Small Business Hosted VoIP PBX
If your primary motivation is to reduce your telephone expense, this article may not be for you.
On the other hand, if you want to learn about the factors that should be evaluated when selecting a Hosted VoIP Provider for your small business, then you should continue reading the rest of this article.
Hosted VoIP Provider – Its not only about price
Price is only one of many factors that should be evaluated when selecting VoIP service providers. When you consider that your company’s phone system is the primary means by which employees and customers, communicate with your company, then choosing a phone system solely on the basis of price is may lead to incorrect decisions.
Any savings in the short term will pale in significance to the loss of revenue from a decline in productivity and customer satisfaction. How many times have you called a company after doing research on their product and hung up the phone in frustration because either you were not able to reach a person who could help you or were placed on hold by either a receptionist or an automated system. What a waste.
This scenario happens all the time, and many times the phone system is the culprit.
This is why you should consider the PBX Features and the VoIP phone plans the Hosted VoIP Provider offers and how you can use those features to enhance your business’s objectives.
For example, if your current phone expense is $1,000.00 a month, the most you could possibly save is $1,000.00. Assuming that you were able to get your phone service for free, which is unlikely? That is it, you can’t save any more than 100%. While reducing expenses is important, in order to succeed in the long run, a company must increase revenue and the phone system must be able to support your business objectives.
Can the prospective system support my Business Objectives?
As a business owner or manager, you should be asking the following fundamental question about your phone system: does it have the capability to support your current/and future/business objectives?
Specific questions include;
1. Can the system Improve productivity? For example, can your current phone system incorporate remote locations and home based employees? Or, is each location on a separate system?
2. Is your company’s phone system unified? Having to tell a caller to hang up and dial another location in your company is frustrating at best. At worst, it could cause you to lose a potential customer.
3. Can the phone system support your customer support requirements? Can employees and customers reach your critical departments 24/7 even if no one is physically at the office? Can the phone system automatically route calls to the proper department regardless of geographic location?
4. Will the VoIP Provider work with you to customize the system? The VoIP Provider is extremely important. The VoIP Provider should provide 24/7 support and monitoring of your VoIP phone system. The VoIP phone service provider should also provide training to your employees both during the initial installation as well as future training of new employees.
As you can see, price while important, is not the primary consideration when choosing your next business telephone system. These are just some of the questions that must be considered when choosing a Hosted VoIP Provider.
April 7, 2023
Phone System 