Euphoria Telecom CEO John Woollam.

With new hires suspended by many businesses as the combined effects of slow economic growth and load shedding take hold, businesses are having to try and do more with fewer resources.

For the people involved, this means risking burnout or quiet quitting unless business owners and managers look at ways to help their employees cope.

“Times are tough and business owners need to ensure their people have the tools they need to do their jobs with the minimum of unnecessary stress or effort. Caring for your people goes beyond benefits and bonuses. Taking a holistic approach to your people’s wellbeing can help you to retain rare skills and give you an edge over your competitors - people who feel cared for will take better care of your customers,” Euphoria Telecom CEO John Woollam says.

Below, he outlines five ways your phone system can help your people do more in less time.

Integrate it - VoIP telephone systems can be integrated with software like Microsoft Teams, Zendesk, Freshdesk and Zoho, giving your people one interface to use with all of the high-level call functionality they need, plus the features offered by the software provider.

Automate it - With a digital receptionist, and automated call routing you can make sure calls go straight to where they need to, every time, without any human intervention. This will save your people and your customers time, effort and frustration as they’ll not get stuck in perpetual ‘hold on I’ll see if they are available’ loops or end up returning calls that weren’t meant for them in the first place.

Report it - Managing costs and telephone usage is critical, particularly for businesses looking to reduce expenses as much as possible. It can be very time-consuming, however. VoIP, cloud-based telephony solutions offer the ability to automate reporting, saving manager and financial controllers hours of manual, repetitive work.

Track it - Automated reporting can also give managers insights into how their teams are performing by reporting on the outcomes of calls with customers (call dispositioning) and enabling call centres or team managers to reallocate resources to more effective activities - for example following up on qualified leads rather than cold calling.

Take it with you - Employees across the business can save wasted hours in load shedding traffic by taking their work phone with them. Says Woollam, “VoIP telephony systems use internet connectivity so as long as you have an internet connection and the right software (either on a softphone on your browser on an app on your phone) you can access your work telephone extension wherever you are, saving people wasted time or lost opportunities when they’re not near their desks.”