Don’t just have a plan to recover from business interruption, have a plan to maintain continuity during an incident too!
How would it affect your business if you were forced to close office premises for a period of time? Many businesses will have plans for disaster recovery and continuity of operations – but do these include your business telecoms?
Having a Disaster Recovery plan for your IT and business communications is a must to help your IT team get things back up and running again swiftly following any unplanned downtime. But you should be thinking business continuity first! Having a Business Continuity plan will help to prevent any unplanned incidents having a negative impact on your business operations and, if unavoidable, help to minimise the effects. The two will work together to ensure limited loss of service and your customers will experience a seamless service regardless of what is going on behind the scenes. So, where do you start?
Firstly you need to choose the right solutions to support your business. Make sure the products you choose are inherently resilient, flexible and easily scalable. Traditional technology is dated and can leave your business at risk unnecessarily. Next generation alternatives to ISDN such as SIP trunking and hosted telephony have built in business continuity features.
Features to Help With Business Continuity
Welcome Message
Pre-recorded warning messages to alert callers of potential delays and problems
Voicemail
Activating a voicemail function to allow non-urgent callers to leave a message
Call Routing
Self-service switchboard (IVR) to allow callers to route themselves to the right department where possible
Remote Working
Mobile/home office-capable redirection for emergencies with collaborate application for mobile devices
