedom of a mobile workforce because their job constantly takes them in and out of the office. Circuit managers, client liaisons and some types of project manager are incredibly difficult to catch at their desk because they always have another task to deal with, a lunch meeting to make, or a metaphorical fire to put out. And this can make them hard to get ahold of for clients and employees alike.
But VOIP changes all that. With VOIP, your on-the-go employees can go back to putting exactly one number on their business cards, trusting that they will be able to catch important calls no matter where they are. In the office, out to lunch, or driving between destinations.
2) Always On the Road: Field Service Team Communication
On the complete opposite end of business, but still with a lot of driving, are field service teams. From roofers to in-home massage therapists, it’s important to keep your field service teams coordinated and in the communication loop at all times. VOIP actually allows you to separate phone numbers from exact team members. Instead, you can assign a number to a truck, a team, or a team lead so that your teams are always in-touch.
VOIP also makes it possible for your teams to check in even if their usual communication device is damaged or lost. All they need to do is log into the VOIP software on another device and the phone number will forward correctly.
3) All Over the Country: Coordinating a Remote Team
Another great innovation of the mobile workforce is teams made up of all-remote members. Companies no longer need to relocate hired talent because you can simply coordinate work between remote employees. While this was possible with a few professions before, VOIP makes it possible to put together remote teams even for tasks that used to require everyone to be in the office.
Help desk support, for example, no longer needs to take place in the same building as a phone PBX. Instead, VOIP can smartly assign support calls from a pool to your team no matter where each individual team member is located.
4) Jetsetting Professionals: Working While On Business Trips
VOIP has also been an invaluable tool for professionals who take business trips, whether those trips are once a year or twice a month. Staying in touch while traveling for business has always been challenging. But with VOIP, professionals don’t even have to switch to their personal cell number to keep working on the road.
VOIP makes it much easier to keep traveling employees in the loop and to get more work done while away on a business trip. VOIL also makes it possible to recover from seemingly fatal accidents like dropping one’s phone in the hotel pool. Because your traveling professionals can still answer their VOIP number from a laptop or even a borrowed hotel computer.
5) Work From Home Days: Clocking In on Sick Days or Home With Kids
Finally, VOIP allows workplaces to provide much more flexible scheduling without actually losing any productive work hours. In fact, it allows you to get more productive hours in situations where employees would normally have to go home. Not only can VOIP forward an employee’s work number and calls to their computer at home, allowing some relaxing work-from-home days, it also creates the possibility of productivity on sick days.
Let’s say an employee has a cold that is contagious. They can still get a reasonable amount of work done, but not without sneezing all over office coworkers. Instead of taking a whole day off, they call in a work-from-home day and forward their VOIP number to the home office. This is even more effective in situations where an employee’s child is sick, but the employee themselves is still at full mental function. They can stay home with the child AND get their work done with a unified VOIP number and access to documents from home.
Is VOIP the right mobile workforce solution for you? With its affordability, scalability, and work style flexibility… chances are that the answer is “Yes”. For more insights into how VOIP can benefit your business, contact us today!