A Better Reception Phone

I was waiting to see my therapist the other day and casually observing the receptionist when I was hit by an idea that would help streamline the act of taking phone messages. In my office at work we rarely use the telephone and so we have two communal phones. Whoever is available answers calls and most of the time we need to leave notes for each other. My new invention will help to streamline this process.

I propose to attach or integrate a small receipt-style printer (like this) into a desk phone. At the touch of a button it will print a standard "someone called" docket (like this) with the time, date and in-coming phone number pre-printed. The user then writes in the message and can either leave it at the phone or tear it off.

For more sophisticated offices, instead of an integrated printer the phone could simply interface to a PC via USB. Pressing a button on the phone would create a new email message with a standard phone message template with the time, date and in-coming phone number already entered. The call-taker would then type in any further details and send it to the relevant person.

Either of these options would far improve the efficiency of this process and would cost little more than most fully functional office phones.