Yes, what is it? Well the profession of the telephone operator is no news to this world. Already decades ago people tried to connect with each other through phone calls and a profession called “Telephone Operator” was born. The technical capabilities were extremely limited and as you can see in the picture below life was pretty complicated. It took a while before organizations started to add their own switchboards and receptions to take advantage of having a technology that helped them manage their inbound call traffic. Picture source: vintag.es (Women working in the U.S. Capitol, 1959)

Operators and receptionists are the gateways to companies and are often the first touchpoint for stakeholders of any kind. Funny enough, the concept of an operator console or a so called attendant solution has not changed in the past years. However, the technology behind the scenes revolutionized the way we communicate. 

So what is it that an attendant console actually does? The basic features of any operator console usually include call handling, call distribution, holding, parking, toggling and so on. You might ask yourself what has changed. The answer is, a lot! The transformation towards voice over IP or VoIP technology has revolutionized our business communication. Calls are now well integrated into any digital corporate environment and that opened the gates for features such as status information of the callee, directories, reporting and analytics and many other useful things. 

Companies with high standards concerning customer relationship or quality assurance rely on operators to manage their inbound calls. Organizations with high call volumes need to increase productivity by adding professional tools to gate the flood of inbound call requests. Bottom line, operator consoles still exist in this highly developed world, but the capabilities today are completely different. Who isn’t fed up with talking to a computer voice asking you for input 1 – 6 just to connect you to another computer voice? Businesses like hospitals need to have reliable operator consoles to manage the highly delicate call traffic. 

So how is this affecting your business? We’ll if you still have an analogue telephone system you might need to upgrade soon to a fully IP based infrastructure. Not only to take full advantage of technologies such as Skype for Business but also to keep it operational and to make sure that your infrastructure will be compatible going forward. Only last year IP telephony within the SME market grew by about 18% and that is just the beginning. An upgrade like that will allow you to fully leverage the potential of a modern attendant console. 

The digital tools allow you to add features that a traditional console simply can’t do. Text chatting, calendar integration, video calls, WebRTC and screen sharing are things that are now possible. Unified Communications is the buzz word these days and it brings a lot of value not only to private users but also companies around the globe. We already live in a world where everything is connected so make sure you stay ahead of the curve. Your receptionists or operators will thank you for it.