6 Steps To Get A Business Phone System

Your company is big enough to need a business phone system! Great!

Ok, how does that work? What all do you need? You look at an overwhelming business phone provider’s sales page . . . and put it off for a different day.

We’re here to help.

Office Phone vs Softphone

First question is whether you have office space or are still running everything from home over your cell phone?

If you have office space, then you probably want at least one office phone. You may also want that office phone to ring through to your cell phone at the same time.  That’s possible with a softphone.

A softphone is an app that goes on smartphones, tablets, or even desktops that “acts like” part of your overall business phone system.

Yes, it is possible to run your entire business phone system from a smartphone app for a while.  Most businesses don’t want to stay there forever, but it works fine for a startup company.

Office phones in a set location get consistent, high quality, clear calls.  Softphones can vary with the quality of cell service in an area.  If there’s not much signal, then the call quality will suffer just like on a regular phone call from the smartphone.

Either way, your business phone system includes all the standard features like a virtual receptionist, voicemail to email, three digit extensions, seven digit dialing, call conferencing, call transfer, and call hunting.

Size and Style of Company

How many employees does the company have? One? Five? 300 in various places across the country?

If you have 30o in various places across the country, you need your own IT staff and we cannot help you in this blog post, sorry.  Give us a call and we’ll hook you up with a good techie in your area.

However, for most businesses, we can help.

If it’s you by yourself, we’d suggest looking at a softphone based system to start. It can easily scale up as you grow.

When you’ve got a few people on your team, then you want to ask where they’re usually found.  If they’re at desks, whether at home or at an office, get office phones.  Are they always out at jobsites, on appointments, or somewhere that’s not the office? Then more emphasis on softphones would be good.

Virtual Fax vs Fax Machine

Does your company need to send or recieve faxes? If you don’t, no worries.

If you do, do you have to use a fax machine or can a virtual fax solution work?

Virtual fax sends and recieves faxes through your email.  Our virtual fax is secure enough to send medical records, but not every provider has that yet.  If security is important to you, might want to check.

If you need to use an old style fax machine, hybrid fax solutions offer the answer.

Business Texting?

People would often rather have a root canal than call someone on the phone anymore.  Given that, is business texting a good solution for your company? SMS messaging (aka texting) offers another channel for companies to send promotions, reminders, and get feedback from customers.

You can choose to have it relayed to your cellphone or keep it going to your email.  Both offer viable solutions.

Do You Have An Office With. . . Stuff

And by stuff, here, we mean fire alarms, elevators, postage machines, credit card machines, cameras, regular alarms, or anything else that needs its own dedicated phone line.

Please tell your friendly business phone system provider about those. The techs installing an office phone system have to know about them so nobody gets any unpleasant surprises.

Pick Your Business Phone Number

Picking a good business phone number is way harder than most people realize.

It has to be memorable, to roll off the tongue well, and yet not look spammy.  Nobody picks up a business’s call if the number looks suspicious.

Business phone system providers can easily come up with a list of available numbers in an area code.  Go through them looking for one that’s easy to remember.  Then, ask if it sounds good when spoken, looks good in print, and not too perfect for belief.

Ready For A Top Notch VoIP Business System?

Here at NoContractVoIP, we create custom business phone systems that offer a full suite of hybrid and remote solutions for your telecom needs. Your success is our success.

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Looking for the finest stress-free custom business telephone systems? Contact us or call today at 866-550-0005!