It's December and Christmas is just around the corner. But business never sleeps. And nor does your company's telephone system. For it always has to be "on duty". Whereas most employees take time off over the holiday season, it's business as usual in some places.

It depends on the industry. Say, industry A closes for the holiday season, industry B reduces operations but still has to be reachable by phone and industry C has to stay open for business. But let's have a closer look at the individual situations using examples.

Industry A - annual closing

This includes companies which are closed over the holiday season, such as municipal facilities, supermarkets, bank branches or educational institutions. With annual closing, the only solution is forwarding of calls to an answering machine which informs callers of the current opening hours.

Industry B - reduced operations

Here, I am thinking of manufacturing industries, software development companies, company emergency services, service providers etc. An automatic announcement with the opening hours is not sufficient for reduced operations.

Let's assume that Mrs Smith's heating system breaks down on 26 December. It's freezing cold outside. She calls the regional heating service as it has been promoting its emergency service in its advertising. The switchboard operator from the heating service answers the emergency call and forwards it to a technician. He then arranges an appointment straight away and drives over to Mrs Smith's home.

In a different company, a sale has to be finalized, i.e. being able to be reached by phone is an absolute must. When a call is made to the main number, the switchboard operator takes the call. With the help of the telephone directory he or she is quickly able to find the member of the sales staff who is on duty and who, according to the green presence indicator, is available. The call is therefore forwarded quickly to the correct person and the sales employee can draw up an offer and send it to the customer.

These examples show how important availability by phone can be also during the holiday season. It is certainly possible to set up several service numbers in order to maintain an even more targeted telephone service. The integration of home office staff is an interesting and cost-effective alternative. They can be set up in the network, work in parallel or on service numbers specifically tailored for them. Calls can be immediately forwarded to other fixed-line phones and/or mobile phones. This is made possible by a new architecture. Switchboard operators answer calls only using the browser in the desktop on their PC, there is no need for any additional client software. Actual communication takes place via WebRTC, a new technology for internet browsers, which is becoming more and more commonplace in our digital world. WebRTC enables both audio and video transmissions to be performed.

Industry C  –  business as usual

This refers to companies who offer and provide their services irrespective of public holidays. For example: police, fire service, hospitals, rescue services, energy providers, water utilities and transport providers such as railway operators, airlines, airports. This list alone shows the necessity of availability by phone. Answering of calls must not only be ensured around the clock, but calls must be forwarded quickly and reliably to the responsible person.

Different service numbers can remain active even over the Christmas period. The switchboard is either manned on site in the company or by home office staff. Calls are received in the central attendant software by the integrated operators' duty rosters. This means that a switchboard operator who is on vacation is not assigned any calls, but one on duty will receive calls set up for him (taking into account the weekday, public holiday, time and breaks). He can view calendar entries of other switchboard staff, as well as calendars of those people to whom the calls are to be transferred. This enables him to quickly identify absences and reach colleagues who are on duty. He is supported at his workplace by an accurate and quick search function.

It is also possible to import different announcement texts or music, whether in conjunction with queues or because an announcement is sufficient for certain service numbers. The attendant software also includes an alarm reporting function, which quickly informs the administrator of any problems in the system. A globally active company can form operator groups worldwide, so that switchboard operators can take into account different public holidays, opening hours and time zones in their tasks.

Are you interested in this type of solution for incoming calls? Do you want to be independent of public holidays with regard to call handling? Then have a closer look at the talkbase solution.

Also, I wish you happy holidays and a good start to 2017!