Phone Message Process

[MattDell]

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Hi All

In my small office of 4 people we are currently having issues with phone messages. We are a typical office running Windows PC with Office 2003 inc Outlook.

I want a consistent system for taking messages that is electronic – I don’t have any more room on my monitor for bloody Sticky Notes!

Does anyone have a system they use and recommend
I was looking at various simple softwares and/or add-ons for Outlook
Maybe an Outlook email template or something?
I investigated larger CRM software like Act but most of the functions are performed by our proprietary business software so I don’t want to pay $1K for this sort of thing and use nearly none of it’s functions and commit to double keying as well.

So if anyone has a good suggestions let me know
Thanks

[The Copy Chick]

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The last place I worked at just used emails for phone messages. If it was just a a name and number, it went in the subject line – message details into the body of the email.

To help keep track of them you could always create a folder specifically for phone calls and divert any phone messages into this (although the subject line would have to be consistent and contain something like ‘Phone Message’ so you could set up your message rules).

If you received new messages while away from your desk, your folder would display a number beside it indicating how many phone messages had come in, and since unread messages are automatically bolded, it would make it easy to see what hadn’t yet been attended to.

Cheers,
Anna

[DavidM]

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Hi Matt,

Not sure why email isn’t working for you, perhaps you need to see if you can’t just make a minor tweak to make it work. Or, you could perhaps develop an ‘outlook signature’ for emails, which has all the necessary fields for the message taker.

An alternative could be to develop an outlook form. This would be a template in outlook that can be setup in a consistent way. The downside is that the setup interface is incredibly user unfriendly and unintuitive.

Good luck,

[MattDell]

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Anna & David

Thanks for your reply
I can handle the tech howto but was curious as to people’s ‘systems’ that they use in case I can borrow a good process

After considertion I am going to go with Outlook email messages
I have used Autohotkey to make a script which pops up and you fill in the info (name, number, etc)
It then sends a formatted email
I will go to each users machine and set up a rule that shows a pop-up alert and diverts the messges to a specific folder

The system itself isn’t that complicated but like all systems the benefit comes in consistency
Thanks for your advices

[Rachel Reeves]

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Hi Matt,

Try getting the person who takes the call to place PH MESSAGE: in the subject box and then type name of person calling, phone number and subject. Additional information can be typed in the box below if required.

If a message is urgent (and only if urgent) get the person taking the message to use a message pad and place the message somewhere obvious like the computer keyboard or the chair.

I used to work as a Personal Assistant within Government and this system worked well.

Kind regards,

[Author]

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