Half your team isn’t at their desks. The estimator is at a site in Eagle River. The owner is at a trade show in Seattle. The service tech is somewhere between Palmer and Big Lake. Meanwhile, customers keep calling the office, and the desk phones keep ringing in empty rooms.
The usual workaround is giving customers everyone’s cell number. That works until it doesn’t. There’s a cleaner answer: put the office extension on the cell phone itself.
What that actually means
With IBeXc, each person’s extension lives on our hosted system, not in a particular desk phone. That means it can ring more than one device. The Bria Enterprise app is a softphone, which is simply a phone app that acts like your office desk phone. It runs on cell phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.
Once Bria is set up, three useful things happen:
- Your desk phone and the app ring together. A call to your extension rings at your desk and on your cell phone at the same time. Answer whichever is closer.
- Outbound calls show the office caller ID. When you call a customer from Bria, they see your business number, not your personal cell number.
- It works like your desk phone. Transfer a call to a coworker, dial an extension, check voicemail, all from the app.
Bria also includes video calls and team chat, which comes in handy for a quick face-to-face with the office or a message to a coworker that doesn’t need a call.
Who it helps most
Field crews
Contractors, service techs, inspectors and delivery drivers spend the day away from the office. With Bria, a customer who calls the main number can be transferred straight to the person on site. The tech can call the customer to say they’re running late, and the call comes from the business.
Travelers
Sales trips, conferences and supplier visits in the Lower 48 don’t have to mean missed calls. As long as you have cell data or Wi-Fi, your extension works the same way it does in Anchorage. Colleagues dial your extension just like always.
Managers who move around
If you split your time between two locations, or you’re often in the shop instead of the office, Bria lets you carry your extension with you without carrying a second phone.
Why the caller ID part matters
This is the feature owners notice most. When staff call customers from their personal cell phones, those customers save the personal number. The next time they need something, they call the employee directly. That skips your office, your scheduling and your after-hours rules. If that employee leaves, some of those customers go quiet, or go with them.
When every call goes out with the office caller ID, customers call the business back. Calls go through your routing, the right person picks up, and customer relationships stay with the company. We go deeper on this in Why you shouldn’t run your business on your personal cell phone.
Practical details
- Up to three devices per person. Each user can run Bria on up to three devices, such as a cell phone, a laptop and a tablet.
- It uses data. Bria works over Wi-Fi or your cell data. Good coverage means good calls. In spots with weak coverage, such as some stretches of highway, the Wi-Fi at a job site trailer or hotel can help.
- Your personal number stays personal. Business calls come through the app, and personal calls stay on your phone’s normal dialer.
- It keeps working if the office doesn’t. If the power goes out at the office, people with Bria can still take calls on their cell phones.
Desk phone, app, or both?
For most people, it’s both. A Snom desk phone is still the most comfortable way to handle a busy day of calls at the office: a real handset, clear audio and buttons for common tasks. Bria covers everything else. Some staff, such as remote hires or people who are almost never in the office, may only need the app. See Hiring remote staff: giving them a real business extension for that setup.
How IBeXc helps
Bria Enterprise comes as part of your IBeXc hosted system. Our Anchorage team sets up each person’s extension, helps install Bria on their devices, and programs how calls ring, so the desk phone and app work together the way you want. If someone joins or leaves, we add or remove them. When someone leaves, their extension and the customer calls that come with it stay with your business.
Tell us how many people work away from their desks, and we’ll show you how Bria fits your office. Get a quote for your office →
