Small businesses may consist of a single person doing consulting work, or it may be a boutique, or an office that employs a dozen people, but any small business can benefit from choosing the right phone system for their needs. Even people who are running a business from a home office may be able to benefit from a professional telephone system.
It could include such features as auto-attendant capability while you’re away, call forwarding, and routing of incoming faxes. These features are useful for those who are on-call at all times, like plumbers. It’s also great for those who regularly leave their home office to make sales calls or meet with clients.
There are, however, sole proprietorships and small businesses that get by just fine with a normal landline and a cell phone. If, however, a business grows to the size of a small cubicle farm, with 10 employees or more, it may be best to take the plunge and get a more sophisticated telephone system for the office.
Today there are PBX (Private Branch Exchange), virtual PBX, and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) networks for small businesses, so there are a lot of options to choose from.
Typically, each employee who uses a phone while in the office should have a separate extension line. If it is the kind of business where clients meet often, a conference room phone can be a nice convenience. But beyond that, each situation will be a little different.
It’s not always easy to know what to choose for your small business, but there are a number of things to evaluate to help you decide. The first thing to do is to take stock of the current situation. Does each extension need voice mail? Will employees need “smart phones” like iPhones or Blackberry devices to take on the road? Will calls need to be routed to those in remote locations?
Most small business phone packages have the following options: multiple extensions; remote voice mail answering; route to fax capability; call forwarding; and teleconferencing capabilities.
Teleconferencing services are sometimes better bought from a web-based conference provider because they usually cost less, and are fine for those who don’t need teleconferencing capabilities more than occasionally. You can certainly ask vendors to help you, but realize they are of course going to try to upsell you as much as possible. Add to it the fact that phone technology continues to evolve rapidly, and it can seem like you can’t win.
While vendors do have valuable information, they will not be very objective, because they’re supposed to promote one line of phone solutions, and the telephone systems for small business they may offer can be a couple of years behind the state of the art. It may be better to ask another small business how they chose their phone system. Actually, it’s best to talk to several other busines ses so that you can get a feel for pricing and options available.
Though everyone wants to keep their expenses as low as possible, it’s not a good idea to underestimate your needs in an office phone system. Sure, the internet plays a much bigger role now in keeping businesses, customers, clients, and partners connected, but telephone systems for small business are as necessary as ever. Some interactions require a phone call, and if people call your business and feel the your phone system is patched together rather than chosen for professionalism, they may try to pay you less for goods and services or think that yours isn’t a serious business.
If calls are routinely disconnected, routed wrongly, or connected with an overwhelming number of automated options, some people may simply give up, and you’ve lost that client or customer forever. So it’s definitely worth getting a decent phone system that will give your business a professional quality. And when you choose a telephone system for small business, choose a system that is expandable. You don’t want to have to start over from scratch just because you’ve filled your start phone system to capacity and can’t go beyond it. Ask up front if the system being recommended to you can be expanded.
Find out if any existing phone assets (like actual landline phones) can be used with a given system. If so you can save a lot of money over having to buy new equipment for a proprietary system. In fact, if you have phone equipment already, it’s certainly worth looking for a system that will use the equipment you already have. In that same vein, you can often buy refurbished or used telephone systems for small business to save money. You can pay as little as a dime on the dollar compared to what you would spend if you bought new equipment.
Much phone equipment for businesses is made to stand up to fairly rough treatment and works perfectly w ell even after a business outgrows their need for them. You can take advantage of this when getting your office phone system. Sometimes you can find such equipment on eBay. Know what features you want and list them in priority order. Are conference calls important? What about auto-attendant or the presence of music for those on hold. Will you need to monitor employee phone usage? And what about voice mail capabilities? By listing your priorities in order, you can more easily rank the office phone systems you research and more easily find the best system to fit your needs.
Beyond just your basic needs, however, you should consider certain optional features for the edge they may give you. For example, an auto-attendant feature means you don’t have to jump for the phone every time it rings if you are in the middle of something. An auto-attendant also has the psychological effect on the caller of thinking that he or she has reached a large, important business.
Call hunt is another extra that some people like. The way this works is that if one employee doesn’t answer, the call will be automatically forward to another person before going to voice mail.
You should choose your phone dealer based on more than just price, however. Find out what kind of track record and reputation they have for taking care of customer service. In fact, you might want to call their customer service number after hours to see how eager they are to help. Good technical and customer support are very important to keep your phone system functioning properly with as few interruptions in service as possible. You can also call other customers of that phone dealer and find out how other businesses have fared.
Today, VoIP technology is making its way into more and more businesses. If you have a business that is distributed geographically, for instance if you have employees working in other cities or working at home, VoIP telephone systems for small business work well. In fact, some experts believe that VoIP is where the office phone systems in general are headed, and you should go ahead and jump on-board now.
These telephone systems for small business can usually save you significant money over landline phones, particularly with sole proprietorships and small offices that only need a small handful of phone lines.
Vonage offers a small business phone package for $49.99 per month with unlimited local and long distance, a dedicated fax line, and features like call waiting and call forwarding.
Open source VoIP is another possibility. Services like Fonality offer telephone systems for small business that are like Linux, but for phones. You do have to be careful of vendors offering open source VoIP, because it is very new, but Fonality has the kind of business support that’s necessary while offering very low cost open source products and services.
If you do go with a VoIP system, you must first ensure that you have enough bandwidth and the proper equipment to get the best calls possible.
Some telephone systems for small business require dedicated routers, and some recommend specific equipment, and you need to find out up front if any of these will be deal breakers for you. It’s a good idea to choose a phone system that is compatible with more than one third party voice mail system. This will be useful if your original voice mail choice is unsatisfactory or overpriced.
Experts suggest wiring your office with double the amount you currently need. It adds to the up front cost, but saves big if you have to add lines later. Other experts recommend that you time your purchases near the end of the quarter, when phone system sales reps are trying to reach their quotas, to get the best price.