If you’re planning to invest in a business phone system, you’d also probably want to ensure that the service that you choose is a perfect match for your business. If you're looking for the easiest and most direct way to interact with customers and teammates - whether it be via phone, video, SMS, or chat - then choosing a cloud PBX communication service is your best option. With this, you can unify all of your communication platforms under a single business phone number.
Buying a business phone service can be a major investment for your company. Cautionary measures should be taken while hiring a phone service provider, or the mistakes may set you back by hundreds or thousands of dollars.
To keep our readers safe from such botherations, we are discussing five common mistakes that anyone looking for a business phone service must avoid.
This is one of the costliest blunders. While your company may urgently need a new business phone service, rushing the decision will in no way benefit you.
Take it like this.
Let us say, you picked a service which outlined some of the latest business phone features that enticed you. But, once you got the service and started using it, you realized that the majority of features are not relevant to your business needs. For example, if your company has a receptionist to handle calls, you may not necessarily need auto-attendant services. Or if your organization does not have to put callers on hold, you may want to drop features like call-parking and hold-music.
But you have paid for the service. And you may be wondering what to do. Well, the answer is simple. Be cautious while choosing a service. Don’t rush your decision.
Plan, explore and consult before you purchase. When you are choosing a VoIP business phone service, you can buy only one trial number that you can test before making a final decision. This will help you fulfill the urgent need without paying too much for the service.
As mentioned in the previous example, you should ensure that you are not paying for the features that your business doesn’t need.
This will unnecessarily exceed your budget. You won’t be using the tool to its maximum potential, and your money will be wasted. The features that you get with a business phone service will largely depend on the package that you choose.
For example, if you are a small business owner looking for a qualified business phone service, you may look for basic features like calling options from multiple devices, tools to track usage, hold times and duration of calls and the ability to share numbers with different users.
Similarly, as a medium-sized business owner, you may look for other additional features like call parking and hold-music.
And if you are a large enterprise, you may need more features like call queues, etc.
So, before you pay for a business phone service, make sure to shortlist the features that are relevant to your business and compare the available service options. For example, a Ringcentral vs Grasshopper comparison can help you understand which company is offering more suitable features for your business.
Looking into these details can help you save a good deal of money.
Another major mistake that one may make while choosing a business phone service is neglecting customer service while selecting a business phone service.
As modern business phone systems can often be tricky to operate, you or your team members may need professional assistance from time to time.
Most business phone companies offer quality customer care services to their clients. However, you must check the company profile, reviews and ratings to ensure that the service you are hiring is of top quality and cares about its customers.
For a better idea, here are a few characteristics of a good customer service system:
VoIP and VoBB are two different technologies that can work for your company’s business phone requirements. However, both of these can have different applications and pros & cons.
This means that you can’t randomly pick any of these and expect them to create the desired results.
To maintain a good ROI and to make the most out of the business phone service that you are buying, you should learn enough about VoIP & VoBB technologies and how both of these can add value to your business.
For a better understanding of VoIP and VoBB, here are some details about both.
Example: Most apps and websites use VoIP. WeChat, Skype, etc are examples.
Example: A DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) connection
Even though we need to be cautious while choosing a business phone service, it isn’t rocket science to choose one.
So don’t plan or think too much. But this doesn’t mean that we can go ahead with no plan at all.
It’d be wise to pick a service that allows easy scaling and is beneficial for your business. This will make it easier for you to expand your business without having to worry much about your business phone systems.
If you invest in a scalable business phone service, at the time of scaling, you will have to make a few hardware and software modifications and your business phone system will be ready to meet your new needs.
A new business phone service can be a major investment for your company. You wouldn’t want to place your money into something that doesn’t reap enough value to you. In this post, we shared five common mistakes that people make while picking a business phone service.
Hopefully, this was helpful.
Dennis Vu is the CEO and Co-founder of Ringblaze, a virtual business phone system company that helps teams to better serve their customers, anywhere.
.