PhonesSo I briefly mentioned that I answer most the calls in my office. Why do I do that?

We have a phone system with extensions. So it automatically answers the call and gives the caller the option to dial an extension, by name or sales/support/operator etc. If a caller is specifically looking for a person here, hopefully they will dial by extension or name. Some clients (very few) are too lazy to press the extension and they will press 0. In that case, it rings everyone's phones and the caller ID will show the client's business name. If the employee sees it is likely for them, they typically answer.

But if the call is operator, sales, support and so on and we don't know if it is a client, I try to answer.

Why? Well, most of the time - I am the one that can answer the person on the other end. Typically, the employees can't make the decision on if we want to buy X or if an ex-employee worked here in the past, and so on. So I would have to get the call anyway.

In addition, I don't want my employees distracted by the phones, unnecessarily. Programming can be very focus oriented and to lose focus over a phone call that doesn't apply to them, can kill 15 minutes - which will cost me and/or my clients money.

Also, I did not hire my employees to be a secretary. I hired them to program, design and so on. Not to answer the phones. Is it below anyone in the office to answer a phone. No way! If I, the "CEO" (I hate titles), can answer the phone, why can't anyone. But I prefer not to make them answer the phone, as I mentioned above.

Why don't I hire a secretary? Like I said above, most calls get routed properly anyway. All of our back office stuff is very automated and a secretary is really not needed here. We seriously streamlined this office like you would not believe. So no paper, no faxes, billing is automated mostly, and so on. So we don't need the cost of a secretary at this point. How big are we? We are about 15 staff members right now.