The Most Overlooked Piece Of Technology In The Office

Technology columnist Jeff Bennion discusses advances in desktop phone systems.

Telephone wires phoneMost people don’t give much thought to updating their desk phones. Cellphones, on the other hand, which are more like pocket computers that can also make calls, we upgrade all the time. Cellphones get a lot of news coverage, and we can see how they are constantly evolving into essential productivity tools.

So most of you have probably overlooked the advancements to your desktop phone systems or how that has also moved to the cloud. As a solo attorney who needs to be efficient and mobile, and also recently had to look into phone solutions, let me show you what you’ve been missing out on.

Cloud Phones

These days, the term “cloud” is being attached to everything – cloud storage, cloud email, cloud music, etc. It doesn’t mean anything magical, it just means that a lot of the work is being handled outside your office and can be accessed remotely. For example, with Dropbox, I store my files on Dropbox’s servers, so I don’t have to pay for my own servers, and I can also access those files from home, at the office, or with an app on my phone. Cloud phones are no different, and like Dropbox, they offer a lot of neat features for your phone system. Most of the time, you can get a cloud number for your desktop phone (though you might have to upgrade it) or for your cellphone.

Message Retrieval

A lot of cloud phones offer easier access to voicemail. Instead of calling in and entering your password and the pound key and listening to your voicemail messages one at a time, cloud phone services will often e-mail them to you as an attached .mp3 file, along with other data about the caller and call time. I have been using Google Voice for years, and the ability to save and forward voicemail messages is a huge help. When I get messages from opposing counsel, I can save a copy to the file or save the .mp3 audio file and forward it to the clients or other attorneys working on the case. I usually save voicemail messages in the same folder as my correspondence for easy reference.

Call Forwarding

Sponsored

When someone calls your cloud number, it can ring to your desk and your cellphone at the same time. That way, if you are out of the office, you can still get calls if you want. If it’s a weekend and you don’t want to answer a business call, just don’t answer it. Having remote access to your office isn’t about always being at work, it’s about being at home more and not having to come into the office just to be in the office. Likewise, if someone calls your office and you need to transfer it to someone who is not in the office, you can park the call, call the person who is not in the office, and have them use the app on their phone to pick up the parked call from the client.

Call Masking

Let’s say you are at home and you need to make a phone call to a client, but you don’t want to call from your cellphone. With a lot of cloud phone services, you can call from an app on your phone that shows the outgoing number as your business number. It’s like having a virtual phone inside your cellphone with a different number and a different voicemail system.

Auto Receptionist

You can also set up an auto receptionist. So, instead of your phone ringing and you answer it, it goes to a greeting like, “Thank you for calling the Law Office of So-and-So, LLP. Press 1 to speak to Mr. X. Press 2 to speak to Mr. Y.”

Sponsored

Why Lawyers Need This

There are a lot of enterprise features I did not go into that make this a great solution for large firms as well. Microsoft Office 365 offers an enterprise plan that has a cloud-phone solution built in. It allows for bulk admin managing of user phone lines by the IT administrator. It allows you to create conference call lines for your employees. It makes adding new lines and assigning new phone lines (or cutting off or forwarding phone lines of fired associates) very simple.

microsoft acquire numbers

Using the admin page for Microsoft’s cloud phone service to choose 36 phone numbers to batch-add to my account.

But, I want to focus on the benefits for a solo/small firm. When you are in a small firm, you are perceived as the underdog, especially if you are up against a large firm. Sometimes, clients are impressed by things like having a receptionist (even if it is a robot) or music on hold. With all of the ways we’ve looked at improving our accessibility to clients with the internet, sometimes, it’s good to remember that the goal is to get phone calls and get clients in our office, so having a polished, updated, mobile, feature-rich phone system can go a long way to make a good impression.

Some companies to look at:

Ring Central

8×8

Microsoft Office 365


Jeff Bennion is a solo practitioner at the Law Office of Jeff Bennion. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of San Diego’s plaintiffs’ trial lawyers association, Consumer Attorneys of San Diego. He is also the Education Chair and Executive Committee member of the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technology section. He is a member of the Advisory Council and instructor at UCSD’s Litigation Technology Management program. His opinions are his own. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by email at jeff@trial.technology.

CRM Banner