With a little creativity, you can turn your voicemail system into a surprisingly effective tool for addressing communication issues facing your organization. “Voicemail systems have never been just three rings to voicemail,” said Jayne Hogle, director, unified communications, American Heart Association, in an IAJG Wired session, “Solving Business Challenges with Voicemail.”
In fact, Aura Messaging and Avaya Messaging (IX Messaging), as well as other voicemail platforms, contain additional features that can be set up to enhance your overall business environment and improve the customer experience (CX). “If you just use your system to record calls when someone is not available, you are only using a small percentage of its capabilities,” she said.
To get started, Hogle suggests taking time to learn just what features and functions are available, as they vary from system to system. “You could take 30 minutes on a Friday afternoon, or talk with other IAUG members who have a similar setup,” she said. “You should also talk with your business units and discuss their challenges. They are also great for innovation, coming up with ideas that you might not think about.”
Powerful business cases
In her talk, Hogle presented nine business cases that can add value to your voicemail system.
• Notify me feature. You can forward voicemail recordings (wav files) to email systems. Then users just click on the file as they go through their messages without having to dial in and listen.
• Transcriptions. If your users are not automatically transcribing calls, your voicemail system can be very helpful. In a law office, for instance, an executive administrator can review a message transcription and decide whether or not to forward to an attorney. The transcription also provides a record of the client’s comments.
• Creating service tickets. A user experiencing a problem can call in and leave a voice message. The system can forward that message and automatically create a service desk ticket, accelerating the process.
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