Best phone systems for small businesses a handy guide

Here is a handy Guide on how to Choose Best Phone Systems for small businesses

It is essential for running a successful business to make the right choice for the phone system. A well-assembled business phone system is crucial for every business, big or small. A sound phone system will simplify your small business process to help with calls and providing support options as you do not want your customers to be frustrated with busy phone system lines. It can be a call center with more employees or just 2 people handling phone calls, but everyone needs a nice phone system.

Essential Phone System related Terminologies which will clear your doubts and confusion

Auto-Attendant

It’s an electronic receptionist that will receive your calls and connect the market with the concerned person. You can add instructions like greetings when someone call or a message to let know while transferring calls or just waiting state while the phone call is active.

Hosted PBX

It is simple business telephony that will keep you stress-free. This telephone system will relieve you from the stress of setting up your PBX phone system. This phone system is hosted in the cloud, and the phone service provider makes the upgrades on its own. 

Least Cost Routing

Also known as LCR. It is the latest technology that doesn’t limit the call coming to the company and decides the order in which calls are coming, and routes the calls to the concerned person. 

Private Branch Exchange

PBX is the business phone system connecting two different devices to a single location. It is attached to a PSTN(Public Switched Telephone Network) and lets you make outbound calls and take inbound calls.

SIP Trunking: 

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is used to trunk different types of digital and other data into some necessary information form. It functions by connecting a PSTN and a VOIP at another end. 

Virtual Private Branch Exchange(PBX)

same as PBX but a stand-alone service. It routes the received calls to a specific device that includes desktop computers and mobile phones rather than physical connections.

ISDN: 

ISDN or Integrated Service Digital network is one used by Phone as network, to carry the data via digital methods rather than analog methods.

Cloud-Based Phone System: 

CPN or Cloud based phone system is the type of phone system that is dependent on the internet. This phone system does not require any landline networks but just a good and stable internet connection with good bandwidth with commercial usage.

Multi-Line Phone System: 

Analog telephone system, which works by using multiple lines per headset to maintain numerous calls. 

How to Choose the Right Phone Systems for small Businesses or big whatever be ?

A dialer pad phone system
Dialer pad tele phone system

When you are trying to select a good and correct business phone system, you need to be clear about your goals, activity and need for the phone system. We have some points to help you out n deciding and differentiating your needs for a phone system suitable for your business

What is the current phone setup in your Office?

First, you need to get answers to important questions like whether you started a new business, or do you want to upgrade the existing one, etc. 

For example, choosing a PBX installation might be impossible if you are not equipped with infrastructure because digital phone systems have mostly replaced analog phone systems. On the other hand, IP PBX can be easier to implement but you will have to purchase the equipment and license.

Choose the right business phone system with the most subtle transition; If you start, this might mean choosing a virtual setting. Conversely, if your business is equipped with a hard phone and a home phone, you might not want to throw these resources to switch to the virtual phone system.

How Many Phone Calls Do you Get?

Are you getting a large number of phone calls? It will be an excellent choice to have an analog connection. In the extended team case, it might take more time to implement the analog connection, but using a virtual system can also be an issue. 

However, if flexibility is a problem because seasonal activity fluctuates, virtual is the way to go. Add and delete users to PBX installations or IP PBX means buying additional hardware and may have a surplus in your hand. At the same time, your virtual telephone subscription will be equally flexible and easily modulated because you need it until the complete transition.

Decide Your Budget for a Phone System for business

While selecting the right business phone system, you should consider your budget first. 

PBX will have high advance costs for hardware, license, and installation. The IP PBX will be less severe, depending on whether you are responsible for hardware or not. Both of these solutions also have a relatively high sustainable cost too:

software updates, equipment maintenance, and replace outdated hardware, for some names.

SIP is very expensive than traditional phone systems. 

PBX needs to be replaced more often (about every five to seven years).

No upfront or maintenance fees are required for virtual solutions, but just a monthly subscription fee per user per month. 

Working Of your Employees

Employee over a telephone
Employee over a phone

If your employees often work from their cellphones, PBX with a hard phone will not work. Setup IP PBX is more mobile but still needs you to connect to your server through an internet connection, and this will not work on the cellphone. For workers while traveling, you can choose a virtual VoIP system; Users will access their softphones from any device, anywhere.

Likewise, you might want to activate your team working remotely, from other parts of work, or home. If it’s a problem, you will be the best with a virtual or application-based browser system. That way, your team will be able to work from anywhere and access their sessions, contacts, and logs from wherever they want.

Which Features Are Essential For your Business?

While selecting the right business phone system, decide the features you want to include in your phone systems. 

Virtual phone system carried new technology and is unique. There are many call features like PBX’s, call waitings, transfers, routings, etc. These features are stable on rigid phone systems. Virtual phone systems give real-time monitoring and call recordings. 

Call monitoring features are essential for your business and helps in improving customer interactions. It can be an excellent selection factor as recordings can be checked and monitored for improving support quality

What kind of internet connection you have?

High speeds and reliable internet connection is required for the IP PBX’s. Without a good internet connection, your phones won’t work correctly. 

Although PBX systems don’t need to worry about the internet connection. 

Set Business Goals

Above all, you must have a specified goal when trying to choose the right business phone system. Have a clear idea about your business needs, your budget, and your team’s requirements. If you don’t know precisely what you want (and what you don’t want) from your business phone, you will not be satisfied.

Consider Future Growth

Choose the right business phone for now, but one that will continue to work for you because your business is growing. Consider what you want for your business in terms of expansion, and select the option to help you work towards that goal.

In short: if you want to have a reliable system, large-scale, solid, select IP PBX. If your emphasis is on scalability, mobility, security, or international growth, select a virtual business telephone system.

Take Profesional Help

If you struggle to choose the right business phone system, it might be worth consulting with a professional. Maybe your business doesn’t have a dedicated IT department, so you find it difficult to wrap your head around the technical.

Most service providers will be happy to guide you through their products if you contact them. Or you can hire consultants for this purpose, take your destination and resource stock, and find a solution that takes into account the two.

This free guide will help you understand the main problems to consider when evaluating telephone systems, common errors made along the way, and best practices for implementation and adoption.


Summary

So, here we discussed different phone systems for a company along with how each phone system behaves as per cost, feasibility, available benefits, and more. Do let us know in the comments below, what you think about these.

Feel free to share as sharing is caring and keep reading for more updates coming next.

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Balvinder Singh
Balvinder Singh

Founder And Editor at Tekraze.com. Loves to write about technology, gaming, business, tips and tricks. Working as a Senior Software Engineer in Infosys India. Exploring different blockchains as well.

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