What is a business phone system?
Basically, business phone system is a communication tool that relies on a multiline telephone system. Mostly used in a business for both inbound and outbound calls, it is a must-have for companies that receive a large volume of calls for it facilitates calls management by them to different employees.
Nowadays business phone system has become an essential tool since it does not only simplify phone call management but also comes with various options that contribute to boosting employees’ productivity.
Many enterprises offer business phone system with integration made for companies like call centers or any structure that has substantial communication needs. Aircall is one of these companies, this startup provides VoIP phone system to companies solicitous to develop themselves and improve their communication system.
Switching to a business phone system comes with many benefits, especially for small growing business:
- It is both time and money saving;
- It gathers various features;
- You can be accessed anywhere;
- It keeps your information private.
There are three types of business phone systems. As a growing business, you should understand each one’s particularity to find out which one is more suitable for you:
- KSU (Key System Units) is the most convenient small businesses phone system since it has a limited number of lines. It is a very basic phone system, but its lack of portability solutions is regretted.
- PBX (Private Branch Exchange) has more features than KSU, like automatic call routing for incoming calls, and therefore it is more suitable for medium-sized businesses.
- VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the most popular (and most expensive) business phone solution. Multimedia and vocal data are delivered over the internet which, for instance, allows companies to reduce their costs for international communications.
This technology continues to develop, there are now business phone systems that also integrate many virtual features, which greatly contribute to increasing the company’s performance and support its growth.
The Perks of Switching to a business phone system
Companies are increasingly switching from traditional telephone systems to more modern and more profitable solutions adapted to companies’ needs.
Business phone systems anticipate and meet the new requirements of companies. New solutions also include cloud-based software, call recording, caller history and many more. Such features are very user-friendly; plus it facilitates internal and external communications. These systems are compatible with remote work and job mobility; plus options can be added as your business grows.
One could even state that resorting to a business phone system is beneficial to each and every party. Managers, employees and customers would all benefit from such progress.
From the Manager’s Point of View
Manager and business owners’ first interests in business phone solutions are money savings. Adopting an integrated telephone system can lower your expenses and simplify a lot of tasks. If you choose a VoIP system, for example, you will save money on both local and international calls.
As a manager, you can track analytics like call duration, customers wait times, and overall usage. For instance, the integration facilitate business and agenda management, you will be able to schedule your meetings and appointments with clients.
It also allows employees supervision and the identification of unusual or unauthorized activities.
Technical advantages
As a modern technology, business phone systems do not only facilitate communication, but it also comes with extra solutions that will enhance productivity. Small and medium-sized businesses can greatly benefit from them since most telephone systems include voicemail, automatic call forwarding and CRM integration.
On top of these advantages, business phone systems are compatible with a lot of software and devices. You can resort to a desk phone system or anything else compatible with smartphones or a computer to receive and make phone calls. You can use your phone system from the office or anywhere else. This can be extremely valuable for call centers and salesmen, for instance, who can save precious time with these solutions.
From the user’s point of view
As previously mentioned, switching to a business phone system can significantly enhance your employees’ productivity.
Working with an efficient and complete business phone system, they will be provided solutions that will help with call management like :
- Share Phone Lines. All users share the same business phone number.
- Auto attendant and transfer calls. These automatic functions will save time to your employees AND customers. The auto attendant will automatically redirect your customer to the correct department according to their requests or depending on employees’ availability.
- Customer Relationship Management integration will give an overview of the calling customers’ information before the employee hangs on to get a better understanding of his situation.
- Unified Communications. Many systems come with an interface that centralizes resources like agenda or customer files and functionalities like instant messaging.
In short, it gathers many functionalities to improve communication, customer tracking and working methods in general.
For the Customers
First of all, business phone systems make it easier for your customer to reach to you. Indeed, every station is assigned the same phone number and thanks to the auto attend, customers will be redirected to the service they’re reaching for and customers’ calls will be dispatched to the available employees. This process largely reduces customers waiting and helps provide a better customer experience.
In addition, many options allow you to improve call control and monitoring. That way, you and your work teams will be more likely to improve their customer service quality.
As you can see, the point of switching to a business phone system is the improvement of your employees’ workflow and service quality, which means a boost of your customers’ satisfaction (and loyalty). Providing a greater service to your customers will contribute to strengthening customers’ relation with your brand and take advantage of your competitors.