How to choose your business phone systems? Here is a step by step guide on finding the best phone for your business needs.

1. Identify your basic needs

  • Take stock of what is available with you at present
  • Take the number of employees that you currently have and you plan to have in the coming year
  • ]Check on the option to take the phone system on lease
  • Find out a reputed company on whom you can rely for warranties and service
  • Check out the options with VoIP
  • Analyse the need for mobility

2. Infrastructure choice – Landlines or VoIP

  • Analyse the difference between the traditional phone system and VoIP.
  • Traditional phone systems use landlines and transmit voice. While choosing it, each employee will get his extension, voice mail box conference facility, caller ID tracking and much more.
  • VoIP uses internet connection and IP phones thereby reducing the costs, though it requires an optimal internet connection to have good quality calls
  • There are Hybrid systems that combine the benefits of traditional and VoIP systems. They allow you to use traditional phone lines for local calls and VoIP for long distance and international calls.

3. Choose your deployment model The options that you have are as below. You can check out which one will suit your need and decide.

  • Premises based solution
  • Cloud solution
  • Hybrid solution

4. List out the features that you need Some of the common features that you can think on are:

  • Hot Desking – Sharing phones between multiple employees
  • Management and Accounting – Recording the calls to analyse patterns
  • Automated attendant – Greet the caller with pre-recorded messages
  • Automated directory service – To connect to certain department without having to remember the extensions
  • Automatic call distribution – To route the call to concerned person based on the need
  • Audio and Video conferencing – Options to conference with multiple people
  • Unified message – A message interface that gives you all your messages at one place
  • Presence – To know the current status of the person you are trying to reach
  • Do not disturb – To set you phone in DND mode
  • Follow me – To transfer calls to other number on unavailability

5. Identify the vendor and device

  • Vendor who can install the phone and give appropriate technical support can be a choice
  • Choose a system that will serve your business well with respect to the cost of ownership
  • Be careful with the phone designs to fit your aesthetic and ergonomic needs.

6. Implement it

  • Intimate employees
  • Take inventory
  • Set up a test network
  • Train users
  • Start using the new set up efficiently

Article courtesy: http://www.mitel.com/article/five-steps-purchasing-business-phone-system

4 Responses to “How to choose your business phone systems”

  1. Becca Holton

    I thought this step-by-step guide was quite educational. It was nice that this listed started by figuring out what your basic needs are. I figure that having a good understanding of that will make it easier to know what type of phone system you should use.

    Reply
  2. Callum Palmer

    I like the suggestion about listing out what features you know you are going to need the phone service to provide. However, in addition to the services that the phones themselves can provide, you also need to think about services that the phones might need. For example, if the line goes down, then you are going to want to have the service that installed them be able to come out and repair them too.

    Reply
  3. Jenna Hunter

    I agree it is very important to identify the basic communication needs of your business. I always check the products or services available to ensure they cover what I’m looking for. It is a good thing to do to ensure it can properly handle the needs of my growing business. Thanks for the advice!

    Reply
  4. Finn Stewart

    I like how you mentioned VOIP uses internet connection and helps reduce costs. To me, as long as the call quality is good the price is the most important aspect when choosing a phone system. My wife sells kitchen tables for fun and has been considering different phone systems. I’ll have to let her know the price advantage of VOIP.

    Reply

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