Four Phone Systems Benefits Your Small Business Can’t Do Without

 

While there’s no question your small business needs a voice communication platform to function properly, you might still be on the fence about which tools would provide your team the greatest benefit. Whether you work at home, in an office, or in the field, there are sophisticated phone systems for small business that can meet your needs, and often for much less expense than you think.

Small Business Phone System Benefits

There are a number of benefits phone systems can provide for small businesses, but we’ve narrowed down the top four:

Credibility

Even the most basic phone system can present a more professional image to customers and callers. Phone systems allow small businesses workers to transfer calls from one line to another, making employees more efficient and taking away the hassle of having to hang up and call another number. Customers and prospects don’t want to do the work of tracking down the right member of your team.

Voice messaging allows callers to reach other departments if you’re away or on another line. Using your personal cell phone voicemail message for business may present a less than professional impression.

Small business phone systems offer a variety of voice messaging options, including music and marketing message on hold. Not only is caller experience improved, but you may just see sales improve with the right on hold message.

Statistics say 48% of callers will stay on hold longer if they’re listening to a message, and 40% of callers make buying decisions based on the information they hear while on hold.

Features

Phone systems also provide small businesses with features they won’t find on a cell phone. Call recording, visual voicemail, conference calling, auto-attendant, call twinning, disaster recovery, mobile applications, and flexible numbering are just a few of these.

When your phone rings at your desk, call twinning causes any other phone number you’ve designated, like a cell phone, to ring simultaneously. The advantages of this are clear. If you’re out of the office but you want to continue to receive your office calls, the twinning feature allows your cell phone to receive calls just the way your desk phone would. Your cell phone can now act as the “twin” of your office phone.

Traditionally, when accessing voicemail on your desk phone, you would have to listen to each message, then take an action: save, forward, or delete, in order to proceed to the next message. With visual voicemail, all your messages – old or new – appear on your phone screen as individual voicemails with the corresponding callers, allowing you to access one message at a time. So instead of listening to five messages to get to number six, you can now hear each message independently and respond accordingly.

Virtual call answer is a much more efficient and effective version of traditional call waiting. With call waiting, you’re forced to either drop a potentially important incoming call while you’re on the other line or send it to voicemail. With virtual call answer you can actually place the call on hold with a custom message telling the caller you’re on the other line. This way callers know that you’re not out of office, or screening their call, you’re simply on the other line and you’ll take their call shortly.

Scalability

The phone equipment a small business might purchase today may not include everything it needs for the future, but the purchase does need to be made with the future in mind.  Businesses may not want or need every feature available at this moment, but having a solution that can provide these options for the future would allow the system to grow along with the business.

With a cloud-based business phone systems for small business, or “hosted phone systems,” the phones themselves are typically the only hardware involved, for the most part. So you don’t need to worry about buying, maintaining and upgrading equipment or even the software.

Order as many or as few extensions as you need. You can add on at any time. Hosted systems can expand and grow as your business does. Seasonal business? Scale up your users during the busy season, and scale down during the slow period and pay only for what you use.

Affordability

There’s a good chance you’ll find that a new phone system is cheaper than the service you’ve had for years. VoIP allows you to make and receive phone calls via the Internet. If you work from home, your Internet service provider might offer a package that bundles your Internet, cable TV and phone service, making the service less expensive than a stand-alone phone.

With VoIP, you could opt for multiple lines, allowing you to keep your home phone number and add a business phone number. Many phone system options allow you to add lines as you go.

At One Call Tech, we bring act as your business communications consultants. We don’t just represent one phone equipment brand, and we don’t just recommend one type of phone system. We’ll help you find the right system at the right price.

Got questions? Contact one of our service specialists today.

Small Business Phone System Options

When it comes to phone systems for small business, you essentially have two options: on premise equipment, or hosted phone systems, mentioned earlier.

On premise equipment, or “premise based” equipment, allows businesses to own and operate their own phone system in house, with all the bells and whistles.

“Hosted” simply means your phone system is housed, operated, and maintained in a secure data center, otherwise known as “the cloud.”