Get the most from your phone system

Most business telephone systems offer functions that give your business flexibility in making and receiving telephone calls. These functions can help improve communication within your business and with your customers.

One of the simplest telephone functions is voicemail, which allows callers to leave messages while you're away from the phone or on another call. Voicemail allows information to be acted upon in the absence of a conversation - it can speed your work up and retain business you might otherwise have lost. Voicemails can be stored, redirected and accessed remotely. You should be aware that leaving voicemail on for long periods of time can be a major irritation to customers. If you are likely to be unavailable for any length of time, consider using call re-direction.

Call redirection automatically reroutes calls received while you're away from your usual phone to another phone. This can be used to redirect calls to employees who work from home, or to salespeople visiting clients. As with voicemail, this can ensure that calls from potential customers get answered.When businesses or colleagues are on different sites conference calling allows them to work collaboratively. It lets you conduct telephone calls involving more than two people - a useful way of co-ordinating work on projects involving different teams or businesses.

Businesses can use call logging to record the number, timing and duration of calls made from each extension. This function helps ensure your phone system is used appropriately. You can use it to monitor productivity in departments where phone activity is a core business activity, such as customer service or sales departments.Using call barring restricts access to certain numbers, allowing you to enforce limits on the use of your phone system. For instance, some businesses use call barring to prevent employees from dialling numbers with prefixes indicating overseas or premium-rate numbers, thus preventing costly private calls.The ability to send faxes is still important, for instance for sending urgent documents that you do not hold electronically. However, this function is increasingly being replaced by document scanning and email.