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 New home office devices help you professionally handle all your telecommunications needs. by Rick Muscoplat Running a home office is often a balancing act. You have to weigh the effect it has on your family versus the money you save by not renting an office. Somewhere in the equation, you have to throw in the value of the flexibility it affords you. Some of the products in this article, like the visual status indicator and line privacy device can have a profoundly positive effect on how your home office co-exists with your family. Other products, like the call sequencer, automated attendant, and line-sharing device can help you accomplish more during the course of your business day. You’ll answer more calls on fewer lines and at lower cost. |
Rick
Muscoplat is a telecommunications consultant and has run a home-based |
You’re in your home office. You’re on the phone with a new client. You’re coming across as knowledgeable and professional when, suddenly, family dog "Bowser," spies the neighborhood cat free-roaming the front lawn—Bowser’s protected turf. If he could, Bowser would beam himself right through the triple-glazed window to enforce his "No-Cat" zone. However, lacking the proper transporter facilities, Bowser instead chooses to broadcast his yard enforcement intentions to cat "Fluffy" by barking loud enough to be heard 3 miles downwind. Your potentially new client now knows that you are working from home. The size of your firm just shrunk 50% in the client’s mind, and you’re thinking maybe you should rent some office space.
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Now it’s become easier to do both, thanks to the many new telecommunication tools at your disposal. One of them may actually help with the Bowser/Fluffy problem. But first, you need to send Bowser to an anger management class, and Fluffy to a therapist for her passive aggressive trespassing tendencies.
Can’t You See I’m On The Phone? Well, no, I can’t!
Most home office interruptions come from family members who don’t know you’re on the phone. The interruptions come in two varieties:
- Line Barging: This happens when a family member (translation: teenager) needs to make an "urgent" call and picks up an extension, interrupting your business call. (A sure way to let your customer know you’re too cheap to get a separate business line)
- The 90db Scream: Yelled loud enough for all neighbors to hear, these broadcasts usually concern dire family emergencies. The most common examples are; "Who ate the last piece of pizza" or, "Mom, Bobby’s hitting me." No matter how secluded your home office or how tightly your office door seals, these announcements are almost always heard by the person on the other end of your call.
Both types are embarrassing and unprofessional, and both types can be avoided. Visual Status Indicators monitor the status of a telephone line. They flash a bright red light when the line is ringing and illuminate steadily when the line is in use. Visual status indicators can be plugged into any modular jack in the house. They do a wonderful job of preventing barge-in interruptions by visually informing household members you’re on the phone.
If you have separate business lines for your home office, you’re probably less worried about family members barging into your business calls from another extension. But you still need a way to prevent the verbal interruptions. Visual status indicators also work for those kinds of interruptions as well. When lit, family members know when to keep noise levels down and when you cannot be disturbed.
If you use a headset in your home office the interruption problem can be even worse than with an ordinary handset. With a handset up to your ear, it’s pretty obvious you’re on the phone. But people seem to get really indignant when a headset user does not respond to an interruption. Of course, the intruder doesn’t realize that the headset user is on a call because the user wears the headset all the time. The intruder just sees the distracted look and your non-responsiveness. The intruder feels ignored. The headset user feels annoyed. It’s bad enough in a regular office environment. But when the intruder is a family member, the after-call "discussions" can be quite heated and hurtful. This is another instance where visual status indicators are extremely helpful in eliminating interruptions.
The more sophisticated visual status indicators help your business even more by monitoring the status of your voice mail. The unit flashes to let you know that new messages are waiting. That feature helps you return calls more quickly and eliminate the need to check for "stutter" dial tone at regular intervals or after every call.
What to look for when shopping for a visual status indicator? Avoid the inexpensive models. Those units derive their power from the phone line, resulting in very dim lights that just cannot be seen. In some cases, the line powered units can interfere with features on multiple line business phones. The better models plug into AC receptacles for power and their bright lights can be seen from a distance. The better models also have voice mail monitoring.
Click, Click, I Need The Phone
If you’ve installed visual status indicators and the barge-in problems continues, your next step is to install Line Privacy Devices on all the phones in your home. Here’s how they work: As soon as one phone goes off hook, all the other phones are blocked from the line for the duration of the call. When the line becomes available, the privacy devices unblock the phones, allowing any phone to access the line.
Installation is simple. Just plug the privacy unit into your phone jack, or substitute a privacy-equipped cord for the present phone line cord. You must use a separate privacy device on each phone you wish to block. Or, to guarantee complete privacy, install one on every phone in your home.
If you send faxes or work online, privacy devices also guarantee crash-free modem and fax transmissions. At least you’ll never have to deal with a household member picking up an extension when you’re ¾ finished with a 10megabyte download.
Who’s On First?
Did you install voice mail on your business line? Well, there’s no doubt that it’s more reliable than an answering machine. But remember that the caller really wants you, live, not your voice mail. Studies show that new customers regard voice mail as a sign that your business is either too small or too busy for them. They’ll call your competitors before they’ll leave a message and wait for your return call. Especially if the caller is in a buying mood, the first person to answer live will usually gets the order. Unfortunately, the very definition of a home office means that you’re probably running the business in solo mode. So, it’s not always possible to answer every call live. That’s why you got voice mail in the first place.
But voice mail is very limiting—you either answer the phone in a specified number of rings, or you automatically lose the call to voice mail. This is where an automatic call sequencer (ACS) can give you a competitive edge. An ACS acts like a receptionist for your home office. The sequencer answers the incoming call after a programmable number of rings. Then, it plays your digitally recorded message; the one where you ask the caller to hold so you can answer their call in person. It then places the call on hold and plays music or a personalized recorded promotional message. The sequencer reminds you at regular intervals that you have a call holding. It also tells you which line is next in priority if you have more than 1 call holding. Meanwhile, you can finish the call you are on, or place that call on hold while you personally answer the new incoming call. After-hours, the ACS can be switched to route incoming calls to an answering machine or voice mail.
If you’ve ever waited for a very important call and lost it to voice mail, only to discover that the caller didn’t leave a message, you’ll appreciate the advantage of a call sequencer. For example: You’re on a business call and you’re expecting a call from your child’s pediatrician. The doctor’s call rolls over to your second line and gets lost to voice mail. An ACS could have captured that call and put it on hold for you. The best news about call sequencers is that they are very affordable and are now available in two-line versions for home offices.
Press "1" If You’d Like to Talk To a Real Person
Having made the pitch for answering all your calls in person, you need a contingency plan for those situations when it’s either impossible or impractical, or where the call needs to be routed someplace else. That’s where an Automated Attendant comes in. An automated attendant allows your callers to self-direct their call by following voice prompts and entering Touch Tones from their keypads. For example, pressing a "1" could transfer the call to your fax machine, "2" could transfer the call to your cellular phone, and "3" could transfer the call to your voice mail. You’ve used these systems hundreds of times already. Now you can subject your callers to the same torture you receive on a daily basis.
All you need to implement this system is an automated attendant and call transfer service from your local phone company.
Automated attendants are also very useful for small businesses where business partners or other personnel are also home office based. With a single main phone number, the automated attendant can transfer calls to the proper person and immediately free up the line to handle additional calls. That feature helps you create the appearance of a much larger company while keeping overhead costs low. Just remember to keep your greeting and menu directions short and to the point.
2, 4, 6, 8, How Many Lines Do We Appreciate?
You have a phone line for personal and family use, another for your business, one specifically for your fax and one for your modem. The lines keep multiplying and the costs keep going up. But are you getting the most bang for your dial-tone buck? Probably not, especially if you don’t receive a large number of faxes. In many home office situations, fax lines sit idle up to 90% of the time. That’s where line-sharing devices earn their keep. Built like a PBX where pressing "9" gets you any outside line, a line sharing device essentially does the same job, only without requiring you to dial "9." As soon as a phone, fax, or modem goes off-hook, the device scans all the lines and picks an open one.
A line-sharing device effectively eliminates the need for dedicated lines to each phone, fax, or modem. Here’s a common home business example: You’re on a voice call on your business line and need to run a customer’s credit card through a debit reader. Both your computer and fax are connected to separate dedicated lines and are already in use. Seeing those three lines as busy, the line sharing device could route the debit card reader to your personal phone line. At other times it could route the same call to your computer line—all depending on the line hunt priority you programmed into the unit.
While outbound calls can go out over any line, the same is not true of incoming calls. An incoming fax obviously needs to go to the fax machine. That’s where you still enjoy the same features as with a dedicated phone line. The line-sharing unit routes incoming calls to their own specific devices.
More Gadgets To Round Out Your System
Keeping callers on hold
On-hold is a lonely place to be stuck for any length of time. That’s why companies often play music on hold. Now you can add that same feature to your home office phones. Better yet, you can purchase a digital announcer and record your own informational messages. Promotion-On-Hold digital announcers come with 1-4 minutes of digital recording time. They can play a single message or multiple messages that fade in and out of background music at pre-programmed intervals. Or, you can record a continuous loop of digital messages that promote your latest product, service, or office hours. Just make sure you don’t overdo it. After 4 minutes on hold, most callers are ready to move on to another vendor.
Caller I.D. on Steroids
What’s better than Caller I.D.? Call Accounting units. These devices not only record the phone numbers of inbound and outbound calls, but also the length of the call, date, and time of day. With a built in data port, call accounting units can download the information to your computer or printer for hard-copy records of your call activity. If you need to keep track of long distance charges, or bill clients for phone time, these devices should be an essential part of your office.
Cheaper than a phone card
If you have an inbound toll-free number and wish that you could use it to call in from out of town, you need a Remote Access Device (RAD). Simply connect the RAD to your incoming toll-free line. Then, call in and let the call ring for a programmable number of rings before you enter your security code. The RAD will then give you local dial tone, allowing you to save big on your out-of-town long distance phone charges. (To equalize volume from your toll-free line to your local line, spend the extra few dollars and purchase a RAD amplifier)
I have to dial how many numbers?
Speed Dialers: They were popular in the early 80’s long before phone companies offered speed dialing. Now they’re making a comeback. Why? Because the onslaught of new area codes has made it next to impossible to keep all those phone numbers in your head. Worse yet, in major cities with split area codes, you now have to dial 10 digits for local calls. Phone company speed dialing usually limits you to 10 or 20 numbers. But the new speed dial units can store up to 100 numbers. Just enter a 3-digit code and it does the rest. The units are portable and utilize non-volatile memory, so you can take them with you on business trips. It’s a one-time investment that makes life a lot easier.
Ding-dong. Who’s there?
Have you ever been on a business call when the UPS driver rings the bell? Now you can answer the door from your phone. You can even open the door from your phone. Door entry systems ring your telephones and allow you to talk to the person at the door right from your home office. Plagued by door-to-door solicitors who interrupt your work? Now you can give them feeble excuses for not supporting their cause while concealing that guilty look—all from the comfort of your office. The systems work even if you’re on an existing call. Door entry systems are a must if you spend time on the phone and receive deliveries that require door and gate openings.
The return on investment
Running a home office is often a balancing act. You have to weigh the effect it has on your family versus the money you save by not renting an office. Somewhere in the equation, you have to throw in the value of the flexibility it affords you. Some of the products in this article, like the visual status indicator and line privacy device can have a profoundly positive effect on how your home office co-exists with your family. Other products, like the call sequencer, automated attendant, and line-sharing device can help you accomplish more during the course of your business day. You’ll answer more calls on fewer lines and at lower cost.
As for the Bowser issue, with patient Pavlovian training you can probably teach him to observe a code of silence every time your visual status indicator lights up. To reinforce the message, you might want to add an additional digital announcer to play the message, "No barking, Bowser. Good dog!" If it works, Fluffy will have to find another dog to taunt.
The bottom line is that these devices help you run a more efficient home office with fewer interruptions. Most importantly, they help you present a more professional appearance to your customers, and clients—and that’s a heck of a payback
