Business Phone Line

[iAMTemple]

Short description:

@Ethanol I've put in this request before the forums went down and it got accepted, I hope it still captures the same reaction this time ?. Basically a phone number separate from your personal number, IF you're running a business-based faction. This will give the managers/workers of companies the option to put their company's phone on the forums or advertisements instead of their personal phone numbers.

 

Detailed description:

Players that own a business faction will be able to rent a phone line that can be used to handle orders, customer service, or whatever the managers see fit. This will avoid having the faction managers using their personal phone numbers and lines to advertise their businesses. To distinguish personal numbers from business numbers, I suggest including a default 1-888 (or) 1-800 before the business number. Example would be: 1-800-1234567. The format relates to the realistic toll free format that the United States use. This will add a bit of realism on how business owners utilize their customer's complains and/or service requests. It will also take away the invasion of privacy that comes with putting your personal number on an advertisement.

 

[ACTIVATION FEE]

A one-time activation fee of $5000 should suffice to activate the phone line. This will also include the 1 month fee for the first month.

 

[MONTHLY FEE]

This can be handled a couple of ways;

1) Players will be charged $50-$200 (whatever admins see fit) for a phone line that will be deducted from their bank accounts every 4th paycheck (1 IG month total).

2) The phone bill will need to be paid through a command: /paybusinessphone (and/or) /pbp

 

To display the proper warning that their phone bill is due, it should say: YOUR BILL OF "$XXX" IS DUE NOW. PLEASE PAY TO AVOID SERVICE INTERRUPTION.

[HOW TO PURCHASE]

Two options can be available to purchase a business line;

1) This can be dealt with on a UCP level through the Faction Management system.

2) Or strictly through admin's approval & discretion.

 

[DEACTIVATION/OVERDUE FEES]

As for some companies in the USA, they offer a month or two of missed payments before cutting off your phone. To be fair and realistic, I suggest that players would go for a max of 2 months of a missed phone bill payment before deactivation. Once they have reached the threshold of their missed payments, they will not be able to use their business line until the unsettled debt is paid off, which will be tied to their Faction's ID (via UCP). The fee would not accumulate interest (unrealistic), but they will need to re-pay the activation fee again as well as what they owed. What the business owes would be added to the players "DEBT" in the /stats section.

 

[COMMANDS] 

Separate commands similar to the existing ones would be added to pickup/hangup the calls. See "Commands To Add" for details.

 

[INTERFACE]

When someone calls the business line, text will appear as "BUSINESS PHONE INCOMING CALL" or something similar - in an distinguishable color.

In addition, an interface/page where you can buy the phone lines.

 

[MISC]

In order to avoid bugs or conflicts of code, I'd recommend to remove the ability to use /phone or receive phone calls on your personal phone while on a business call. This will serve as realistic because in a business, it is very rare that one would put a customer on hold to attend their personal issues.

 

 

Commands to add:

/pickup - This will have the same effect as /pickup from a regular phone line - only - it now relates to both personal and business lines.

/hangup - This will have the same effect as /hangup from a regular phone line - only - it now relates to both personal and business lines.

/payphone - This will pay the business owner's phone line when the fee is due.

/payoverdue - Pays the overdue fee (if any) and cleans the debt from the player's stats - giving them the chance to activate a new line.

/bphone [number] - Uses the business phone line to make a call.

/bpcontacts - Lists the contacts saved on the business's phone line.

/bpaddcontact [number] [name] - Saves a new contact under the business's phone line.

/bpdeletecontact [number/name] - Deletes a contact under the business's phone line.

 

Items to add:

[UCP]

If the option of having the numbers purchased through the game without admin's discretion, a section should be added into the UCP Faction's page that lists the phone number and contacts saved in the line. This would be similar as personal lines, only exclusively to factions (businesses).

 

How would your suggestion improve the server?

This will avoid having the faction managers using their personal phone numbers and lines to advertise their businesses. Increasing security and realism whilst shaping the economy of the state.

 

Additional information:

N/A

Edited November 19, 2018 by AnthoyDebowe

[Pádraig]

Yes, but I think you can still add more to it to make it even better

For example you could have set that anyone with X rank in your business can see the phone call and answer it and then patch the phone call to someone else if needed, e.g. a receptionist picking up a phone and passing it through to a manager, i don't know if that is too niche but it could be useful for some businesses to add an air of professionalism and such

[Björk]

I think this is a great idea, having to give out our personal phone numbers is pretty odd, especially when trying to run a business.

[Cobra]

This would work very well for all businesses. And for us in the LSFD.

 

For me I'd have a general number for the whole organisation, but then I'd have another so people are able contact the LSFD's public relations 

[Franelli]

This is a decent idea which won't take much development time due to the mere fact everything is already in the script, and all that needs to be done is some commands duplicated and renamed (along with some extra tweaks maybe). I wouldn't say this is a must to have feature, but it would be nice seeing it implemented nevertheless.

[Nervous]

Don't mind forwarding it again although since we did lose a lot of feedback:

 

1. I'd like more opinions

2. I'll have to review it with a few staff members and tweak it if necessary

 

Still, I'm not against a business line and the odds of me not forwarding the suggestion are very low. 

[Franelli]

Already suggested and forwarded.

I've linked this thread to the already forwarded suggestion so we can keep track of all comments and ideas.

Thanks for posting this.