Hacking PBX: 20 Tips and Tricks to Optimize your Business Phone System

                            Instead, today, many companies use internal telephone switchboards, known as IP PBX systems, a development on Private Branch eXchange ( PBX) which now incorporates both IP technology and VoIP networks. 

PBX started out as an internal company switchboards that required operators to manually direct calls from one person to the next. By the 1980's, manual switchboards had largely been done away with, replaced by automated switchboards, which worked in the same fashion, but did not require an operator to manually route the call. 

Standard PBX Features

Are you getting the most out of your PBX system? Almost 100 percent of modern PBX systems come with the features mentioned in the following section. Surprisingly, however, many PBX system owner are not even aware they exist, not to mention know how to best use these very basic features. 

1. Automated Attendant 
Perhaps the most critical feature to any PBX system is the automated attendant. The automated attendant serves as a virtual receptionist directing calls to the different departments, voice mailboxes and extensions on your PBX network. A well programmed automated attendant gives your business the power to manage a high volume of calls without a high volume of personnel dedicated to answering phones. 

When designing your automated attendant system, keep in mind users do not want to go through 2 minutes worth of call directing menus only to have a 15 second conversation with customer service, or even worse be connected to a voicemail. Try to avoid redundancy and direct the caller as quickly as possible. In addition, conduct surveys of usability with strangers, not just internal employees, in order to get an accurate picture of diverse user experiences. 

2. Call Forwarding 
Every efficient PBX system MUST be able to automatically forward calls to various destinations within the PBX network. If a user can't get to his or her phone, the system should forward calls to their co-worker, supervisor, voice mailbox or any other destination based upon the most efficient solution for your company. Too often, companies fail to consider other call forwarding options beyond voicemail, and thus, lose company efficiency, employee and consumer satisfaction, and may ultimately lose business as a result. 

PBX systems that lack the capacity to forward calls to the correct destination in a timely manner can cripple a company's incoming communications. So make sure to compare forwarding capabilities before purchasing a PBX system. 

3. Call Accounting 
If you're serious about keeping a tab on your company's telephone usage, a call accounting system is a must for you. Call accounting software records various call information including "calling party, date, time, duration, destination party and authorization or account code." 

With accurate call accounting records, you can accurately bill customers for support calls, gauge which employees are spending too much time on the phone, determine if any section in your automated attendant is creating a bottleneck and compare your records to the PBX server or telecommunications company for any payment discrepancies. 

4. Conference Calling 
Conference calling is one of the more powerful features of PBX. Instead of exchanging a series of emails with your co-workers to debate an important topic, conference calling gives you the ability to communicate with a large number of people in real time over the phone. You've already made the investment in a PBX system, so if your employees don't know how to setup their own conference calls, you are just wasting a valuable resource, your staff's time. 

5. Voicemail 
The seamless transition from user to voicemail is a vital component of every PBX system. When the PBX system is busy (or no one is at the office), voicemail takes over logging calls and messages from both clients and co-workers. 

Sometimes you'll be extremely tied up at the office, or will be fielding a lengthy important phone call and just can't get to any other customers. Instead of losing that customer's business, or having a receptionist take a message and forget to give it to you, voicemail allows that customer to record a message that you can check at a later time from any remote location. When setting up your system, however, it is important to consider whether the same voicemail message is appropriate for every caller. Would it serve your company better for customers and co-workers to receive different voicemail messages? If so, have you set up your PBX to make that happen? 

6. Call Holding 
We've all been placed on hold at one time or another, only to be sitting in silence or have our call dropped after more than 20 minutes of idle time. This can be one of the most frustrating aspects when dealing with other businesses. Thankfully, almost every modern PBX system provides the company with the ability to play music, advertisements and estimated wait times to its customers while they're on hold. When configuring your call holding, have both internal and external callers test the system to make sure that the user experience is as customer friendly and reassuring as possible when callers are placed on hold. 

In addition to reassuring callers with music or real-time queue updates, a fully functional PBX call hold system places users on hold in a priority queue and distributes calls accordingly without dropping them or losing customers due to excessive wait times. Consider whether your company would benefit from implementing priority criteria for wait times from particular callers. For example, if your biggest clients call in, you may want to bump them ahead of smaller clients. These questions require a difficult balance, but if you aren't asking them at all, you aren't using your PBX optimally. 

7. Configurability 
What good is a PBX system if you cannot customize it to your company's profile and customer needs? You should be able to configure call attendant menus, scheduled events, on-hold messaging, etc. When a customer calls your company they should be greeted with a unique welcome message, not a preprogrammed generic PBX one. An important first step is to make a list of all the potential callers; include categories of co-workers and customers. Then create relative priorities between these callers and create a list of the particular needs of each caller. Only once you have this master map of callers, should you begin to configure your PBX system, ensuring that your setup will be compatible with all callers, not just those that come to mind during the setup process. 

All of these customizations play an important role in making the customer feel significant, and provide more information about your company to the customer. In addition, they serve an important role in the productivity of your company. Streamlining the internal call process can shave seconds off each call, and with thousands of calls made per employee per year, those seconds translate into very significant productivity gains. 

Advanced PBX Features

Now that you know what your default PBX system is able to do, it is time to explore the extent of PBX's versatility. In this section we will cover more advanced PBX features which when properly integrated will provide your company with the capability to track user locations, transfer voicemail messages to email accounts and accept VoIP calls. 

8. Consolidation 
One of the more popular advanced PBX features takes on the "unified messaging" role, bringing together all of your telecommunications devices into a single convenient system. 

"PBX can bring together your cell phones, analog phones, VoIP phones, email, voicemail, IM, chat, video calling and more."

The technology works by linking all of your office devices together, and messages you on the appropriate device based upon your availability. The PBX system might try your cell phone first, your office phone next, the conference room, or maybe all 3 at the same time, depending on your settings. Whatever the case, the PBX system knows how to get a hold of you, and you should use that capability to your company's advantage. 

If your employees are on the road and need their cell phones to act like their office phone, your PBX can do it. PBX consolidation gives you the freedom to work wherever you see fit and still receive all the unique telephony features PBX has to offer including line extensions, conference calling, call forwarding, etc. If your company isn't currently incorporating consolidation technology into the PBX system, it is losing significant time and money by having "out of office" equal "out of touch" when it comes to your employees. 

9. Personnel Locator 
After consolidating all of your PBX features into one unique system, you are on the way to having a fully-functional mobile workforce. But what happens when you need to know exactly where one of your employees is? Not to worry, PBX systems can keep track of where your employees last interacted with the system, data which will allow you to pinpoint their exact location. 

Some PBX systems are going as far as incorporating GPS and RFID technology into their locating software. By doing this, your PBX system would know not to try your office phone when you're away from the desk, or would know to cut straight to voice mail when you're at home. 

10. Email Integration 
Modern PBX systems have the ability to merge with email clients (such as Microsoft Outlook) and retrieve contact information on the various customers you're on the phone with. Once a call is received, the name and phone number of the customer is automatically matched with existing records in your email contact database and their complete customer profile is brought up on the screen. From there you can get a more thorough idea of who you're dealing with and will know how to better serve their needs. 

PBX telephony also boasts the capability to transfer company employees' voicemail messages to their company email account. The messages are sent in easy to access audio files and allow employees to store and manage all of their voice mailbox contents. 

11. Total "Business Intelligence" Integration 
If you've successfully integrated email into your PBX system why not take it a step further and integrate your entire business intelligence operation? PBX systems have the ability to communicate with your computer and the customer databases you keep on that computer. To merge the databases and PBX, simply take the call information from your customer, probe the database and presto -- you now have all of that customer's contact information, previous interactions, purchase history, etc. 

Properly incorporating business intelligence and your PBX will allow for more streamlined and targeted customer relations, as employees will immediately know background information about the customer, that customer's history with the company, past issues they have had and whether they have been flagged as a particularly important or problematic client. 

One of the ways you can take advantage of this technology is by analyzing your customer's purchasing records and determining what they'll need next as the call takes place. At the same time the call is taking place, you can email the customer quotes about your latest products that are related to previous orders he or she has placed, as well as go over these new products during that same call. Thus, the integration of "real time" accessible business intelligence data will allow you not only to better serve your clients, but it will also allow you to predict which products they might be interested in and use the call as an opportunity to pitch those new products. 

12. Call Routing 
Advanced PBX functionality allows for calls to be routed based upon certain criteria including caller importance, length of wait, time of day, day of week, etc. 

For example, if the president of your company is calling for sales statistics it's probably not a good idea to have him wait in the standard customer queue. Likewise, if someone is calling after certain departments are closed it's probably better to patch them through to the operator rather than have them traverse 2 minutes worth of menus to find out the bad news. 

Just as with call holding, caller mapping is the key to an efficient call routing scheme. Unless you know all the variants of calls the your company receives, you cannot begin to create a PBX routing system that will properly treat all of those callers. 

13. Analog vs. IP Phones 
To provide the greatest range of flexibility, modern PBX systems are able to direct calls through both analog and IP based phones. Both types of calls have their cost and service advantages. Consequently, it is important to setup your PBX so that calls which are more cost-efficient through VoIP (many long-distance calls) are routed through it, while calls that would benefit from the quality of analog are directed through those lines. It is rare to find companies that over utilize VoIP calling. As a starting point, begin by examining your analog calling for inefficiencies, rather than the other way around. 

14. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) 
To take your PBX system to the next level you should make sure it has the technology to provide IMS functionality. IMS allows users to send and receive multiple types of media across a network rather than just hearing voice on a standard PBX system, or reading text on a SMS system. For instance, you could video conference or give an extensive presentation in real time. 

15. Virtual PBX Systems 
For smaller companies who want many of the capabilities of IP PBX but who do not want to incur the costs associated with hosting their own server, virtual PBX has you covered. To gain access to the majority of the standard PBX features (and some of the advanced ones) try using a PBX system hosted on a third party's network. Although your privacy won't be the same and some of the more interesting advanced features will only come in limited form, you can save thousands of dollars in expenses. 

Complete PBX Systems

If you're on the market for a PBX solution, one of the hardest but most important decisions you can make is in deciding between different products. In this section, we cover five prominent PBX solutions which offer all of the standard features discussed in this article, as well as the majority of the advanced features mentioned here. In addition, each of these solutions are relatively cheap (and in some cases free) compared to the majority of PBX systems and are designed specifically for small to medium sized businesses. 

Hardware 


These two solutions are complete PBX hardware based systems requiring no additional software. 

16. Evolution PBX 
To get the full range of features Evolution PBX provides, check out their product fact sheet. Evolution servers start at $899 USD and are designed for companies of 20 people or less. For the large business owners out there, Evolution PBX also offers custom server solutions. 

17. Switchvox PBX 
Switchvox is unique in that it provides you with the ability to customize everything to your company's needs. If you're not sure which PBX solution is right for you, check out Switchvox's selection wizard and add / remove features to meet your criteria. Switchvox servers start at $995. 

Open Source Software 


In addition to the hardware PBX solutions, we have selected three software systems which you should consider implementing onto your PBX hardware. Each application requires a basic dedicated computer and dialing system (available from your local IT store) to get started. 

18. Asterisk 
Asterisk is one of the most popular PBX solutions in the world for two simple reasons: 1) it's extremely powerful and includes nearly all of the advanced PBX features mentioned in this article, and 2) it's free! The only downside is Asterisk will require quite a bit of telephony knowledge to configure the system. Luckily for you, Asterisk provides loads of information in their support pages. 

19. FreeSWITCH 
FreeSWITCH is another free PBX solution boasting a large array of features to make your telephony experience very easy. FreeSWITCH is designed to give users the ability to add various modules to the software (at their peril of course). 

20. sipX 
sipX is another popular open source PBX solution that gives users the ability to develop their own plugins. For a complete list of sipX's features, check out .










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