Over the last couple of years, the word “essential” has been used quite a bit. We’ve heard about essential workers, essential industries, and essential services. Well, now we need to add something new to the list of essentials: a digital phone app. Here are 6 reasons why:
1. Business Caller ID
Many employers have a bring your own device (BYOD) policy, which allows employees to use their personal mobile devices for work-related purposes. This is cost effective for employers, and convenient for employees. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that when making work-related calls, employees who are using their own device will have their personal name/number appear on Caller ID instead of the business name. There are four major problems with this:
- It looks unprofessional.
- The receiving party may not answer the phone if they don’t recognize the name/number.
- It poses a privacy risk for employees.
- In some industries such as health care, displaying an employee’s personal name/number on Caller ID is a compliance violation.
Fortunately, a digital phone app solves ALL of these problems. This is because the business name/number always displays on Caller ID, even if employees are using their personal device!
2. Chat, SMS & MMS
Research has found that 7 in 10 employees strongly prefer texting for interoffice communication (“interoffice” in this sense does not necessarily mean that employees co-located in the same physical space, but rather that they are part of the same organization and can be located anywhere — including home offices). What’s more, 8 in 10 employees now conduct most of their business-related communication through text.
A digital phone app has built-in chat, SMS, and MMS functionality. Employees can rapidly and easily collaborate with colleagues, and connect with customers and other business-related parties. Plus, texting allows employees to keep a record of the correspondence.
3. Voicemail-to-Email and Voicemail-to-Text
A survey by Forrester found that 71% of customers believe the most important thing a business can do in terms of customer service is value their time. And it is not just customers who expect a quick response. So do colleagues, vendors, suppliers, strategic partners, and other parties. That is where two related features of a digital phone app —namely voicemail-to-email and voicemail-to-text — make a game-changing difference!
With voicemail-to-email, employees automatically receive voicemail recordings as email attachments, which they can listen to from anywhere. And voicemail-to-text automatically transcribes voicemails in the body of an email, so that employees can quickly get the message and respond accordingly.
What’s more, employees can save audio recordings (voicemail-to-email) and transcriptions (voicemail-to-text) for reference, compliance, and information sharing purposes.
4. Team Status Updates (“Presence”)
When employees are co-located in the same physical space, it is not always clear whether colleagues are available or busy (they may “look” or “sound” available, but actually working on an important task). And when employees are not co-located, there is no practical way to know if they are available. The only option is to text, email, or phone them — which is tedious and time consuming.
A digital phone app eliminates this problem through a feature called “presence,” which allows employees to see at-a-glance and in real time whether their colleagues are available, busy, or away — regardless of where they are located.
5. Call History
Let’s circle back to the bad idea of employees using personal devices for work-related calling. In addition to the problems that we already highlighted (see #1), there is another pitfall: work-related calls and personal calls get mixed up in call history. This makes it tedious and time consuming for employees to see exactly when they made/received a work-related call.
A digital phone app eliminates this challenge. All work-related call history is captured and tracked in the app, while all personal calls are captured and tracked by the cell phone’s native calling software. As such, employees never have to wade through dozens, hundreds, or possibly thousands of personal calls going back months or years to find the business call data they need.
6. Answering Rules
A digital phone app makes it easy and fast for employees to create and change call answer rules. For example, they can forward calls to their home office or a colleague. They can also have their cell phone and their business line ring at the same time in order to minimize the number of calls that go to voicemail — which is very important for sales reps, account managers, and technical/customer support staff!
The Bottom Line For A Digital Phone App
In the new world of work, there are nice-to-have tools — and there are essential tools. For the reasons discussed above, a digital phone app is 100% essential, and is a total win for employers and employees alike.
Ready to Learn More?
At Carolina Digital Phone, our all-in-one cloud (VoIP) telephone system features a powerful, yet extremely easy-to-use digital phone app for iOS and Android. It’s ideal for remote/hybrid workers, as well as in-office workers who need to stay connected — yet may not always be at their workstations or desks.
Learn more by scheduling a complimentary, no-risk demo. Call us now at (336) 544-4000, or chat with us by clicking the icon on the bottom of your screen.