Business continuity is a term that went from obscure management speak, to an essential part of working life due to the pandemic. Google saw “what is business continuity?” rise 200% in searches since March 2020. We all needed to know how to run our businesses effectively without physical office premises for nearly 18 months.
The switch to remote working was difficult for many teams, with thousands struggling to work at their best. At Netcomms, we’re a tech provider for a huge variety of industries. We’ve helped many businesses adapt to the change.
Having seen the ups and downs of remote working first-hand, we believe that it’s vital for businesses to retain a sense of fluidity. If something does go wrong, be it a power cut or a pandemic, any business should be able to adapt their operation to work from home. With this in mind, here’s our Top 5 Tips for creating the ultimate business continuity plan.
Take customer service home
We know that for many businesses their customer service is what sets them apart. Being able to provide your customers with a bespoke service is a huge selling point. Losing this when working from home can be disastrous. Thankfully, when you have the right technology supporting you, it is easy to keep providing a winning service.
Customer service is often based around the software you use. Every business uses management software that allows them to see customer details at a glance and provide a better service. Most of these CRM services are cloud based, and this means that our communication services can integrate with them seamlessly.
If a customer calls your business, and a home worker is equipped with one of our communication services they will immediately know which customer is calling them and key details about their unique case, allowing you to provide a tailor made service.
Keep your team connected
During the first lockdown many of us found that our home broadband connections couldn’t support all of our business needs. Whether it was choppy video conferences, slow download speeds or interference from other devices, it generally did not make for a positive working experience.
This can be solved by a business broadband service. These dedicated connections can be accessed from your office or at home. They allow you to essentially skip the queue when it comes to your internet. These services are designed for businesses and can be tailored to the needs of each member of staff and their location.
Collaborate and keep staff in the know
One of the main things that can suffer in a remote working environment is collaboration. Without the proper steps taken to keep staff in touch, many can end up feeling isolated, leading to poor morale and a lack of productivity. Any good business continuity plan needs to place collaboration first and foremost.
The best way to maintain a sense of team spirit is through a unified communications service. These platforms allow you to use calls, video conferences and messages to stay in contact with each member of your team. A presence icon shows exactly who is available to work alongside you at any time. You can use this service to schedule team meetings, whole company updates, or even recreate a classic of lockdown, the video call quiz.
We’d recommend calling your remote staff at least once a week, to let them know the latest company updates and keep them firmly in the loop.
Add an extra layer of security
Security does play a huge part of working remotely in a responsible way. It is great being able to access your business technology remotely, but not so great when cyber-criminals can too. Thankfully there are plenty of security features available to help.
We recommend cloud communications services, which are the easiest way to store and keep backups of your most important services. As cloud services can be hosted securely from our data centre, nothing is lost if your office is inaccessible. This essentially kills two birds with one stone. Your data is safe from threats but it is also incredibly easy to access if you need to work from home.
Our systems allow you to set up quick call diverts. Even your communications platform is still based in the office, you can still direct calls to their mobile or laptop. This adds that extra layer of resiliency that your business needs.
Make the most of the benefits
Now that you have a strong business continuity plan in place, you will start to see the benefits. The added fluidity that it brings is not just useful in the event of a disaster, but can also give your team more options when they need them.
The ability to seamlessly operate your business from home when needed brings some added flexibility to your business. This allows you to offer your staff the ability to work from home, while still having the peace of mind that your business will still be running at peak efficiency. It also means you can access a new pool of talent, many staff now say that they will only join businesses who offer remote working plans.
To find out more about any of the services mentioned here, visit this page on our website, or call us at 0800 298 6022.