Hacking Your PBX: 15 Ways to Make the Most of a Modern Phone System
For those of us who were around in the mid-1970s, the idea of a telephone switchboard – or at least the old phone company - may be forever tainted by the "Saturday Night Live" skit in which Lily Tomlin, as a switchboard operator, randomly disconnects calls and infamously declares, "We don't care, we don't have to... we're the phone company."
Thankfully, the last 30 years have brought switchboards into the electronic age, and through PBX (Private Branch eXchange ) technology, many businesses no longer rely on telephone companies (or their operators) to complete many of their calls. Instead, many companies use internal telephone switchboards, known as IP PBX systems – the successor to PBX systems – that use IP technology whenever possible to deliver voice calls.
PBXes started out as internal company switchboards that required operators to manually direct calls from one person to the next. By the 1980s, manual switchboards had largely been eliminated, replaced by automated switchboards, which performed the same function but did not require an operator to manually route the call.
Instead of routing calls through old four-wire PSTNs (public switched telephone networks), modern PBX solutions use the Internet protocol to exchange information. Moving to IP networks has greatly expanded the functionality of PBX systems; instead of being restricted to the office, users are now able to work from virtually every corner of the globe and still make full use of their network's PBX features.
But there is a catch. To make full use of the system's features, you have to know what they all are, as well as how to set up and operate them. And modern PBXes are very complex and receive constant functionality upgrades.
This article serves as the first step to understanding your PBX and maximizing your company's productivity using an IP PBX. These tips and tricks will help PBX beginners optimize their business phone setup, as well as make users familiar with some PBX functionalities they might have overlooked or underused.
Standard PBX Features
Are you getting the most out of your PBX system? Almost 100 percent of modern PBX systems come with the features mentioned in the following section. Surprisingly, many PBX system owners do not know these very basic features exist, let alone how to best use them.
1. Automated Attendant
Perhaps the most critical feature to any PBX system is the automated attendant. The automated attendant serves as a virtual receptionist, directing calls to the different departments, voice mailboxes and extensions on your PBX network. In fact, the automated attendant is the virtual successor to Lily Tomlin – but without the attitude. A well-programmed automated attendant gives your business the power to manage a high volume of calls without a high volume of personnel dedicated to answering phones.
When designing your automated-attendant system, keep in mind that users do not want to go through two minutes' worth of call-directing menus only to have a 15-second conversation with customer service, or even worse be connected to a voice mail or even lost in telephone limbo. Try to avoid redundancy and direct the caller as quickly as possible. In addition, conduct usability surveys with strangers, not just internal employees, in order to get an accurate picture of diverse user experiences. After the system is in place, follow up to see where user complaints are directed and what parts seem to be operating least effectively in order to fine-tune the system.
Make sure you know the two or three people, groups or departments that are most frequently requested and move the options to select or transfer to these to the beginning of the selection process; that way, you can get as many of your clients and customers to where they need to go as fast as possible. If a particular topic or question crops up repeatedly, think about adding a menu option to deal with it.
If your system supports it, allow experienced users to jump straight in and transfer themselves without delay. And the final golden rule is to not leave the caller hanging: If they wait through the whole system and don't select anything, either repeat the options or move them onward to the destination that's most likely to help them resolve their issue, even if that issue is just that they don't know what to do next.
