Phone costs

We're slowly getting everyone up to speed on the new phone system and getting them to use it. One of the really cool features (well I think it's cool) is the "Single Number Reach" (SNR) facility. Using SNR, when someone calls my office number, it rings both in the office and on my mobile at the same time. I can answer on either and move the call between the two.

So, for example, I take the call on the desk phone but I need to leave the office while I'm talking (or I want to go somewhere private), I can transfer it to my mobile at the touch of a button and off I go. The same is true the other way round. So if I answer the call on my mobile and walk back into the office, I can simply pick up the desk phone and carry on.

What this means in practice, is that I don't have to worry about diverting my phone to my mobile or worrying about calls I might miss if I'm out. If someone rings the office, I will always get the call. In addition, I don't have to give anyone my mobile number.

When we were looking at the justification for the phone system, one of the points was that we would have much less requirement for people to divert their phones to their mobiles when they were working from home (they can use the softphone from home). With single number reach, I'm now thinking we could incur higher charges because we will use the facilities much more. So the real benefit is in better call management and working more effectively as an organisation, not saving money.

VOIP

Last Thursday we installed the VOIP system Cisco have kindly donated to us. What really surprised me was how hassle free this was. Admittedly we have a Cisco Voice Partner, Unifi, doing all the work, but even so, the whole process was very hassle free. We had about 5 minutes downtime swapping cables from one router to another, plus 30 seconds a user plugging the phones in. Remarkable compared to my previous encounters with similar systems.

There was one amusing interlude. We had BT in to install some new circuits. They needed to pull a cable from the 3rd floor to the basement. They started at the top and worked down. On the first floor the cable started feeding through a bit quick. It got quicker and quicker until about 20 metres of cable had emptied itself on top of the engineer! Thick Laurel and Hardy and you'll get the idea.

Anyway, we are still waiting on the BT circuits coming live, then its onto the interesting bit: training the users!