Could your business be vulnerable to a natural disaster? As a Hurricane season arrives in eastern U.S.. the National Weather Service predicts that we may be in for a big one this year.
If your business relies on your phone calls for day to day operations, then you must have a plan on how to handle phone disruptions due to natural disasters. Your plan should detail how to deal with phone outages including redundant phone systems if needed and how to enable employees to work from home. A little preparation can go a long way in keeping a natural disaster from hurting your business.
If Your Phone System is Still Analog Base- Its time to switch to a Hosted PBX
Did you know that the copper circuit provided by your local service provider (AT&T, Verizon, XO, etc.) is the weakest link of your telecommunications system? They’re exposed to the elements and therefore can suffer the most damage. For this reason, any company who has a disaster plan must also have a circuit redundancy plan. Moving to Hosted PBX system is a good way to make sure your companies telecommunications are not interrupted during a natural disaster.
With a VoIP hosted PBX system all your calls run over the internet. If your office loses power your calls can be automatically re-routed to employee cell phones or alternate office locations.
While switching your entire telecommunications system to a VoIP hosted PBX system would be the best way to avoid an outage during a natural disaster, you should at the very least have a VoIP hosted PBX setup as a backup for emergencies.
Setup Hunt Groups for Each of Your Employees
During a natural disaster, employees may not be able to come to the office. The best way to make sure they stay connected is to setup a Hunt Group that rings their cell phone and their work phone simultaneously. With this feature they will still be able to receive their calls even if they are not at their desk.
Utilize Smartphone Apps or Desktop Clients to Enable Employees to Work Remotely
A Smartphone App (i.e. for iPhone or Android) is a great investment in your disaster plan. Once installed, a Smartphone App gives employees the ability to make calls using their Smartphone from anywhere in the world as if they were in the office. Some of the features of a Smartphone App include:
- Company caller ID on outgoing calls (not their personal caller ID)
- The ability to transfer calls to/from other employees who are in the office or who are also working remotely
- Up to 3 calls can be answered and put on hold at a time
- Calls are included in the companies call reports just like any other call made/answered at the office would be
A Soft-phone is a piece of software that allows the user to make telephone calls over the internet via a computer. With a Soft-phone an employee can make and answer calls from their computer as if they were using their office phone.
Take Your VoIP Phone Home
If you have internet access at home, you can plug your office phone into your router and manage calls as you normally would. (Don’t forget to take the power adapter home along with the phone.)
Priority Support
A support plan with your telecommunications vendor is the most important disaster recovery element you can have. Most support plans customers receive data backups, priority response times and better availability of parts when needed. This could be critical to how your business gets up and running again.