Office phones

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Afternoon
Does anyone have any recommendations for office phones?

I work from home and am about to have a business line installed, so need a decent handset with built in answerphone and programmable shortcut buttons.

I don't want to spend a fortune, but equally don't want some white lump of tosh sitting on my desk (it's all about image!)

After a brief dig around, I can't seem to find any regular high street stores that do more than the standard BT type phones, so any help would be great.

Cheers

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Anyone??!

[PetrolTed]

I'm in the same boat.

Got a Siemens Euroset 2015 in the end.

Don't think it's got an answer phone in it though.

Far better to subscribe to a call answering service. More professional image and people are more likely to leave a message. Try something like www.alldaypa.com

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Ted - thanks for the reply.
Being the tight Yorkshireman I am, I would struggle to go the 'Virtual PA' route!

I've done the usual Google trawling for a business phone, but everywhere seems to just do the large switch type set ups. I just want a functional office phone that has shortcut buttons etc, I'm happy to have a seperate answerphone if necessary!

Do you remember where you got your phone from?

[PetrolTed]

smallend said:

Being the tight Yorkshireman I am, I would struggle to go the 'Virtual PA' route!

Don't know what business you're in, but one bit of business might pay for a year's subscription compared to losing a call on an answer phone. It's had a very positive effect on my business.

smallend said:

Do you remember where you got your phone from?

Don't recall I'm afraid.

[Hard-Drive]

It depends what you mean by shortcut buttons, what features do you need to access and how many presses are you prepared to do to get there?

Working from home I always liked the BT Diverse 5350 cordless, with answerphone, easy redials etc, built in answerphone etc etc. More features than I ever used, what was also useful was the handsfree...whilst you are "on hold being important to someone" you can flick to handsfree, talk to the other party if they come back on the line, and then go back to the earpiece.

The BT Featureline handset ain't too bad either, desk based, but quite old technology now. And there's also BT Fusion (motorola RAZR mobile handset that connects to an ADSL line and goes to standard land line tarrifs when in range of the home base station) which seems a reasonable idea.

And no, I don't work for BT, I would love to recommend the systems that I do sell but they might be just a teeny weeny bit bigger than what you are looking for...

[TSS]

I’ve just kitted our office with new phones. I spent ages looking at different models to find something that looked good, felt nice to use, didn’t feel as if it would fall apart within a week and had programmable memories.

I can recommend the BT Paragon 450, we bought a whole lot of them and everybody in the office likes them. The have a good quality answering machine, speakerphone, programmable memories and a very handy one-touch call recording feature.

The cheapest I could find where at www.telephonesonline.co.uk/details.asp?prodID=1018&ACID=85&APID=1

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TSS said:

I’ve just kitted our office with new phones. I spent ages looking at different models to find something that looked good, felt nice to use, didn’t feel as if it would fall apart within a week and had programmable memories. I can recommend the BT Paragon 450, we bought a whole lot of them and everybody in the office likes them. The have a good quality answering machine, speakerphone, programmable memories and a very handy one-touch call recording feature. The cheapest I could find where at www.telephonesonline.co.uk/details.asp?prodID=1018&ACID=85&APID=1

Ah! That looks like it may just fit the bill!
Thanks for that, I'll look into it
Cheers

[rico]

PetrolTed said:

Far better to subscribe to a call answering service. More professional image and people are more likely to leave a message. Try something like www.alldaypa.com

Totally agree. I remember ringing Pistonheads HQ about something and got through to what I assumed was Ted's assistant. I had no idea it was a call answering service and happily left a message.

[K1 CERB]

BT do a good range of DECT Business Phones. They plug into a standard line, but certainly look 'professional'

K1 CERB

[JonRB]

Panasonic do a good range of DECT phones.

We have an older model that has built-in digital answerphone, speaker phone on both handset and base station, a jack on the handset(s) for a headset, speed dials, voice announce on incoming calls (if Caller ID is enabled) and all sorts.

Edit: This one looks quite good:


www.panasonic.co.uk/dect-tam/kxtcd545em/index.htm

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 21st April 11:26

[pdV6]

JonRB said:

Edit: This one looks quite good: www.panasonic.co.uk/dect-tam/kxtcd545em/index.htm

I have that one at home.

Couple of problems are:

1. Base unit only has limited memory for numbers (10 I think) - you need to use the cordless handset for the 200-odd it can support.

2. Speakerphone on the base unit is a bit naff; to avoid feedback the mic is cut off when there's something coming out of the speaker. Leads to a patchy conversation. Speakerphone on the cordless handset is much better.

Other than that I can thoroughly recommend it. The DECT bit seems to work to spec, so I can slave my older cordless handsets from other manufacturers to it as well.

[JonRB]

PetrolTed said:

Far better to subscribe to a call answering service. More professional image and people are more likely to leave a message. Try something like www.alldaypa.com

Thanks for that Ted. My wife is now very interested in their orders service (www.alldayorders.com) folowing your recommendation here.

Is it a UK Call Centre or an overseas one?

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 21st April 17:38