Telephones – what do you use yours for?

When historians look back at this decade, they may well refer to it as being notable for the rise of the smart phone app. No longer the dream of science fiction writers, the smart phone is transforming the way we interact with our world.

Looking at two recent examples, a 13 year old boy has invented a phone-linked doorbell. Ring the bell and your phone rings, allowing you to talk to the visitor and ending the need to wait in for un-timed deliveries. Secondly, Aga have released a new model which in addition to offering on/off controls comes with an app allowing you to control your cooking via the phone.

With applications like these adding almost daily to ones which track your position, play your music and so on it won’t be long before our entire lives are run via our phones. It is therefore perhaps surprising that when it comes to business many still operate on old fashioned lines. For some the reason for not changing is down to inertia or more pressing priorities. For others the fear of new technology or the perception of increased costs may be holding them back.

However, those who have not yet taken the plunge may have to do so soon as those businesses which have taken the decision to upgrade outreach them in terms of cost effectiveness, service and flexibility. Just as you can use the internet to call you when your doorbell rings, so you can also use the World Wide Web to manage your telephone communications.

Imagine a world where your telephone switchboard is on the Web. Calls can be accessed from and transferred to any point in the world without delay. You can have multiple local numbers in locations throughout the world with every call being routed to a central answering point. You can even set pathways for calls to follow with responses based on caller recognition.

That dream world is already a reality for many businesses. Better still the dream is cost effective with internet (VoIP) calls costing a fraction of landline calls and VoIP to VoIP calls often being free. With faster cheaper communication businesses are already reaping the benefits of internet communication allowing them to control margins whilst simultaneously improving customer service. So maybe this is the era of the smart phone but business is not far behind and catching up fast.