The COVID-19 pandemic led to many businesses switching to remote work or work-from-home set-ups. Here we will outline the different remote work solutions businesses can adopt to make work-from-home easier and manageable:
1. Get a Virtual Phone Number
Virtual phone numbers help businesses make and receive business calls from any location and device. This means that your remote teams can make and receive calls through the business phone number, even when they are not in the office. And so, they will not have to use their personal phone numbers for business-related calls. If you don’t already have a virtual phone number, go to our homepage and sign up for a new business phone number or port your existing phone number to our service.
2. Set Up Call Routing
Call routing or call forwarding is a telecom service that enables users to route calls from one line to another. In other words, your customers can call your business number, and the call gets routed to your employees’ home phones or smartphones. You can even set up different call routing rules such as:
- Time-based routing — route to various groups, lines, and locations during certain times of the day
- Location-based routing — route calls to different groups or locations based on the location of the caller
- Simultaneous ring — ring multiple phones with one number at the same time to increase the chances of the call being answered
- Sequential ringing — ring phones down a list (sequence) predetermined by managers.
Call routing helps your business continue to offer sales and support even as employees work from home.
3. Get a Softphone or Web Dialer
Equip your remote teams with an easy-to-download and use softphone or web dialer. These are webphones that can be downloaded on browsers, desktops, or as an app. Through a softphone:
- Employees can make and receive business calls with customizable caller ID
- Convert any device into a business phone
- Connect with other employees within the office network
- Transfer calls
- Update customer information
- Access voicemail, and more.
4. Chat and Video Conferencing Tools
For more internal collaboration, consider chat and video conferencing tools such as Google Chat, Google Meet, Zoom, etc., to help your employees easily connect with each other in real-time and work together. This is especially helpful with monthly meetings, handovers, product development, and more.
5. Content & Project Management Systems
You may even consider using a project management system or content management system to track everyone’s projects and tasks, view updates and progress, track work time, and collaborate on projects. Popular examples include Teamwork, Trello, Monday, etc.