“Hello, can you hear me?” As a business owner, these are words you never want to hear your team or your customers say. Fortunately, with the right business phone system, that will be a thing of the past. It’s hard to deny the challenges business owners and customers face in this unpredictable economy, but the benefits of a modern phone system can remove some of those concerns and provide your business with the stability it needs.
Below, we’ll discuss what upgrading to a cloud-based business phone solution can do for your organization in the short and long term. Whether it’s supporting a remote and hybrid workforce or saving some hard-earned dollars, we’ll help you understand why a VoIP-based solution is the right choice moving forward.
Why Should My Business Upgrade its Business Phone System?
Businesses today must provide an excellent customer experience, keep workers happy and productive, and, most importantly, remain profitable. If you’ve been operating on old, antiquated “Plain Old Telephone System” POTS lines, you’ve likely seen your costs rising. This is due to service providers like AT&T doing away with their POTS lines. As business landline costs soar, you’ll be happy to know there are more affordable alternatives available. A cloud-based phone system will allow you to reduce costs, increase productivity by giving staff more efficient tools, and continue providing stellar service to customers.
Modern systems like a VoIP solution are so much more than voice calls – it provides your business with powerful features like:
- Call forwarding
- Call routing
- Call transfers
- Auto-attendant
- Conference calls
- Call recording
- SMS
- Simple access to call logs
The 21st century is widely regarded as the golden age of communication technology. The need to communicate with your customers on their platform of choice in real time is critical to your success. With a cloud-based phone solution, your team can communicate from anywhere, on any device, while delivering the same customer experience at a fraction of the cost.
How a Modern Business Phone System Can Benefit Your Business
Remote/Hybrid Work Support
According to a recent Accenture report, 83 percent of workers prefer a hybrid model. While some organizations have called their employees back into the office, the figures prove there’s an overwhelming desire to remain working at least part of the time remotely. If you’re concerned about employees seeking options with more mobility, a modern business phone system will give them the tools they need to work where they want.
Scalability
With cloud-based business phones, you and your team can make calls at any time, from anywhere, on any device. This flexibility is critical to staying connected to customers and supporting your business’s needs, no matter your location while giving your team the mobility to work from anywhere. A cloud phone solution will benefit your organization by helping you to attract and keep workers that prefer a hybrid work model.
One of the most exciting parts of owning a business is watching it grow. However, scaling an old-school on-premise phone system can cause quite a few headaches. Hardware installations and upgrades can be expensive and inconvenient, and the service itself can cost more than it should. For example, if you need to add 15 users but your plan requires you to purchase 20 lines, you’re paying for something you don’t need.
With a cloud-based solution, you can scale your system so that you only pay for what you need. Adding new users to a cloud business phone system is a breeze and is all handled through a simple web-based portal. All it takes is a couple of clicks. As your business grows, it will benefit from the easy scalability a cloud phone solution provides when you add staff or expand to new locations.
Collaboration
Organizations succeed when their staff works together efficiently and effectively. One of the many benefits of a modern business phone system is that it helps improve the collaboration process. Older phone systems lack collaboration tools, but modern business phone systems offer versatile, streamlined communication options, allowing on-site and remote teams to always feel connected. Improved collaboration will also directly translate into increased productivity among your staff. Offering them modern communication tools eliminates the time spent struggling with an outdated, inefficient phone system. A cloud-based phone system helps your business by enabling teams to collaborate more efficiently and workers to be more productive.
Improved Customer Experience
Customers expect more from businesses today than ever before. Consumers have an array of options to choose from, right in the palm of their hands. The best product and services aren’t enough to differentiate yourself from a competitor anymore – customers expect top-notch customer experience, and they expect it to be prompt and through their preferred mode of contact, whether that be via phone, text, or email. A modern business phone system can help you provide that to them.
Your team will never miss important calls or messages with a VoIP business phone system. Since you can communicate with your customers from anywhere, you can help customers solve their issues quickly and effectively. Modern cloud communications platforms also integrate with many business CRM and customer support software, which speeds up response times and reduces the chance of human error. With VoIP phones, your customer support no longer needs to be tied to a desk, and your business has more flexibility in how it manages its customers.
Streamlined Processes
A modern cloud-based business phone solution does something an outdated system can’t – it streamlines your organization’s workflows. Because your staff can access its communications from their web-enabled devices, your teams can collaborate from anywhere, at any time of the day. Integrating your communications with your existing business software increases productivity on all fronts, and allows you to consolidate workflows and optimize business processes. Being able to add and delete users, run reports, and manage the entire system from a web-based portal simplifies administration, saves time, and eliminates hassles. A cloud-based phone solution doesn’t just improve your communications flow, it maximizes the efficiency of your entire organization.
Want To Learn More About a New Business Phone System?
This blog only covers a fraction of what there is to know about a new business phone system. Whether you’re looking to upgrade an outdated system to support a remote/hybrid workforce, improve overall customer experience, or optimize your workflows — and save some money in the process — you might be wondering if it’s time to make the switch for your business. Fortunately, we’ve written an eBook that covers everything you’ll need to know.
In the guide, we cover the various options available and the differences between them, what you should consider before making the upgrade, and the next steps your business can take before choosing a system. We’ve also included a detailed worksheet that helps you plan your search.
Interested in learning more? Make sure to download “The Complete Guide to Choosing a Business Phone System” here!
