Home Business: Phone System Enhancements

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running (Part 4 of 5)

You’re home office is coming along very well. You have your accounting system and VoIP phone number. Now it's time to think about the additional features you might need to complete your phone system and give your business a professional sound. For example, you can add a voicemail system to answer calls for you, or maybe an on-hold message player for that added level of credibility if you need to put someone on hold while you look something up or take another call.

Those extra audio queues really can help you sound like a larger more professional organization right out of the gate. When callers are on hold, even for just 30 seconds, it is a perfect opportunity to make an impression, create interest, and strengthen your brand image. Every entrepreneur can appreciate the importance of building their brand and strengthening business relationships. IMS telephone on hold software lets you easily play those custom messages to anyone who is put on hold.

There’s only one piece of software you need to put it all together. IVM Voicemail Software can be used to create a custom answering solution, and will work with your standard telephone lines, VoIP services, or both. You can use IVM to play a menu to callers, redirect incoming calls outside of office hours, or as an answer machine. Recorded messages can be played at any time, forwarded to an email address, or accessed remotely. Even if you are on the road you can still easily access your messages, making it easier to stay in touch with all your business contacts.

IVM not only handles voicemail but can also be used as a more sophisticated automated attendant and interactive voice response system (IVR). This means it will easily grow with your small business by providing an answering machine today, and help you direct and transfer calls through a larger PBX phone system when you have several employees tomorrow.

VoIP and Telephony Roundup

Since NCH is a leader in telephony and VoIP software, we want to give you as much information about these topics as possible in one place. Whether you are Wondering if Your Phone Got Left Behind in the Digital Transition, or if you are working on putting together a complete phone system for your home or office, here are some articles we have compiled over the last few months that will help you along the way:

• How VoIP Works
  
• How VoIP Can Help You Save, plus an example of some of those savings in action: Admin Corps Case Study on VoIP Savings
  
• Adding Voicemail to VoIP
  
• Call Recording Laws in the United States
  
• International Call Recording Laws and Regulations
  
• How Telephone On-Hold Messaging Can Help Your Business
  
• Tips For Designing an Interactive Voice Response Telephone System
  
• Auto Dialer Gives Added Power to Small Businesses Reaching Out to Customers and Clients
  
• When we added video call support to Express Talk for the Mac, we also talked about how video calling can be a great alternative to meeting in person especially when a team is spread out geographically
  

For more information about our different telephony software products that you can use to create a custom phone system solution, go to: www.nch.com.au/phone/index.html

Speech Commands in IVR Telephone Systems

In the most recent version of IVM interactive voice response software, v5.03 added a new speech recognition feature that allows the automated system to accept speech commands in addition to key presses as responses. This gives callers added flexibility when navigating an IVR system.

IVM is a powerful interactive phone system perfect for a variety of tasks from setting up an information hotline to a voicemail system or automated attendant. We hope that users will find this new option a convenient feature in designing useful and user-friendly call flow patterns for their interactive telephone systems.

Read more about best practices in designing an interactive voice response system.

Adding Voicemail to VoIP to Help Put You in Business

Recently, we talked about the cost savings VoIP can provide to small-business owners and entrepreneurs. But to make the switch to VoIP as seamless as possible requires figuring out how to manage all your telephony needs. One of the most relied-upon pieces of any business phone system is voicemail, and our interactive voice response software, IVM, will make sure you have all your bases covered.

IVM Voicemail Software can be used to create a custom answering solution for everything from a single-user solution to a multi-line corporate system with thousands of voicemail boxes. Create as many voicemail boxes as you need with the option to check voice messages through an internet access page, by remote call-in access, or have messages sent to an email address as an audio attachment.

And it doesn’t matter whether you have standard landline telephone lines, use a VoIP phone service, or want something that will combine the two—IVM can be configured for a variety of setups.

IVM also includes some impressive features that are sure to add an extra layer of professionalism to your business phone system. For example, the Auto Hours setting in IVM allows you to set different “answering behaviors” based on the time of the incoming call. This can be used to play an off-hours message to customers calling outside of your normal business hours. You can even set up more complex interactive voice response systems, turning your phone line into an information line for customers to find answers to frequently asked questions at the press of the button.

Getting Started with IVM Voicemail Software

While IVM can be connected to your traditional landline with the use of a voice modem or telephony board to manage voicemail for your current phone system, switching to VoIP can further your cost saving, because there is no additional hardware required to connect a VoIP telephone line with IVM or a Virtual PBX.

IVM is a very powerful telephony tool and I could go on all day about the features and benefits of using IVM, but the easiest proof is in the product. IVM comes with a free 14-day trial, and will work on any PC, giving you time to interface with the application and see how it can improve your phone system and boost your business potential.