Technology, Lifestyle
Maxxess Switchboard goes Virtual with OneVoice
Business Continuity during the numerous lockdowns caused by the Covid Epidemic was extremely challenging in South Africa. Since Maxxess Solutions services were classified by its customers as mission critical to their own business success, we had to continue to provide a high level of Service whilst maintaining a safe working environment for our staff.
The Information Technology environment makes it easy to physically station staff to work from home and provide support and maintenance services. However, the traditional switchboard, physically installed at our offices, made it extremely difficult for our receptionist and support desk staff to facilitate Customer and Support team calls directly. Thus, causing a skeleton staff of skills to be continuously physically stationed at the offices, redirecting calls to those working from home. The redirecting of phone calls also incurred additional phone call costs. This was especially so when redirecting to mobile phones as the days of people having physical phone lines at home are extinct.
After the Covid Epidemic lockdowns were lifted, Maxxess realised that this Hybrid model of Working partly at the Office and partly at Home was very appealing to its staff. Lost shifts due to sick leave were dramatically reduced. Staff being late for work just didn’t happen. There were also huge financial benefits to our staff caused by a reduction of travelling costs to and from their homes to the business office. However, in saying this, some staff found their home environments not conducive to working and still preferred to work from the office.
In discussion with Liquid Intelligent Technologies Consultants, Maxxess decided to move it switchboard platform into the Virtual World by implementing the OneVoice for Operator Connect powered by Microsoft 365. This enabled our switchboard to be merged with Microsoft Teams, a tool we were already using extensively for ‘day-to-day’ communications. Microsoft Teams was installed on all business mobile phones along with direct virtual phone numbers. Headsets were also supplied to staff for them to answer calls via Teams on their laptops.
The implementation of this had numerous benefits to our operations:
- • The traditional receptionist and service desk roles could now also be performed remotely and call forwarding from the there to staff was easily performed.
- • It was now visible within Teams to see who was available, who was busy and who was not available, irrelevant of their location.
- • Multiple support staff could join a meeting initiated with the Customer seamlessly
- • All phone calls and re-directs were now digital and any previous redirecting costs no longer existed.
- • The overall services was provided at a fixed cost per person therefore costs for the service could be managed better.
- • A single contact phone number was established, for all services, 365 days a week, 24 hours a day making it easier for our customers to contact us.
- • The switching from normal business day hours to after hours contact services was now automated.
For more information regarding the OneVoice please refer to OneVoice for Operator Connect