We’re all distracted. I’m distracted even writing this.
With Slack messages and email, baby pictures, Instagram, laundry, and the unending news cycle.
Plus a whole lot more.
A CareerBuilder survey back in 2016 found that after questioning just over 3,000 employees, 66% said they check or use their phone several times a day at work and 65% said they spend at work time for non-work personal messaging.
The point is: it’s hard to carve out productivity on some days as opposed to others, especially for those of us who primarily work on our phones or absolutely need to use work features.
So how do we combat this and get some work done? The Do Not Disturb feature. That, taken broadly, is the ability for you to mute the notifications on your phone or computer so you’re less distracted by the constant pings.
For a phone service, this takes on a slightly different meaning…because you might be in a meeting, working on a sensitive project, or have a deadline in an hour. If your business phone is constantly buzzing, you may need some help.
Phone.com’s Do Not Disturb feature saves the day. Once you turn it on, any calls that comes to your number are routed directly to your voicemail without causing your phone to ring. This capability ensures that you have control over the phone ringing.
Here are just a few of the ways that you can use this feature to your benefit:
Meeting Privacy
If you’re in an important lunch meeting, it doesn’t help much if your phone keeps ringing, especially if, as a small business owner, you forward calls to your mobile phone when you’re away from the office. Activating Do Not Disturb prevents that and automatically shifts any incoming calls to your voicemail where you can check them later.
Enforcing Quiet Hours
Your down time should truly be yours. There shouldn’t be any calls during quiet hours, but sometimes things go wrong and a call gets sent through anyway. This is especially likely if your assistant is out sick or you make use of colleagues who might not know your quiet hours procedure.
If you turn on Do Not Disturb, though, it doesn’t matter who tries to patch a call through to you. Unless you approve the call and turn the feature off, anyone who’s sent over to your line will simply wind up in your voicemail instead. If the issue is important, the caller will either leave a message or find someone else to contact about the issue.
Integration with Call Handling Rules
We offer a number of call handling options with our VoIP business services, and Do Not Disturb integrates well with all of them.
Because you’re able to set up features like Do Not Disturb and our other call handling rules in your online account, you can specify different actions for the Do Not Disturb feature. If you have other call handling rules already set up, you can opt to skip the voicemail and simply let the next rule take over. This can be especially useful if you’ve set up a rule that will direct the call to someone else that can handle it for you.
One-Touch Activation
Some of our VoIP phones are designed with our Do Not Disturb feature in mind.
There’s no need to log in to your account to turn the feature on, since the phone itself features a button where you can toggle Do Not Disturb on and off with a single touch. Even if you do have to go into your account, the feature can be turned on with a click. You can see more of our VoIP phones here.
Easy Account Management
As with our other 50+ features, Do Not Disturb is fully configurable from within your account. Access your account settings from your computer, smartphone or other device to instantly have access to Do Not Disturb and all of the other features that you use on a regular basis.
You can also set, remove or edit any call handling rules with ease and make other changes to your phone function without having to contact anyone or wait for changes to take effect. It really is that easy.
So, with that said, put your phone down and get some work done!
