On Tuesday it snowed in Austin, TX. And when large, puffy white things fall from the sky, all of us at GCS, like many Austinites, fall into a catatonic state. "Look at the pretty snow." That lasts about 5 minutes until we realize we have to drive home with other Austinites equally mesmerized but traveling 70 miles per hour. After weighing our options we elected to close the office early. This was an easy decision because IT DID NOT AFFECT OUR OUTPUT! The Great Snow Day of 2010 was just another Real World Emergency Test of our remote access systems.
At GCS the phone rings about 300 times per day. It is the primary communication tool between GCS and our clients. Each phone call represents a client service request and revenue to be earned. This is very similar to most businesses in the world. How were we able to handle 300 calls per day without an open office? The Telecommuter mode on the Avaya IP Office.
Avaya Telecommuter mode is an add-on to the Phone Manager desktop application for the IP office. The standard Phone Manager product allows you to control your phone from your desktop (answer, hang-up, transfer, etc), but requires you to be near your phone for the actual call. With Telecommuter mode, you can tell the system you are out of the office and give it a phone number where you can be reached. This number can be a cell phone, home phone or any other phone number. When a call comes in to your office phone, the IP Office routes that call your remote phone. If you don't answer it pulls the call back and sends it to your business voicemail. If you do answer, you have the full range of Phone Manager features (transfer, conference, hold, etc) at your disposal to manage the call.
You can even make outbound calls through the system without showing the caller ID of your home or cell phone! Simply type the number you want to call and click "Connect." The IP Office first calls your remote phone and waits for you to pick up. When you pick up the phone, it then dials out to the number you dialed. You have all the same features on an outbound call that you have on incoming calls.
Our staff left very early on Tuesday. Upon reaching their homes, they were able to receive both hunt group calls (like our incoming Help Desk, Sales, and Accounting groups) and direct calls to their extensions or DIDs. Most GCS staff members relied on their cell phones as the remote line. All of this took less than an hour, mostly drive time, with no decrease in the performance of our major business functions.
Telecommuter performed exceptionally well for us. Our office was completely dark from 12:00pm through 6:00pm, yet we continued to provide a high level of service to our clients.