The following briefing may evoke feelings of despair and desperation, but bear with me as I recap my experience with business phone service (as an executive assistant) before FluentStream.

Arrive at work. Obsessively compulsively situate things for the day (the papers in that stack on the far corner of my desk must have their corners perfectly aligned, that sticky note is a little cock-eyed, and what on Earth is the trash can doing there?). Sit down. Like a small, afraid child, look towards the screen of my desk phone. Ah, thank goodness. Only 27 voicemails last night. Dial in. Nuzzled amongst the several appropriately harsh messages are some true doozies, as usual. “I have called 5 times since yesterday morning and haven’t yet reached the (whatever it was) department”. Or, “If I don’t hear from (blank) today, I will be taking my business elsewhere”. And the worst, “This is the law office of (blank and blank). I am calling on behalf of…”. As per company protocol, I write the details of each message in an email to each intended recipient and hit “Send”. An hour and a half later, I am finally looking at my emails.

The phone calls begin to roll in. I am the front-line, but nobody who calls actually wants to talk to me. When they ask for (blank) I run to his office and knock on his door. Rarely is he available to take the call. I take the details of the message and send it to him in an email. I take several calls from the same handful of people everyday, and we begin to have inside jokes. I do not know if they ever get to talk to anyone but me, so I do the best I can.

I learn that the President is sick of hearing from customers who actually want to talk to someone. I am too young and naive at this point to think the appropriate, DUH! He asks me to investigate implementing an auto-attendant. I don’t know what that is, but after searching, I learn that the auto-attendant will cost bookoo bucks and will require a month or two to bring to life. I get the go-ahead. Maybe in month or so, life will be better!

I think to myself, “Man! Wouldn’t it be nice if callers got different options based on when they are calling? Coming back from a holiday always undid the stress relief that the holiday brought. Callers don’t know that I actually go home at night to spend time with my little cat. Transparency would be great.”

A fax comes in. I attempt to decipher who it is directed towards. Oh. She is gone today. I push it under her door. Faxes are theworst. I can never confirm for a caller if her fax has been received, and the search for a fax can take more than 10 minutes. Thank goodness I am being paid hourly.

Enter FluentStream. Re-imagine the day.

Everyone got the messages they were supposed to receive, because callers were routed exactly where they needed to go. Voicemails received were sent to the user’s email inbox, including the audio attachment of the message.

Your executive assistant transferred the calls she received directly to the person or voicemail box they needed to go to. She could even first check (from the efficient comfort of her rolly chair) if the intended recipient was available for the call. If they were not, she could transfer the call directly into the recipient’s voicemail box.

Everything (auto-attendants, routes, extensions, voicemail boxes, voicemails themselves, faxes, time conditions, recordings, call histories, etc.) was managed directly from the intuitive MyFluentCloud portal. An auto-attendant was implemented in 20 minutes, custom recordings and options included. All of the awesome features were included at one super-low per-user monthly cost.

Users had their own direct dial fax numbers. The faxes were sent directly to the user’s email. Faxes could also be sent to a company fax number, whereby the fax would be sent to everyone’s email (if they are on the “company” list).

And the best bit is for last.

FluentStream’s super awesome, talented, friendly, and fun staff is here to help you imagine your business’ optimum solution. We want to intimately understand your business’ needs and desires. We want to make your telecommunications dreams come true.