January 2024

What's New In Podium: Increased Efficiency With Phones

In 2023, we launched Podium Phones to help you turn more customer calls into revenue. This year, we’re excited to introduce Phones 2.0 that will help your business operate more efficiently than ever.
<h2>Operate More Efficiently Than Ever With Podium Phones</h2>
Phones 2.0 builds on your favorite benefits, like AI-generated call notes, missed call auto reply texts, and seeing Google reviews for inbound callers, and includes a ton of new features and improvements. Here’s some of the highlights.
<h3>Call Parking</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-33604 size-full" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking-.png" alt="call parking" width="512" height="384" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking-.png 512w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking--300x225.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking--360x270.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking--160x120.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking--350x263.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking--100x75.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Call-Parking--457x343.png 457w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />
Michael-Jan is on Line 1. Need to transfer a customer to an employee, coworker, different team, or even just resume the call on a phone in the back office? 
Call parking is a different way to do it—you place the caller on a generally available hold line and it can be picked up on demand on any other phone in your network.
<h3>Paging</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-33603 size-full" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Phone-Paging.gif" alt="" width="512" height="287" />
Speaking of Jan being on Line 1. What if you want to give Michael a message—to pick up a call, come to the front desk, or whatever—without the hassle of calling them directly and waiting for them to pick up?
<h3>Caller ID</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-33605 size-full" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Caller-ID.gif" alt="Caller ID" width="480" height="270" />
Context is king! Knowing who a caller is before you start the call can be the difference between a converted lead and a 5-star review, or a dead end and a frustrated customer. 
We show you as much information as possible about inbound calls—including now information about the caller on our actual desk phones. 
<h3>Cordless Phones</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-33606 size-full" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones.png" alt="Cordless Phones" width="500" height="500" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones.png 500w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-300x300.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-150x150.png 150w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-360x360.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-160x160.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-350x350.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-100x100.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cordless-Phones-343x343.png 343w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" />
Don’t work at a desk? Need to talk to customers while pacing frantically around your storefront? You can now use cordless phones with Podium Phones.
Our cordless phone model has great battery life (8 hours of talk time, 200 hours of standby time), comes with HD voice, and can be used anyone in your business with a WiFi signal.
<h3>Expanded Ring-All Groups</h3>
Your business is growing, which means more staff. Previously, we supported up to 9 phones that could be included a ring-all group. Now we’ve bumped it up to 25, meaning as many as 25 phones can ring at the same time when a customer calls your business.
<h3>Availability Status</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-33608 size-full" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Availability-Status.gif" alt="Availability Status" width="512" height="288" />
What if a customer on the phone wants to talk to Oscar, but I’m not sure if Oscar is available for a call? 
Availability status (sometimes called Busy Lamp Field or BLF) lets you know if a desk phone is on a call or not to avoid the frustration of sending a customer to voicemail.
We’re so excited to continue expanding our Phones product to help your business grow.