Office Open Remote Ready  17 Sep 2020 Office Open Remote Ready Dear Valued Customer, I do hope that you and your family have been able to stay safe and that you are coping in the current situation. Some businesses have been closed or unusually quiet whilst others have been working additional hours to manufacture urgently required items or complete national infrastructure contracts. However you have been affected are you now "office open remote ready"? We have a free offer to help you assess your readiness. We have been WFH (working from home) which has also been the new normal for many and it is likely that a new way of working will persist even if there is a mass RTO (return to office). Wouldn't it be help if you and your staff could work from home as easily as working from the office? You can spend the working day engaged with video conference calls and it is no surprise that Zoom claim more than 300 million daily meeting participants, Teams 200 Million and Google Meet 100 Million. But your customers will still telephone you and I guess you would like those customer calls to be answered and dealt with as quickly and efficiently as though you were all working in the office. Which brings me to our free offer. We will provide you a free review of your telephony and data service in a written report that will show how remote ready you are. We will explain the action you can take now to enable working remotely and any recommendations for improving efficiency . To request your free review click here. We will book a 15 minute video conference call or a standard telephone call. During the call you we will be asked a series of structured questions to enable us to produce the report. There will be no need for us to attend your office and there is no charge for the report. If you have any questions just send an email and I will respond ASAP. Best Regards Peter Savic Peter Savic Plum Communications Limited For service please contact us by email service@plumcom.co.uk or call 01616223500. Click for Free Review and Report STAY SAFE  ‌  ‌  ‌

Plum Communications Limited | Bright Street, Oldham, OL8 4AB United Kingdom

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Remote Working 1 April 2020

REMOTE WORKING



It is April already and many will be experiencing their second full week of working from home.





Last week we had an enormous number of requests to set up home working or provide call diversions. This week it is much quieter and the number of requests has slowed down.



The majority of our customers not classed as critical services appear to have either furloughed their staff or asked them to work from home in accordance with the government’s recommendation.



However not all will be aware of the services that are available to ensure that businesses can still communicate efficiently whilst working from home so here is a quick summary.





CALL DIVERSION

In its simplest form available on all analogue lines, dial *21* (number) # to set divert to the number and #21# to cancel the diversion. May not work from certain phones or behind a switchboard, if you need 9 for a line then the number in this case would be (9 + number). If message says service not available or you are struggling to set up contact us and we can add the service for you.



REMOTE CALL DIVERSION (SMART DIVERT)

Includes call diversion but also includes ability to set divert from anywhere by dialling an access number and PIN. Most business lines will already have this but if you do not have the access number or PIN please contact us for the details.



TWINNING

Twinning can be added to most of our systems, this means that a mobile handset can ring at the same time as the office phone. If you do not have this please speak to us to discuss options.



REMOTE WORKER

Includes twinning feature but also has the ability to make outbound calls by clicking in a web portal.

Outbound calls are billed to the company not the homeowner and the outgoing calls show the office number.



APP (MOBILE or DESKTOP)

Apps are available for most of our systems. They allow you to answer and make calls as though you were in the office. On a mobile you would use the built in mic and speaker, on a laptop or PC you would require headset. Free trials are available of some of our apps.



IP PHONE (TAKE YOUR WORKPHONE HOME)

This has worked for many customers, however please be aware that you will require a suitable internet connection, power supply and a cable to connect to the router. You may need to disable SIP ALG on the router. Some ISPs block voice on their connections so please test this and contact us if you require assistance.



IVR AND VOICEMAIL

With all the above we can add IVR (auto attendant) and voicemail to ensure that callers are routed to the correct person and so they can leave messages when staff are not available.



NEW SERVICES

If you would like to use the above features but your current system does not support it please contact us as we can provide free trials. Some customers have taken full hosted systems so their staff can continue working from home.



Hopefully that has all made sense and you will have enough information to understand how to enable remote working for your employees. If you require more assistance please call or email us.



Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any help with anything discussed here



Tomorrow I will provide ideas of how we can help you to reduce costs.



For service please contact us by email service@plumcom.co.uk or telephone 01616223500.



Please stay safe.





Peter Savic



Peter Savic
Plum Communications Limited

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Remote Working And Technology: What You Need To Know

Businesses everywhere are feeling the positive impact of the world becoming a smaller place in terms of mobile communication but what are the most important things to consider if you are thinking of employing a remote worker policy in your organisation and how do you deploy the best telecommunications system that is right for your business?
To help you work out the questions you need to be asking and the issues you need to think about, we have put together some key considerations and facts about  remote working technology.

Benefits Of Remote Working

Many companies who have employed a mobile or remote worker policy have seen travel and time costs greatly reduced; an increase in employee contentment and an ultimate rise in profits. The extension of the ‘office’ has allowed small to medium sized firms to share a multitude of online resources such as databases and file transfer sites. Virtual teams have cut down on meeting times by utilising video conferencing and companies have successfully maintained their corporate identity by working with shared technology.

Some small companies have also reported that they are able to choose from some of the best people in the industry, as they are not restricted by geographical location when it comes to recruitment.

Do I Need An IT Strategy To Support My Remote Worker Policy?

Because technology is the main enabler of remote working, you will need to have a firm strategy in place to get things right from the start. According to a white paper written by growth partnership organisation, Frost and Sullivan, ‘Mobile Collaboration and the Small and Midsize Market’: “ IT Managers must implement an enterprise mobility solution in order to stay competitive in a world in which business gets done 24/7 from any location and on a growing number of devices.”

 

Your Company’s Mobile Phone Policy

The paper also reports that because there has been mass consumerisation of IT in recent years, particularly with the advent of Smart Phones, many people integrate their own personal mobile devices with business.  It advises that while this can save costs for businesses it is important to remember that it does not offer any security or safety measures. It recommends that businesses should undertake an assessment of all mobile workers’ technology needs to develop a clear mobile device strategy.

What Is Unified Communications?

Unified Communication systems allow workers to communicate on a number of different mediums e.g. if you send a voicemail to a colleague he/she has the option of picking this up on an email. The idea behind Unified Communications is to allow users to correspond in the best medium for any given piece of information and get answers as quickly as possible.

Unified communications uses the following different types of real-time communications services:

Instant messaging

Presence information

IP Telephony

Speech recognition

Video conferencing

Interactive whiteboards

Finding The Right Remote Worker Technology With Plum Communications

If you are considering employing people who need remote access then Plum Communications can provide you with the right solution. The Plum Homeworker is a popular product as it affordable, reliable and efficient. We are also accredited to sell and install the following products and solutions:

AVAYA

Cisco

SonicWall

Microsoft

Nokia

HP

Netgear

We supply services from a range of suppliers including  BT Openreach, Talk Talk Business, Vodafone, Enta, Gamma, O2, EE, 3, Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya.
If you would like more information and advice on any of our telecoms solutions then please get in touch with us on 0161 622 3500.

Sources

http://plumcom.com/pdfs/frostsullivanmobilecollaborationsmallmidsizemarket
http://www.plumcom.co.uk/line_rental.php?page=line_rental
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/powwownow-partner-zone/using-technology-flexible-working
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications

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