4 Key Considerations for a Small Business Phone System

If you’re choosing a small business phone system, you might feel a little overwhelmed right now. There are so many types of phone systems, features and price points.

At the same time, choosing a small business phone system or business telephone service is essential. Customers, prospects, partners and vendors will all experience your brand over the phone. The quality of your phone system has a lot to do with how professionally your business can present itself.

To help you discover the top business phone system for your organization, let’s set aside the intricacies of phone features for the moment. Instead, let’s focus on one key decision: traditional landline, virtual or VoIP?

Q1 – Should You Get a Traditional Business Phone Line?

If you’re a typical small to medium-sized business, probably not. Phone companies offering traditional landline systems today tend to serve serve two types of clients: (1) large companies with extensive inbound and outbound call volume –and an IT department to maintain and service the required onsite PBX hardware, and (2) companies without access to a high-speed internet connection.

Q2 – How About a Virtual Phone System?

A virtual phone system might be the best business phone line if the vast majority of your employees are remote workers. A virtual phone system connects your business line to an employee’s cell phone or home phone. Callers don’t know they’re being forwarded, preserving a professional feel, and employees can use business features (such as call screening or online faxing) not typically available on personal phones.

Keep in mind – with a virtual phone system your employees will be using their mobile or home phone minutes for business calls. They may need to be able to turn their phone bills in as a business expense or otherwise be compensated.

Q3 – Is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Reliable?

More and more small businesses are integrating their phone system with their internet connection. There are, of course, positives and negatives to this approach.

VoIP systems are feature rich, matching or exceeding the capabilities of traditional landline systems. They also give employees access from mobile devices. Call quality, which used to be a concern with VoIP, now closely matches the quality of landline systems.

VoIP can be powerful and affordable, but without a reliable internet connection it can undercut the quality of your telephone communications. If VoIP sounds right for you, consider a “hosted” VoIP solution to help ensure call quality.

Q4 – What About Cloud-Based Phone Systems?

You may have searched online and read about Cloud-Based business phone systems. This is a type of VoIP system.

With a Cloud-Based VoIP phone system, your phone service provider houses and maintains the phone system. This is great because it frees you up from the expense of buying and maintaining the hardware. You can manage the system from a computer interface. And you can easily add new lines as you grow. It’s easy to see why cloud-based phone systems are growing in popularity.

Traditional, Virtual or VoIP?

When there are so many options out there for small business phones, it sometimes pays to start with a baseline decision – traditional landline, virtual or VoIP?

From there, find a couple of small business phone service providers to compare regarding (1) system features, (2) pricing and (3) customer support. For any small business phone service, you’ll want to make sure they provide 24/7 support for your small business phone service needs.

Learn more

With Cable ONE Business, you can explore basic business line services for up to 12 lines along with Primary Rate Interface (PRI) business line services to handle up to 23 concurrent calls  on each trunk up to four trunks and soon VoIP (SIP) business line services for integrating voice, video and instant messaging.