Looking to the future with remote working technology

Date: 09/02/2012

The trend for remote working is only set to increase as technology makes being based in an office less imperative, according to experts.

As a result, companies may want to begin looking at how they can improve their operations to allow for this development and ensure business continuity remains strong.

Investing in new revenue share numbers could help firms to not only increase their profits, but also ensure customer queries are dealt with even when staff members are not in the office.

Commsready offers companies that sign up for call packages the option of enhancing their handling by installing call routing and call divert software.

This could prove particularly useful for organisations that have several remote workers who are not always based in the company's central hub, as calls will automatically be rerouted to mobile phones or home extensions.

Futurist at Tomorrowtoday.uk.com Dr Graeme Codrington described how research shows firms can make considerable gains in their employee relations by having a remote working policy.

"Flexibility has been a consistent top-rated engagement policy in research for at least the last decade, so anything employers can do to increase flexibility will gain rewards in engagement and staff retention," he stated.

However, Dr Codrington noted that companies may need to upgrade their current systems in order to introduce this method of working.

It was suggested technologies that allow "flexibility, mobility and virtual connection" will be vital in ensuring remote access is successful.

The expert predicted that "improved bandwidth will allow for the increasing use of video connections", which will be a by-product of VoIP.

Dr Codrington claimed the increasing use of video communication will be a "quite significant" development in the near future.

As more and more staff members and companies seek to have the flexibility of operating outside of the central office, IT departments are likely to move towards call handling systems that provide a business linkup.

For example multi-site line rationalisation is one way in which firms can streamline their inbound and outbound calls in a simple and effective manner.

This allows for business continuity, not just in the case of a system failure or disaster emergency, but also on a day-to-day basis.

Companies can opt to control their call routing and adapt it dependent on what sites or individuals are available to handle customer and client queries.

Commsready offers organisations that purchase new phone numbers a free one-month trial of its call routing and call divert services.

This provides businesses with the opportunity to manage their inbound calls and also monitor when their busiest times of communication are.

Based on the statistics collated through this software, firms can then plan where to route calls at certain times of the day or on specific days of the week.

As Dr Codrington claimed technological developments are set to drive remote working in the forthcoming years, now may be the ideal time for companies to research switching to new revenue share numbers and implementing call divert software.

The expert concluded: "My prediction ... is that remote working will be driven as much by older generations as younger. For different reasons, they will all want the same thing – and that means it will happen at pace."