How effective is your workplace’s communications equipment? In this day and age, people expect businesses to connect immediately with their clients, and even the slightest outage can set productivity back. Whether your office holds five employees, fifty, or more, it’s important to maintain your telecommunications and Internet functionality at optimal levels. You may have hired an outside firm to set you up, or maybe you plan to staff a team for daily troubleshooting. Either way, you may wish to regularly check your equipment for preventative maintenance.
IT Checklist
What needs to be inspected to ensure quality communication? Here’s a short list to assist you in regular check-ups of your equipment.
Telephones
1) If you rely on a multi-line phone system for your office, make sure all the lines work. Seriously, there’s always the possibility somebody could work in his office and wonder why his line doesn’t light up. Especially if you bring new people into the fold, test lines and make sure clients can get through to anybody on staff.
2) Speaking of hiring newcomers, don’t forget to make changes to your automated directory to reflect new hires and remove people no longer working at the office. Make sure everybody has recorded an away message where applicable, and that emergency numbers are directed to the correct people.
3) If you are set up to have your business line forward to your mobile phone or email, test it regularly. You don’t want to miss an important call while you’re out of the office.
Computer
1) Update anti-virus software programs on all computers as needed. Sometimes it doesn’t take much for a rogue virus to cause problems for everybody.
2) Test connections and servers periodically to ensure the Internet works quickly for everybody. There’s nothing more irritating than slow page loads when you’re trying to get work done.
3) Test e-mail filters to make sure all spam messages are held at bay. Also check to see that messages you would typically whitelist aren’t being sent to your junk folders.
It is always a good idea to look at your business telecommunications from the point of view of a potential client. Take the time to test phone calls and e-mails into the system, and listen for any anomalies with the voice directory or voice mail. Listen, too, for interference over the phone line and send test e-mails to yourself and note how quickly they get to your inbox. Inspect your equipment with regularity and you are less likely to have problems, particularly with clients.
Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on Norfolk business telephone services and Norfolk business Internet services.