Being able to still communicate with your customers is vital in keeping your business running during the coronavirus pandemic.
Even when your employees are working from home they still need a way to communicate with your customers to discuss services and keep in touch.
At The KR Group, our collaboration team has had an influx of inquiries on how to extend phone capabilities to their remote workers. One option we’re helping our customers with is setting up softphones.
What is a softphone?
In the simplest sense, a softphone is a device that is not meant to be a physical desk phone operating as one through software. This could be a desktop, laptop, smartphone, or even a tablet.
Softphones are particularly helpful for remote workers or any employee you want to have access to their business phone when off-premises.
With softphones, your users aren’t tied to a single location to use their business phones, like traditional desk phones.
By choosing to implement softphones to keep your employees connected to their business phone, your company as a whole will benefit in three ways:
- Softphones may not require you to purchase additional licenses.
- Softphones increase users’ availability.
- Softphones are convenient for your employees.
Collaboration is more important than ever since social distancing has made traditional office meetings (temporarily) a thing of the past. Softphones are one of the ways to continue to empower your employees from home.
Softphones may not require additional licenses
Cisco offers many types of Unified Communications Manager licenses to meet the unique needs of different companies.
When it comes to Cisco BE6K users, most opt for an Enhanced, Enhanced Plus, or Workspace license.
Workspace licenses cover up to 10 devices.
For users who have this license, a softphone merely takes up one of those 10 devices. In fact, having the ability to add a softphone or two is likely the reason you chose this license in the first place.
Enhanced Plus licenses cover two devices.
With Enhanced Plus licenses, users can use their Cisco Unified Communications Manager Licenses on two devices. Most of The KR Group’s customers use one device for a physical phone and then license their smartphone or laptop as a softphone.
When working remotely, you need to ensure one of the two devices is available off-site.
Enhanced licenses cover one device.
When working in your office, generally, this license is used for your physical desk phone. However, enhanced licenses aren’t restricted to that use case.
In fact, at The KR Group, we have multiple customers who use softphones throughout their company instead of physical phones.
Using that license for a softphone enables remote collaboration for your users. Even if you’ve traditionally assigned the enhanced license to a desk phone, you can reconfigure it to cover a softphone instead and enable remote working.
Softphones increase availability
Another benefit of softphones is it allows your users to add business phone capabilities to a device they already frequently use and can take out of the office.
Whether you need to enable your users to take after-hours calls from customers, work remotely, or both, a designated softphone increases their availability.
Using a softphone instead of a home desk phone increases mobility, too, since it’s easy for your users to take a laptop, smartphone, or tablet wherever they decide to work.
And, in the case of using a smartphone as a softphone, most users always have them turned on and within an arm’s reach.
If you have or implement Cisco Expressway this is all possible without a VPN connection, thanks to the secure dual server set up.
Softphones are convenient
Along the same vein as increased availability, softphones are also convenient for users.
The availability and mobility are a large aspect of it, but softphone devices are frequently used for other business operations.
Laptops, for example, are often the primary device for your employees to accomplish their jobs. When you add softphone capabilities to it, your users have an all-in-one workstation they can take anywhere.
It’s more than likely every one of your employees uses a smartphone. You can provide users with a company-issued softphone or reimburse them for the smartphone they already have. Now, your users always have their business phones on them.
Setting up your softphones
To configure softphones so your users can start using them, all you have to do is designate your company’s Cisco Unified Communication Manager licenses. You’ll have to dictate if the softphone will be a laptop, iPhone, Android, tablet, etc.
Once the licenses are set up, your users will log into Cisco Jabber on their designated devices and can start using their softphones.
Then, your users can start taking advantage of the convenience and availability of a softphone.
Softphones are only one part of remote collaboration, though, and collaboration is only one component of needed technology for a remote workforce.
For a list of everything you’ll need to successfully and securely empower your remote workforce, download our free checklist.
