Are you on the hunt for the perfect headsets for your team? As you probably know, enterprise headsets have become an essential communications tool within the workplace as contact centers continue to evolve. The right headsets can improve employee collaboration, concentration and productivity.
Employees need to be able to connect quickly wherever they are working from, and their headset is a vital part of staying productive.
At this point in your search, you’re likely asking yourself: what features matter most in a headset? Or, what features should you prioritize? Let’s explore the top five features to look for in enterprise headsets.
Call Quality
The most important feature for an enterprise headset is call quality. Clear audio from the receiver and a HD voice quality mic input are the most obvious features for end users. A quick way to agitate employees is the frustration of struggling to hear what the person on the line is telling them.
Also, a clear voice from their own mic is a quick way to project a professional, credible image to clients and teammates. Investing in headsets with high call quality is an easy way to prevent future frustration both for your IT team, your employees and the customers you connect with.
Some contact center teams work in high density environments with a number of agents placed closely together. Noise cancelling headsets are essential in these environments, but the technology also serves as a huge benefit for agents working in many other types of environments as well.
Eliminating background noise helps to provide confidentiality to each phone conversation and gives caller confidence that their needs are being taken seriously. Additionally, noise suppression is essential if your team is working from home or relying on mobility for hardware.
Wireless Connectivity
Our world is increasingly wireless. Employees bring this expectation to the workplace & prefer wireless headsets to avoid being tied to one place. Going wireless means you will not need to pick up a phone all day or race to your desk to catch a call.
Wireless headsets also free up your hands, which can improve body posture and increase the responsiveness of your agents. With negligible latency issues compared to modern wired headsets, there is little reason not to choose a wireless model.
Flexible Software Compatibility
Now consider to which devices these headsets might need to connect. A typical list of potential devices includes PCs, Macs, desk phones, cell phones and even tablets. As you can see, it is crucial that your enterprise headset can easily connect to many different solutions. Some headsets only work well with a particular brand of hardware or a single software solution.
Not only does this cause difficulties for end users, think of the nightmare this means for manageability from an IT perspective. With flexible compatibility you can quickly provision new users. And users can easily switch from one device to another while remaining connected via their headset. A single, integrated headset makes life easy for end users and IT alike.
Productivity Features
An often underrated aspect of enterprise headsets are the productivity features. These features make the headset more user friendly. For example, some enterprise headsets offer customized audio options to fit to each user’s preferences. This means each user can adjust settings for volume, equalizer and notifications to configure their headset to their own satisfaction.
Another important productivity feature to consider is easy mute. Via either swinging the headset boom up or pressing a button on the ear piece, easy mute makes quickly checking a detail with a teammate or manager possible without the caller knowing.
While each of these features seems minor on its own, the added customization and convenience encourage user adoption and employee satisfaction with their headsets.
Considerations for Specific Work Environments
Because you might be searching for enterprise headsets with a specific work environment in mind, here are some feature recommendations for several of the most common set ups in 2020:
Call Centers:
Employees in call centers wear their enterprise headsets all day and use them constantly. So a key consideration is how comfortable the headset is to wear. Here are some tips:
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Besides basic shape, they should also be lightweight. You’d be surprised at how heavy a headset can feel on your ears after eight hours.
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Another aspect to consider is one earpiece or two. Having only one earpiece makes quickly checking a detail with a coworker or a manager easier. But having two ear pieces makes it easier to focus on each call despite other conversations in the room. You’ll have to decide which is more important to your team.
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Additionally, noise cancelling mics are very important due to the typical proximity of desks in most call centers. Each employee’s voice should be front and center to the listener despite background noise. This provides the best call quality and best level of service to clients and with other internal teams.
Sales Floors and Open Offices:
Sales floors and open offices have similar needs to those of call centers but with some key differences. Like call centers, sales floors and open offices can get loud when multiple people are talking. So, mics that suppress background noise are important for them as well.
One notable difference is that sales employees tend to be more mobile and active as they talk on the phone. Providing wireless headsets so that they can move around and takes notes from their calls is even more important for sales teams.
Other features more important to sales floors and open offices are charge time and talk time. Think of how often these employees are picking up putting down their headsets, and not always on the charger. Each day for them is a series of conversations, and they will not want to wait for a headset to charge.
One final consideration, given how fluidly sales teams scale up and down, headsets need to be easy to setup and provisioning new users should be quick. Otherwise headset management can quickly become an overwhelming burden.
Home Offices:
Home offices are rapidly becoming more popular and the pandemic accelerated that trend. Noise cancellation is important to employees at home with children and pets. A key concern for them is maintaining the professional image and quality of work at home that they have while in person.
A general rule of thumb for WFH employees is that they like to wander around their house while on a call. This means they will need a headset with longer range. They won’t enjoy a headset that cuts out each time they pass through the kitchen. They will also want a wireless headset so that they have their hands free to multitask and take notes.
By no means is this list of headset features comprehensive. It is meant to help you prioritize what is best for your team. If you’d like to learn more about the best enterprise headsets for you, contact Converged Technology Professionals today to learn more about emerging cloud security technologies or potential gaps in your IT architecture. Call us at 877-328-7767 or message us here. If you have questions, we have answers.
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Suellen Meyers: December 21, 2023
