This article was sponsored by Bicom Systems, a leading unified communications provider.
Unless you are offering 24/7, 365 days a year support to your customers, then you may need to implement operation times.
Operation times allow businesses to choose where calls are directed at different times during the day or week. Although this isn’t a new feature for Bicom Systems PBXware, it has been redesigned to better suit customers’ needs in version 5.3.
Users of PBXware 5.3 can set Operation Times based on the hours of operation of their business. To best explain Operation Times, let’s look at an example.
Randy owns a medium sized software support company. His hours of operations are Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Saturday and Sunday, the business is closed. Randy can go into Operation Times and set that on Monday-Friday from the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. calls will be directed to extension number 123. He will then put that on Saturday and Sunday the incoming calls will be directed to a different destination, 999, which goes straight to voicemail. Randy also has the option to set up any Closed Dates, like upcoming holidays. He can send calls to the same destination as the weekend.
Once the business starts to grow, Randy will start to offer an after hours line for emergencies. This line will be opened after 5 p.m. and will run until normal operations start. Randy can set certain operation times for Ring Groups. Depending on the time when the call is received, the call can be redirected to a different PBXware destination.
In PBXware 5.2, there was an option for Midnight Reset. Meaning every night at midnight the access codes will be reset. The default option was always set to “yes,” but in the newest version of PBXware, you have the option to set it to “no.” Meaning, if Randy has a personal emergency of his own, he can set operation times to closed and all calls will be redirected to that number. At midnight, the operations will not automatically reset until Randy manually goes in and changes it.
Now that we met Randy, let’s recap. Operation Times can be set as:
● Custom Destinations: This will redirect all calls to a new destination, that were received during a specific time frame.
● Open Days: You can now set the working hours of your business! If any calls come in, outside of normal operation time you can direct them to a certain destination. This destination could be a ‘We’re closed now’ voicemail or an extension that is dedicated to after hour calls.
● Closed Days ○ If your company is closed for holidays/vacation etc. you can set a specific destination for calls to be sent too.
Setting Operation times can save you time and added stress! PBXware 5.3 has a brand new design with the end user in mind. There is nothing worse than a cranky customer who can’t get through to a representative.
Learn more about operation times and PBXware 5.3 in the official release notes here. Or join us on April 30th at 1 pm EST for a LIVE behind-the-scenes look PBXware 5.3! Register for the webinar here.
Laura Kyle is a marketing assistant for Bicom Systems (www.bicomsystems.com).