When my husband told me he’d landed a job in rural Victoria, I thought that I’d have to say goodbye to my job. However, when my employer suggested “you can work from home can’t you?”, I was very excited. I was going to be able to work from home. Yippee. No more commuting. As my boss put it, “we are in the business of communications after all”.
The key to the success of working remotely has been Interactive Intelligence. We are a reseller of their IP Business Communications solutions, and use their systems in-house.
We have the I3 (as it’s termed) client installed within Outlook, which means I3 is loaded whenever I open Outlook. Our technical gurus set me up as a Remote Agent, which means my home phone line becomes my connection to the office.
Outgoing calls
I can click to call anyone in my office or externally. I either click their name on the office phonebook, or simply enter a number, and press Call. I3 then takes the request and calls my home phone. Once I have activated it with a “hello”, it then dials the external number.
Incoming calls
Staff or outside callers can easily contact me too. When they call my Melbourne office number, Interactive Intelligence routes the call to my PC, causing it to “Ring, ring” just like a real phone. When I click Pickup, Interactive Intelligence calls my home phone line and routes the call through.
Recording calls
I have always taken the minutes for our weekly meetings. So when I made the move, I was still able to continue my weekly obligation. If I am going to be away for some reason, I can set I3 to record the meeting, and take the minutes afterward. I do this every week, regardless, as it’s useful to have a record of the entire proceedings for playback and editing.
Remote offices
Since the move, our company has acquired Accent Business Technology. With this exciting move, we now have regular communications meetings which I also minute. We use I3 to connect to our weekly combined meetings too.
Call forwarding
I can set call forwarding in place very simply. I3 has a record of my mobile number, so that if I have to duck out on an errand, I simply click “Available, Forward” within Outlook, and all calls are routed to my mobile.
I’ve been working from home for a year this week. And I’m amazed how smoothly everything all works. Contacts don’t even seem to notice that I am not in a regular office. The only negative I can think of is that it’s hard to avoid the way you left the house in the morning, and so far there is no module available to do the dishes!
