Many businesses currently accommodate flexi-time but new laws brought out in June 2014 mean that all staff can apply for more flexible working arrangements. As of June 29, 2014 30 million workers in Britain will get the right to ask for flexible work hours.
In a recent YouGov survey* 12% of SME senior decision makers said that facilitating flexible and remote work was one of their top business headaches. Over a quarter (28%) said that staff productivity was their top challenge in managing the workforce.
Over a quarter of those surveyed (27%) ranked meeting customer service expectations as a challenge and almost a fifth (19%) said they had problems making sure staff was available for customers.
Britain’s bosses have a challenging task to bridge the gap between customer service and flexible work arrangements, but technology can help. Cloud phone systems don’t restrict staff to their desks so customer calls can seamlessly route to staff wherever they are. A phone system, like RingCentral, can be easily set to call a desk, smartphone and/or home phone simultaneously, or even route to a colleague if a member of the team does not answer or is unavailable. Plus with our new mobile apps, for iOS and Andriod, your employees can be seamlessly connected no matter where they are (watch the brief video below to learn more).
For example, RingCentral customer, Fargo Systems—the market leader in software for the haulage and logistics sector—serves over 1200 users across 15 countries. Their hotline support staff work in shifts and calls are promptly answered and routed to consultants wherever they are 24×7. “Consultants are experts in their field and cannot be covered by temporary staff,” explained Steve Collins, General Manager. “The call management capabilities of RingCentral give us good coverage with the consultants we have available, which means we don’t need to overstaff to provide the level of support that our customers expect,” he said.
*Survey of 1068 Senior Decision Makers in UK SME Businesses May 2014.
Originally published Jul 01, 2014, updated Jul 19, 2021
