Benefits of the Cloud: Take Work Home if You Can't Take the Fourth Off

You're a cool boss, so you want to give your team the day off for the Fourth of July. Independence Day is very meaningful for Americans, and who wouldn't want a chance to spend more time celebrating with loved ones?

However, closing up shop isn't always an option. For consumer-facing companies, the Fourth of July is a rare occasion when customers are actually off work during the week. Meanwhile, B2B companies can't always shut down unless their customers do, too.

Mobility is among the top benefits of the cloud, and if you have the right tools in place, your team can take the day off while remaining always-on, just in case you or your customers need them.

If you don't already let employees telecommute, what better time to give it a try? Unless you're a retailer, business will likely be slow anyway, and your team would rather be at home, at the beach, at a holiday cookout, or anywhere else but the office.

With cloud unified communications, you and your team can work from anywhere and still enjoy the following benefits of the cloud:

1. Seamless Business Communication

Are you hard at work, or hardly working? That's your little secret. If your phone lines stay open, customers don't have to know you've shut your doors for the day. With a cloud-based virtual phone system, work calls ring through to your desk phone and your mobile phone, and outgoing calls from both devices show the same phone number on caller ID.

2. Auto Call Screening

If your business phone system has a virtual receptionist, it will happily work through the holiday and not even ask for time-and-a-half. A virtual receptionist can answer customers' FAQs and direct urgent inquiries to the right person's mobile phone. And if there are only a few VIP customers whose calls you really don't want to miss, you can set parameters for which calls ring through to your mobile device, and which ones get sent to voicemail to be answered the next morning.

3. Easy Collaboration

What if someone needs to talk to a colleague, pass along a quick message, or get feedback on an urgent document? Cloud collaboration tools make it easy to communicate as if everyone were in the office. After all, they're using the exact same tools they use at work — the same apps, phone numbers, and logins — just from different devices.

4. CRM Access

If your team is making or taking calls remotely, employees likely need access to your CRM. They might need to look up customer contact information or make notes about any customer interactions they have while away from the office. And, as you know far too well, if notes don't go into the CRM immediately, they probably never will. With CRM in the cloud, your team can access the platform from any location and device. Better yet, when that cloud CRM is integrated into your cloud business phone system, calls and call recordings are automatically logged.

Thanks to these benefits of the cloud, your team can be always-on, and still mostly take the day off. Or, if your business doesn't slow down for Independence Day and your employees do actually need to be productive, they can learn some telecommuting productivity tips to help them focus from home.

Do you want to learn more about how cloud communications provide greater mobility for your team? Speak to a consultant.