Every four years, the most important global sporting event is staged. I’m not talking about the Olympics, but rather the World Cup. This weeks-long tournament is preceded by months, and even years, of qualifications where countries all over the world hope to punch their ticket to the biggest stage in sports. Unfortunately, you may not be aware of this because, like the majority of our audience, you may happen to find yourself somewhere in the United States of America at the moment. That’s an issue for our national awareness of the tournament (as evidenced by the 40% decrease in Americans who watch soccer compared to 2014) mostly credited to the fact that the United States failed to qualify for the first time since 1986. That’s even longer than we’ve been in business>, which as you know, is a really long time. As lamentable of a result as the US’s failure to qualify really is, it would be disingenuous to say we aren’t still pretty ravenous about the tournament over here at VirtualPBX. And why shouldn’t we be? Not only are we people who like to travel the world and experience new places and cultures, we’re also a truly global company with team members and customers scattered across the planet. In that sense, we really couldn’t miss the event if we tried. For many other organizations, though, following the excitement from halfway around the world can cause complications with their work schedules. That’s why we’ve compiled the best ways to use VoIP to make sure you can stay plugged into the action all while staying employed along the way.
Use VoIP, Watch Soccer
The reality is that we’ve got a lot of freedom with our days because, as a distributed workforce, the responsibility is on us to make sure we’re producing at the levels we need to get the job done. When that’s the case, we can prioritize our time to include family responsibilities, personal needs, community involvement, and when the time is suitable, even a little world-class soccer. For those who aren’t as accustomed to this permissive scenario, we’ve offer the following tips on how to watch soccer using VoIP for the remainder of the tournament.
- Follow Me Calling Follow Me Calling is the intelligent call forwarding system that allows employees to include a series of telephone numbers that will ring to find you wherever you go. So setting the cascade of numbers from your desk phone, cell phone, favorite sports bar, and soccer club hangout is, in this instance, totally acceptable.
- Auto Attendant Adding an Auto Attendant is the best way to keep operations working smoothly during any heighted period of activity, be it during a busy project or a non-stop soccer watching marathon. Auto Attendants act as a virtual receptionist that can take incoming calls, play recorded messages, and route them through to their desired parties or voice mailboxes. Basically, this is the person who is going to cover for you when you’re not at your desk because you’re away watching a game.
- Business Hours Automating the business hours, lunch periods, and corporate holidays for your business is a great idea because nobody wants to have the sense of dread that they may have forgotten to turn on voicemail and out of office reminders once they’ve already left for vacation. Setting office hours also comes in handy when all the above suggestions just aren’t good enough so you have to make a new holiday to get away to watch your favorite team. We haven’t done that, yet, but we reserve the right to do so.
Watch Soccer, Even if it’s on Tape Delay
We’re normally not too likely to prescribe behavior to anyone, anywhere. We figure that whoever you are, whatever you do, is enough. However, one thing that is difficult to overstate is the importance of having shared experiences, especially when those experiences are shared with our neighbors not just next door, but also across the world. That’s what the World Cup is and that’s what it means to us. Hopefully, you can use some of these tips to get away from the desk for a few minutes to watch a game, but even if you want to watch the tape-delayed events later on in the evening after work is over with, chances are good you’ll walk away having been entertained, impressed, and a little more connected with the world than you may have started. Also, if you have any other suggestions on how watch the games, or if you just want to shoot the breeze about your favorite players and teams, hit us up on Twitter or Facebook, because we’re always more than happy to do that, too!
