With the array of communications choices such as phone, text, e-mail, social media and even video conferencing comes great opportunities, but also great potential for distraction. If we took care to read and listen to every message or every call we receive, we'd never get anything done.

This wisdom is doubly true when it comes to business executives, who are often in far more demand than the rest of us. And now, given communications technology, they're far more reachable by a variety of media than ever before.

So how do you manage the distractions and prioritize the contacts?

Many of today's contact center software solutions offer ways to do just that. According to Zeacom (News - Alert), a provider of call center software and unified communications solutions, its solutions can help executives stay in better control of their availability by allowing them to screen, prioritize and respond to the contacts that are most important to their business.

As part of its call center software suite, Zeacom offers ZCC Executive Desktop, which enables individuals to efficiently handle calls direct to their extension, bypassing the company operator; ZCC Executive Insight, designed to allow Microsoft (News - Alert) Outlook users to manage all their communications from within their e-mail application; and ZCC Executive Mobile, which brings unified communications functionality to the mobile phone. 

With these solutions, executives can better prioritize their contacts, managing all calls, e-mails, faxes and voice messages from one point: Microsoft Outlook and ordering them by importance. They can also set preferences to give priority access to the most important callers or messages, based on call and message identification technology.

Executives can manage their contacts better, delegating calls and messages to others by “dragging and dropping” them into others' inboxes. The mobility component streamlines an executives' broad digital presence, allowing all contacts to find the executive where he or she happens to be.

The solutions also allow executives to screen calls, create customized messages and greetings for different people, turn over the ownership of certain contacts and messages to an executive assistant, and receive alerts when a person they need to speak with gets off the phone.