Small Business Phone Systems

Calling a restaurant to check for the opening hours or calling an ecommerce vendor to check the order status, for customers, reaching out to a business for any query is simply about picking up the phone and dialing the numbers.

However, if you own or manage a small business, you know that the receiving end of those calls can be chaotic, to say the least. Customers can often end up on long hold or find your line busy, or worse, have their call go unanswered.

Fortunately, there are tools to provide a method to this madness. With small business phone systems, all incoming and outgoing calls can be streamlined and your business too can provide professional customer support.

To help you find such a tool for your business, we’ve prepared this guide. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What are small business phone systems?
• Common features of small business phone systems
• What type of buyer are you?
• Benefits and potential issues
• Key considerations when buying small business phone systems

What are small business phone systems?

Small business phone systems are voice over internet protocol (VoIP) solutions that allow setting up internet-based telephone service for incoming and outgoing calls. These are essentially the modern-day, automated version of a phone switchboard that provides sophisticated features and convenient usability, even on-the-go.

The system works by sending communication data through the internet rather than traditional phone lines. This means it is not limited by the actual number of phone lines (as a traditional setup is). Instead, it relies on the available bandwidth of the internet connection, which makes it more flexible and scalable than a traditional phone line setup.

Common features of small business phone systems

The features offered by small business phone systems vary depending on whether the tool is basic or advanced. Following are some features typically considered core or basic for such tools:

Some advanced features that can be found in small business phone systems are as follows:

What type of buyer are you?

With multiple tools offering similar features, it can be difficult to pick the right one. That's why, before you choose a tool, it's important to understand what kind of a buyer you are and what your business needs are like.

The buyers of small business phone software usually fall into one of the following categories:

• Small businesses that need a contact center to handle simple queries: Such businesses usually need to provide a human connection equivalent to the front desk personnel at a convenience store.

  They need to address only basic inquiries, such as “if the restaurant is open till 11 PM” or “if the summer collection has arrived in the boutique yet.” The business essentially needs to assist customers find the right information and the agent answering the call doesn’t need background knowledge of the person’s interactions with the business.

  Such businesses can look into phone systems that provide basic features such as softphone, unified communication, and routing. They should explore cloud-based tools that work with their existing hardware. They can also limit their phone numbers to one, and receive multiple simultaneous calls on the same number via VoIP systems.

• Small businesses that need to offer wider customer support: Such businesses usually need to provide their customers with extensive help with their products or services.

  They need to be able to answer questions such as “Where is the order in the transit?” or “What happened to the complaint registered two days ago?”. The agent answering the phone needs prompt access to the customer’s purchase history as well as any previous interaction with the business.

  Such businesses can look into phone systems that provide advanced features such as ACD, IVR, and integrations with CRM and ERP tools. They should explore both cloud-based and on-premise solutions. They can set up separate phone numbers to receive different kinds of customer queries, however, with unified communication, all the numbers can be run across the same back-end system.

Benefits and potential issues

Phone systems can help small businesses build a professional telephonic front and do away with the manual routing of calls. Some of its benefits include:

• Improved communication with customers: Avoid missing customer calls or keeping them on hold for too long. With a phone system, multiple calls can be handled simultaneously on a single number and customers will no longer have to wait for callbacks or have their call on hold/wait.
• Increased efficiency for outgoing calls: Do away with manually dialing phone numbers and waiting for calls to be answered. With features such as the predictive dialer, the system will automatically dial the numbers and route them to agents when the call is answered.
• Reduction in telephony costs: Reduce the cost of outbound calls with the help of flat-rate and tiered plans provided by phone systems vendors. These are typically cheaper than the cost of calling-per-minute or other packages offered by traditional phone service providers.

Key considerations when buying small business phone systems

While features, needs, and costs are certainly important factors when choosing a tool, there are some other considerations too that you should keep in mind. These include:

• Industry-specific requirements: Certain industries such as banking or professional services will have specific requirements unique to their operations. These could range from having the ability to verify pin codes via customers’ keypad input to having a specific hierarchy to escalate customer requests. Ensure that the tool you choose supports your unique requirements at a reasonable cost, and not as costly add-ons.
• Access for remote employees: Whether it’s a delivery agent on the way to drop an order or a sales agent traveling for work, they might need to answer phone calls away from the premises of your business. Hence, ensure that the tool you choose is equipped to support a remote infrastructure via mobile access without any additional investment.
• Contract fine-print: Vendor contracts or plans can sometimes come with hidden caveats such as needing to purchase certain hardware equipment or having a lock-in period. Before you finalize the vendor, thoroughly review the contract for its terms and conditions. Also, read reviews about the vendor on websites like ours to get an idea of how they have performed in the past.

Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations. They have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.