[Asterisk-Users] A good SIP receptionist phone

[Ron Wellsted]

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Jason Brown wrote:
> I have a problem. The average person is too freaking stupid to use a VOIP phone. My experience has so far been that if it doesn't have 20 buttons with little red LED's on it, the user cannot comprehend call parking, attended transfer, blind transfer, DND, and navigating through a voicemail menu.
> 
> I need a good receptionist phone that works with Asterisk. It basically needs to act like an avaya partner phone, I don't need 20 buttons with little red LED's...what I do need is for the phone to register multiple extensions to my asterisk server and act like each SIP extension is a line, so if the idiot receptionist has a call ringing in on line 1, she can pick it up, look at the buttons, see a call ringing in on line 2 (and the phone ringer rings), put call 1 on hold without hanging the caller up, and hit the little "I am an idiot and need a line 2 button" to pick up line 2, so on and so forth.
> 
> I love VOIP systems and all the functionality they bring and features I get. Unfortunately, the average person in this country anymore is apparently completely stupid and cannot understand how to juggle calls without hanging up on people.
> 
> </rant>
> 
> So seriously does anyone have a recommendation for a good receptionist phone? I tried the Snom today and I can't get the programmable buttons to do this, even by following the manual. So please, any suggestions would be great, before I get fired at my dayjob for everyone else's idiocy.

How many lines do you need?

The Cisco 7960 gives you 6, with call waiting you can get 2 calls on
each line.

You have to trade off between incoming lines and speed dials, unless you
can train the monkey^w receptionist (sorry, unfair to simians there) to
use the directories.

Seriously, you may need to look deeper here on the human side. Could
this be a people problem in that the receptionist does not want to
learn/is a friend/relative of a PBX supplier who is being usurped?  Have
you made an enemy of this person?

We have just switched over to Asterisk with 7960s. We have had a few
little problems but have not lost a call yet.  OK, we have left a few
callers on hold a bit longer than we intended, once or twice ;)

- --
Ron Wellsted
http://www.wellsted.org.uk
ron at wellsted.org.uk
FWD:519961  Gossiptel:9309811
N 52.567623, W 2.137621
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