While wireless can’t cure every corporate ailment, it can certainly treat the primary ill of business—the tyranny of voice mail and phone tag. The solution is obvious and simple: cordless office phones. Why, then, has this staple of the average American home not yet migrated into the workplace? Answer: cost, security, and quality. Until now.
Just about every office phone system uses a technology called PBX Solutions, which stands for private branch exchange. Essentially, it is a private telephone network whereby a staff shares a certain number of outside lines. The reason virtually every company uses PBXs is that they are significantly cheaper than connecting everyone’s phone to an external phone line, the same kind of connection you have in your home.
While PBX systems are comparatively less expensive than giving everyone their own phone line, the additional technology in wireless PBX systems is more expensive than their wired counterparts, by a factor of 25 percent, according to Bill Landis, president of TuWay Wireless in Pennsylvania. The manufacturers of these systems would argue that while there is a greater initial outlay of cash, the productivity increases and reduced long-distance call-back costs quickly make up the difference. With a wireless PBX handset, employees can roam anywhere in the company’s building or corporate campus and have the full functionality of a PBX desktop phone.
I realize that trying to convince anyone of the advantages of a wireless phone in the workplace is like preaching to the choir. Most professionals want to be available. In fact, at least half of the executives I communicate with regularly offer their cell numbers on their outbound voice mail greetings to facilitate human contact.
While the cellular option is appreciated in an emergency, I rarely place calls to a mobile phone. Too many times when I have had only a quasi-timely, semi-important matter to discuss, I’ve found myself feeling as though I’m intruding by calling the person while he or she is rushing to a urgent meeting or confirming an order at a drive-through (“Supersize it, please”).
