Starting in March, the Covid-19 pandemic had every IT department scrambling to figure out how to get their employees working from home. Headsets and video cameras with soft-client based phone apps for voice and video calls were an obvious “best-effort” to get connected quickly.  Everyone simply made do with what they could find for this massive worldwide work from the home experiment.  Many companies are now considering working from home on a more permanent basis.  A recent Gartner CFO  Survey revealed that 74% of CFOs intend to shift some employees to working remote permanently post Covid-19.  So next up for IT is finding the optimal solution for working from home.  For many employees, that will include a phone.

Let’s look at five of the typical problems encountered in a home office that a Poly phone helps solve.

• Noise at home
• PC issues
• Home networks
• Support and deployment
• Work-life separation

PROBLEM: NOISE AT HOME

Kids, spouse on calls, vacuums, lawnmowers, barking dogs.  Noisy interruptions get old for everyone on the other end of your call.  And, you lose your concentration thinking about how bad the next noisy interruption may be.  Noise at home is a productivity killer.

SOLUTION

Poly phones have Acoustic Fence noise reduction—your PC does not.  All the sounds of home are no problem with Poly phones.  Just pick up your handset or your Poly headset and you can stop worrying about background noise.  With Poly Acoustic Fence, your phone automatically blocks out the background noise.

PROBLEM:  PC ISSUES

Hearing audio glitches during your call with so many apps, windows, and browser tabs open competing for PC resources? Left waiting for your PC to boot or install an update to get back on your call?  We’ve all been there.

SOLUTION

A Poly phone is “always on”.  Poly phones are purpose-built devices that do not compete for PC resources like soft-clients on your PC do.  A mandatory scheduled PC software update won’t interrupt your call.  Your Poly phone is always ready for your next call.

PROBLEM: HOME NETWORKS

Most homes are not wired with Ethernet to every room and your kids may be taxing the bandwidth limits of your home network streaming TV or online gaming.

SOLUTION

An IP phone is a dedicated VoIP device and typically has a higher network priority with most modern home routers or mesh WiFi system—without you needing to go into your home router network settings.  Also, many Poly phones can support WiFi.  Poly CCX 600 has WiFi built-in and Poly VVX 250, VVX 350, and VVX 450 phones have USB ports that can add WiFi with the optional Poly WiFi adapter.  Just remember, when you purchase Poly phones for the office, most IP phones are sold without power adapters as the phones are most often powered with PoE (Power over Ethernet).  For your employees working at home, you’ll need the optional power adapter to power the phone.

PROBLEM:  SUPPORT AND DEPLOYMENT

Audio not so smooth on PC client calls?  Experiencing momentary glitches? Hearing things like, “Can you say that again?” Or, “Your cutting out”? You call IT after the call.  But now the call isn’t live and it’s hard to trace the issue.

SOLUTION

Your UCaaS or CCaaS provider, or your IT staff can troubleshoot call quality issues all the way to the Poly phone, which keeps a log of the call quality statistics—that is, if you even have these problems at all.  Poly phones have adaptive jitter buffers and packet loss concealment built in.  Your provider or IT staff do not have the same ability to troubleshoot to your PC.  With management tools like Poly’s Device Management Service and Poly Lens, you have full diagnostic tools to pinpoint issues.  Deploying a Poly phone is easy with Zero Touch Provisioning and they can be drop-shipped to the employee.  The phone automatically contacts the provisioning server and downloads its configuration.  Plug it in and it’s ready for calls.  Talk about curbside pickup—it’s the ultimate in touchless service in the age of Covid-19!

PROBLEM: WORK-LIFE SEPARATION

Some companies may think “we’ll just pay for the employees’ mobile phone.  It works for sales, why not everyone else?” Here’s the problem—having an employee give out their mobile number means they might get calls any time of day, any day of the week.  And, it can be costly with monthly recurring charges.

SOLUTION

A Poly phone with an assigned DID number—and you don’t have the recurring cost of the employee’s cell phone service.  No dropped phones to repair ­– no lost phones to replace.

PHONES THAT ARE PRICED RIGHT

Did you know that one of our phones cost about the same amount as an enterprise-grade headset?  Poly phones like the VVX 250, VVX 350, and VVX 450 offer advanced features like Poly Acoustic Fence and USB ports for plugging in a Poly WiFi adapter or the latest Poly headsets.  The new Poly CCX series phones offer touch screen performance and introduce new model choices without handsets for users who always prefer to use headsets.  Poly offers model choices suitable for all types of users, from office staff and contact center agents to managers and executives.

If you have employees who want to use one headset with video calls on their PC and with their phone, consider combining a Poly phone with a new Voyager Office series headset with the two-way base—it’s a Bluetooth headset solution that connects to both your phone and your PC —and there are many wearing styles to choose from.  Now your employee has the freedom to roam, go on mute, take a delivery at the door, or deal with those day-to-day emergencies that you’ll undoubtably have with kids at home.

If you are an end user working from home, please consult with your IT department or service provider before deploying a phone at home.  Phones often have order codes that must be matched specifically to the IP phone service you are using, and don’t forget, you’ll need the power adapter.

To learn more, visit http://www.poly.com/phones.

Visit Poly.com for more on remote working strategies and solutions.

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