The Benefits of Telephone Systems for Business

There are many good reasons for using a professional telephone system with your business and, while it may be obvious, they are a fantastic communication tool and allow for more personal contact with prospective clients and service providers than for example, an e-mail. Modern phone systems also provide a range of features that can act to give an impression of a larger company too.

Traditionally, only larger companies had complex private branch exchange systems, however, now many of the features of such large systems have been scaled down into systems such as the Mitel 5000. This and similar PBX systems are now more viable for smaller businesses due to the advantages they give, such as being able to transfer calls to mobile phones or in-car phones to contact people outside the office with mobile PBX, conference calls, auto redialling and other such impressive features.  These additional features can provide a huge boost to business performance that can give you an edge in the business arena.

The Mitel 5000 is just one example though. There are many PBX systems to choose from on the market and deciding which are best suited for your company can be tricky. One popular option is a VoIP service, and mostly since it is one of the cheaper options. The reduced cost of this, while dependent on several things, is primarily due to the method of charging. In a VoIP system for a company, telecoms tends to make up a very small part of the data transferred and charges relate to the amount of data sent, not the amount of time. This tends to result in much lower costs for call time.

Other factors which can further reduce the costs of VoIP include special services such as conference calls and ID features.  These can be implemented very cheaply in a VoIP system. Also, since it runs over the internet, many companies can use it in conjunction with their existing systems. This gives rise to options such as merging contact sheets on the computer network with the phone systems for faster calls.

VoIP isn’t perfect however, and due to the nature of IP connections, data packets can be queued and result in voice latency which could make communication impossible. There are several methods of mitigating these effects, however. It is common for phone systems to come with their own uninterrupted power supplies to ensure that phones will still work without mains power for up to a few hours.  This is, however, often an issue for normal PBX systems anyway, since they require power and will be affected in the same way by power-cuts. Another way of avoiding this is to have a hosted PBX system, which can be done via IP or plain old telephone service (POTS) via a third party. This can be very effective for companies with multiple offices or which are not large enough to have their own employee or team to manage the system.

The effect of a good system on a company, especially in smaller companies, is clearly visible. When a call is professionally handled and directed to a person who can deal with an enquiry quickly and efficiently, the company can easily give an impression of a larger well organised company. This can heighten productivity & ultimately be turned around to produce larger profits.

So, do consider how you deal with your phone systems. The benefits can be tricky to track but they can prove to be an invaluable asset to your business.