Mobile Personnel Problem

The company has mobile personnel that need to maintain telephone contact with customers and other outside callers.  Customers and callers can have difficulty contacting those that are away from their desk.  When someone moves around a lot, it may be some time before they retrieve their messages and return calls.  Frequently, drive and travel time could be used to follow-up or make business calls.  Receptionists and assistants have to handle more calls, take care of callers with problems or issues and locate the mobile employee.

Mobile personnel can be away from their desk but within the office, on appointments around town or traveling.  Examples of mobile personnel include:

* Outside salespeople

* Mobile plant managers

* Doctors

* Realtors

* Business owners/managers

* Warehouse managers

* Customer service personnel who need to leave desk or travel in the field

* Field technicians

* Healthcare workers who visit homes including nurses and physical therapists

* Construction site managers

* Inspectors and estimators

How the Problem Should NOT Be Solved

Giving out personal mobile phone numbers is usually not a good solution.  If personal mobile numbers are given out, they can become the customers’ and callers’ primary means of contacting the company.  The company is now exposed to the employee leaving employment and possibly going to work for a competitor.  Now customers are calling ex-employees and sometimes competitors.  If the employee does not leave employment but continues to receive calls on their mobile phone, the company may not get a good record of service calls.

Employees lose their privacy and can be contacted at any time when customers and callers have employee’s personal mobile numbers.  Employee’s current activity can also be disrupted as they get the calls.  Many times, these calls are best handled by other co-workers.  However, the mobile worker is stuck with the call because they have no means of transferring.

Another poor solution is furnishing employees mobile phones by the company.  Although the company controls the telephone number and the employees retain their privacy, their current activities can still be disrupted by calls best handled by others and they will still be stuck with the call.  Providing mobile phones for employees can also be expensive.

Mobile PBX Delivered by a Hosted VoIP Provider is the Solution

The Mobile PBX feature, delivered by select Hosted VoIP providers, integrates the employee’s mobile phone with their desk phone.  When activated, both phones will ring when the office desk telephone number is called.  The phone that answers the call gets the call.  If the call is received on the mobile phone, the call can be transferred back to the desk phone, another extension on the Hosted VoIP service or any telephone number in the world.  The call can go to either phone’s voicemail depending on the wishes of the user, if neither phone answers the call.

Some Mobile PBX services will allow the mobile phone to place calls through the Hosted VoIP service.  This hides the mobile phone’s caller ID protecting the privacy of the employee and preventing private mobile numbers that the company does not control from becoming known.  Also, the Hosted VoIP service can be used for international calls instead of paying expensive mobile phone international call charges.

Other advantages and features of most Mobile PBX services include:

* All calls including those that end up on mobile phones can go through the switchboard.

* Only company owned and controlled numbers are given out or sent out on Caller ID.

* Calls can be easily transferred to and from mobile phones.  Employees never need to get stuck with calls best handled by others.

* Calls will still process to mobile phones even during power outages and other sources of failure at the main office because Mobile PBX is delivered by a Hosted VoIP service.

* Private or personal mobile numbers remain private and personal.

* Employee can control when they receive calls on their mobile phone.

With Mobile PBX, mobile employees can stay productive and easily process calls when they are away from their desk.  Mobile PBX allows a company to take better care of their customers and callers, reduce most “phone tag” issues, save staff time from covering calls for mobile employees and control the numbers callers use to contact them.