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Small companies are enjoying a flexibility they never had before through full online customization and control of their phone systems. In today's highly competitive market place, small businesses now have the opportunity to increase their flexibility and options by availing of the many online services currently on offer. Central Statistics Office figures indicate that seven out of every ten businesses have their own websites with a proportion of these developing e-commerce sites. With Internet service offers in areas such as marketing, sales, management and communications; SME's are now in a position to retain a competitive edge through greater service availability at increasingly lower prices. Innovative online services in the telecommunications sector such as the Virtual Switchboard Service for small business continue to evolve and gain popularity. The Virtual Switchboard is essentially an online call management system, which allows the customer to log on to an online account and manage their incoming calls. These services are designed to increase efficiency, flexibility and professionalism for the small business when dealing with their clientele over the phone. Some leading UK providers offer virtual switchboard services specifically for small business consisting of 1-10 employees. Their aim is to provide a system that allows the user an optimum level of flexibility that will increase their competitive advantage. Some of these systems give companies the opportunity to log on to their online account and design their own unique call management system specific to their requirements. Companies will have full online access and control of features including call forwarding to multiple phone lines, IVR configuration (press 1 for sales, press 2 for support) to welcome and direct customers to the right person, voice mail via email, voice recordings and playback manager, email with caller ID, and they can configure their system to take calls differently at different times (of the day, days of the week) i.e. opening and closing times. Through a personal selection and configuration of these features the user can customise their system to suit their unique business requirements. The flexibility and adaptability of the virtual switchboard service has attracted a variety of business users ranging from the home-worker to the trades man, events managers to web designers! Lets try and highlight the flexibility of this service by demonstrating how efficiently it could be adapted within various market sectors: Scenario 1). An online shop - selling computer hardware. They may be a small company but they receive a large amount of calls. They would like to offer customer support through email while receiving just sales calls. They use the IVR system to filter their calls, so they direct their sales calls to a manned phone line (press 1 for sales) and their support calls to a voice recording (press 2 for support), providing customers with details of how to receive email support or important customer information. This enables efficient management of calls so that they maximise cost effectiveness by only taking the calls they wish. The system also provides them with the presence of a larger company and adds to their professional image greeting their customer and redirecting them to the right "department" or person. Scenario 2). An Events Agency. Each of their customers is important to them as they offer a high quality service to a low volume of customers. They wish to receive every call that comes through but they are always on the move between home, the office and meeting clients. They like to use the advanced call forwarding to forward calls to multiple lines. They have their home line, office line and their mobile ring at the same time so they can receive the call on the first phone they pick up no matter where they are. Alternatively they use their IVR system to direct customers to the right person (press 3 for Tom, press 4 for Jerry) and they receive email alerts with caller ID so they never loose prospectus customer. After office hours they direct callers to leave a voice mail and receive it as an email so they can access their voice mail from any computer with internet access. They maximise the amount of calls they receive and never miss out on important business opportunities. Virtual switchboard systems can be customised to specific requirements but can also be managed and changed online at the click of a mouse. These type of services are really giving the smaller business an increase in competitive advantage - allowing them to appear as a larger company, adding to their professional image and giving them a great deal of flexibility. As it is easily configured and managed by the customer, it is adaptable and suitable for a wide range of business types. The fact that the virtual switchboard is hosted online means that most of the traditional costs of providing these telecom services have evaporated making it readily affordable and accessible to the smaller business helping them to gain that all important foot hold in their respective markets.
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