You’ve hired someone great. Maybe they live in Homer, maybe in the Valley, maybe in Boise. They’ll work from home, and they’ll be talking to your customers every day. So which phone will they use?
For a lot of small businesses, the answer is “their own cell phone.” It’s quick and it costs nothing up front. It also quietly hands a piece of your business to that employee. Here’s why, and how to give remote staff a real business extension instead.
Employees come and go. Customers should stay.
When a remote employee calls customers from a personal cell phone, every one of those customers ends up with the employee’s personal number. They save it. They call it next time. They text it on a Saturday.
Now picture that employee leaving. Maybe on good terms, maybe for a competitor. Your customers still have their number, and the next call goes straight to someone who no longer works for you. You may never know it happened.
This is the big one. The relationship should belong to your company, not to whoever happened to make the call. A business extension makes sure it does.
What a real business extension looks like
With a hosted phone system, an extension isn’t tied to a desk. The phone system runs as software in a secure data center, and anything that connects to it over the Internet can be part of it. IBeXc is hosted in Anchorage, and remote staff connect using Bria Enterprise, a softphone app. A softphone is simply a phone that runs as an app on a device you already have.
- Works on the devices they already use. Bria runs on cell phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Each user can have Bria on up to 3 devices, for example a cell phone, a laptop and a tablet.
- Shows your company caller ID. Outbound calls from Bria show the office caller ID, not the employee’s personal number. Customers see your business, and call your business back.
- Rings with the office. If the employee also has a desk phone at the office, the desk phone and the app ring together. They can answer wherever they are.
- A real extension. Coworkers dial them by extension. The front desk can transfer calls to them. They can join a call queue, which holds callers in line until someone is free.
- More than calls. The app also includes video calls and team chat.
When someone leaves, their extension is changed or removed on our side. Their access ends, and the customer relationships stay with you.
Why this matters even more for on-call businesses
If your business runs an on-call rotation, such as property management, IT support, home services, medical practices or equipment repair, you already have a process. Callers dial the business, and the call reaches whoever is on call tonight.
Personal cell numbers short-circuit that process. Once a customer has a technician’s cell number, they skip your on-call system and call that technician directly, at any hour, whether or not it’s their night. The on-call person never hears about it. The off-duty employee gets woken up. And you lose track of what’s being promised to whom.
When your staff call out through Bria with the company caller ID, customers only ever see your business number. Every after-hours call goes through the routing you set up, and your on-call rotation keeps working the way you designed it.
Setting up a remote employee
- Decide what they need. The app alone, or the app plus a desk phone for a home office. Snom desk phones come as part of the IBeXc service and work from home just like at the office.
- Check their Internet. A reasonable home connection is usually plenty for voice.
- Tell us how calls should reach them. Direct extension, part of a queue, on-call rotation, or all three.
- We program it. We do the design and programming for you, so nobody has to fumble through settings on their first day.
Adding a remote worker is a change on our side, not new equipment. And with no long-term contracts, you can add or remove people as your team changes.
Your own cell phone, too
This isn’t only a remote-staff issue. Many owners run their business from a personal cell phone and feel the same problems: their number on every card, calls at all hours, no clean hand-off. We cover that side in why you shouldn’t run your business on your personal cell phone. For more on how the app works for field crews and travel, see your office extension on your cell phone.
Give your remote team a real extension
Whether you have one remote hire or a dozen, a business extension protects your customers and your processes. You can read more about using Bria with the hosted phone system, or call our Anchorage team at 907-257-2600.
Tell us how many people you have, where they work, and how callers should reach them. Get a quote for your office →
