Consequences of Being Reachable

Say you are running a business. It is important to have a certain presence in that business but there can be unintended consequences for that. First of all there is a certain expectation of availability. People will want to call you and it is important to answer in order to build a customer list and customer loyalty. This means that in addition to having call forwarding to ensure that no matter what number is called, you will be answering every time. One type of problem is simply not using presence settings properly. These options help end users self-manage their availability, so if their status is regularly changing, presence can be invaluable. However, it can just as well create artificial blockages when settings are not updated. To illustrate, if you switch to “do not disturb” or “offline” when going to a meeting – but don’t switch back to “available” after the meeting, you may miss out on important messages or invites. Some people rely solely on presence indicators to determine who gets contacted.