Learn How To Avoid The Business Phone System Pitfalls
For close to a hundred years the phone has been helping business people market their products and services.
The phone connects you to the world outside your office and plays a key role shaping your business image.
In today’s increasingly competitive commercial environment you cannot afford to settle for an inferior phone system.
There must be no compromise on the requirements for a highly reliable system that can easily be adjusted as your business develops.
Fortunately the path to finding an optimum business phone system has been well-travelled by many other firms.
There are plenty of opportunities to benefit from their experience and avoid the kind of pitfalls commonly encountered.
This report describes some of the mistakes that have often been made and gives you tips on how to avoid them.
Mistake #1 – Assuming the Domestic Service Provider has the Answer
It is understandable if you first turn to your home phone service provider for a business phone system solution.
You are used to working with them and hopefully are broadly satisfied with the service they offer.
However, the familiar is not always the best choice. Knowledge of the domestic phone service market does not invariably translate into capabilities to deliver a solid, professional phone system that answers you commercial communications requirements.
Many of today’s most successful business telecommunications solutions involve moving away from traditional PBX systems.
You are well advised to investigate the advantages of cloud-based communications platforms and hosted telephony.
They offer you many valuable and user friendly features and save the major installation and maintenance costs of the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) alternative.
Mistake #2 – Equating the Lowest Fee with the Best Deal
Another temptation to be avoided is focusing on the monthly service provider charge rather than the overall expense of acquiring and running your phone system.
Purchasing and installing a PBX is a significant capital expense. The maintenance and further improvement of this phone system is also going to necessitate an additional substantial investment.
In contrast, if you opt to go over to a cloud-based system you would save on the major costs of PBX hardware.
There would also be extra valuable costs savings by cutting out maintenance fees. It is also usually possible to obtain a single price that covers both the phone system and the service.
Whichever phone system you decide is best going to meet your business needs, you would do well to take a broad view of system installation, maintenance and improvement costs.
Only on this basis are you enabled to make the most economical choice.
Mistake #3 – Not Paying Sufficient Heed to Caller Experience Issues
True, phones are about communication but in a commercial context they are much more.
In a sense your phone system fulfils a role similar to the entrance lobby of your premises—it is often the first contact between the customer and the business.
You therefore need to insure that this initial contact is a positive experience.
Consider what options you want to offer callers, and in particular, how to make certain they are routed to the right department or person in a friendly and speedy way.
The best way of achieving this objective is to place yourself in the customer’s position and see how calls are routed, both during and outside standard business hours.
It is also advisable to compare the offerings of POTS and cloud-based solutions.
You are certain to notice that cloud communications gives you the independence to instantly reconfigure how your phone calls are handled without the need for the services of an IT manager.
Mistake #4 – Relying on Guesswork
While every businessperson hopes the next few years will be a time of business growth, it does not make sense to choose a phone system on that basis. It is impossible to know for certain what developments are in store.
If you select a traditional phone system scaling the system up or down is not going to be cheap.
You might also find yourself entrapped in user agreements that you cannot alter even after your business situation changes.
Once again the high scalability of cloud communications offers a very economical solution to such resizing needs.
Mistake #5 – Overlooking your Distinctive Business Needs
Although it is stating the obvious to make the point that every business has its own particular communications needs, this point is still well worth making.
Business owners and managers sometimes fall into the trap of investing in a PBX that fails to answer their specific business requirements.
Questions must be asked concerning the amount of travel done by employees in the course of their jobs, the demands for working from remote locations and a host of related factors that differentiate one business from another.
It is crucially important to choose a phone system with the features that match up with your operational needs.
For example, if your employees in different locations or in transit need to keep in regular phone contact with the head office, you must have a phone system appropriate to these demands.
The more flexible and dynamic the system you select, the better it is going to handle existing requirements and the easier it can be adjusted to take account of new developments. [viralpullquote ]The more flexible and dynamic the system you select, the better it is going to handle existing requirements and the easier it can be adjusted to take account of new developments.[/viralpullquote]
Finding the business phone system that satisfies employee requirements and delivers a pleasant customer experience takes some thought and effort, but all of this is more than justified by the long-term gains.
We would be pleased to offer you the benefits of our solid experience and successful record helping businesses find their optimum phone service solutions.
You can contact me at 1-888-256-2925 or contact me here on how I can help you choose the phone system that fits your business requirements.
