Staying Connected … No Matter What the Weather

Having an emergency preparedness plan is crucial for a business – but not all have one in place. How would your business function if your employees couldn’t make it into the office? Could business continue if a winter snowstorm, fire or other disaster devastated your office? How would you deliver your products or services? Could you still be available to your customers?

Keep Your Phone System Up and Running

Business owners who plan ahead for potential emergencies aim to minimize or avoid extended business downtime. A fundamental priority is keeping your business phone system up and running, even during emergency conditions. The ability to stay in contact customers, vendors and even your own employees can be a reassuring and positive step toward “business as usual.”

Work from Anywhere with the Vonage Cloud

A huge advantage for businesses with hosted business VoIP systems is the ease of staying connected to the system, even when you’re away from the office. Since the system is cloud-based, you have several options for how you choose to communicate:

• Integrated Mobile App. Cloud-based phone systems like Vonage’s offer Mobile Apps that make initiating or receiving calls appear like you’re in the office. Since our mobile solution is integrated with the full phone system, you have access to the system’s robust calling features, and caller ID registers your calls as originating from the office.
• “Never Miss a Call” Features. If an emergency keeps your employees from the office, it’s simple to ensure they still receive calls. Vonage’s “Never Miss a Call” suite of features are easy to enable from either the online User Portal or the Admin Portal. Call Forwarding will send the call to whatever phone or device you like, Simultaneous Ring rings your office phone as well as any other phone number you choose, and Follow Me uses a sequence of phones or devices of your choosing to find you.
• Work from Anywhere. If employees know of a possible disruption to business – such as an oncoming storm – they can always bring their office phone home, plug into their home Internet connection, and begin using the feature-rich phone system just like they were in the office. Vonage refers to this capability as Work from Anywhere, which is ideal for telecommuting when you prefer using your desk phone.

What About Lost Power or Internet?

Don’t forget: Emergency situations can happen when you’re in the office, too. While downed phone lines are not an issue with a cloud-hosted phone system, any office can be inconvenienced by lost power or Internet. The Vonage system comes with an important patent-pending feature called Call Continuity which reroutes VoIP phone calls to a cellphone or other phone number if the office ever loses power or Internet. The feature is simple to configure, and customers are urged to set it up immediately. Similar to the features mentioned above, the result is keeping you connected to the phone system – regardless of the situation.

For so many companies, the business phone system is the lifeline to customers and to business continuity – and it’s a critical component to any emergency preparedness plan. Even in the worst of scenarios, if the office was completely devastated, a hosted business VoIP phone system remains in service for the business. Businesses should indeed think ahead about emergency preparedness, and now is the perfect time. While you can never be fully prepared for every situation, it’s good to know that your phone system can represent continuity for your business when the going gets tough.