Telcare

Through our extensive customer-facing experience, we know that budget is often a factor in selection of a business telephone system. Particularly when economic times are hard, advertisements for a cheap small business phone system may prove to be particularly eye-catching.

The dangers

Unfortunately, there are some potential problems in being influenced exclusively by the price.

We do supply what we consider are low-cost entry systems but we do so without compromising on the quality of the systems we install.  Other very low-cost solutions may not have the same approach.

The quality of a cheap small business phone system is important for three major reasons:

• reducing downtime – you may find that cheaper systems are rather more prone to failure and being unable to use your phones may be at best a serious inconvenience and at worst, a veritable disaster;

• ease of maintenance and reduced fix times – when something does go wrong, it may be easier for your support engineers to diagnose and remedy the problem if they’re dealing with a quality system;

• the potential for easy and relatively inexpensive expansion.

The small business and telephony

Small entry-level systems are typically required for people such as schools, colleges, care homes, veterinary practices, garage services and small factories.

In all such cases, typically the procurer won’t want a vastly complicated system – but things may change.

Take for example, a hypothetical college.  Perhaps today a relatively small system may suit your needs well in terms of connecting classrooms, halls and administration areas.

Yet in the future, perhaps you will merge or form a working partnership with another college in the area. In such situation, you may wish to link your two phone systems.

If both establishments have small and cost-effective but nevertheless standard systems, it may be relatively easy to achieve the objective and without needing access to a huge budget.

By contrast, if one or both establishments have systems that were procured entirely on the lowest-cost basis, they may use non-standard technical approaches and may potentially be largely or entirely incompatible with each other.

That’s why looking for a cheap small business phone system must be tempered with a little reality.  We would be only too happy to advise further on the subject.

In reality, it’s very hard to define what a typical small business phone system would look like.

That’s because it’s hard to imagine what a typical small business is.

Your business is unique and your requirements for business telecoms and office phone systems will also be unique to you.

However, you may find that:

• your customers are now demanding contact every time they phone and not just the engaged signal;
• if you or a colleague are not available, callers may expect to be able to leave a message;
• you’re asked to participate in (or perhaps even instigate) a multi-site conference call;
• if you’re moving around your premises, then callers will still expect to be able to reach you and engage in a conversation.

The list could be extended and is potentially lengthy.

The key point is that your customers, suppliers and business partners, just won’t want to communicate with your business via telephone on the same basis as they would have done in the 1970s.

The modern small business phone system from a reputable market leader such as Siemens telephone solutions may be able to offer all the above features and many more.

Telephone maintenance contracts

It is possible that your existing business telephone system is relatively modern but just isn’t reliable.

That can be frustrating and potentially business damaging because if your system is down and you can’t be contacted, then your customers may not be prepared to wait.

It might, therefore, be a good idea to consider putting a maintenance and support contract into place.

Such a contract typically helps a small business achieve two objectives:

• to reduce the possibilities of system failures and down time;
• to get the fastest possible aid and restoration of the business telephones in the event a failure does happen.

Having a support and maintenance contract in place might make all the difference between a telephone problem being a minor inconvenience and a business catastrophe, and this is where we can help. We offer several levels of telephone system service and maintenance and allow you to create package that best meets your own businesses unique needs.

The modest costs involved may be a small price to pay for the security of knowing that you have cover for your existing small business phone system.

If you are a small business looking for a business telephony solution, then you’ll want your small business phone system to work hard for you. So, what do you need to think about when looking for the most suitable office telephony solution?

Considerations may include:

• moderately priced to support entry-level and start-up businesses;
• easy to install and low maintenance costs;
• potentially compatible with other technologies such as video or data;
• powerful in that it can provide a range of additional business support functions such as menu systems etc;
• scalable so that it can be easily expanded to meet business growth and increased sophistication;
• reduced risk – in other words a tried and tested solution from a reputable provider rather than an unproven high-risk system from a virtually unknown company that may turn your business into a test-bed.

Sound to be too demanding a list?

Well, we don’t think so!

We can provide solutions that meet these criteria running from just two handsets up to 200+. Siemens business telephone systems also provide the assurance that comes from dealing with a front-runner in business telecom services.

All these things are important for one reason – whatever the nature of your business, it will sink or swim based upon communications.

Your customers may love your services or frantically desire your products, but none of that will count for anything if they can’t actually speak to you when they want to.

In today’s fast moving and harsh business world, most customers are extremely unlikely to keep trying to reach you if all they get is the engaged signal. They’ll simply go elsewhere.

Equally, they won’t thank you for asking them to call back to speak to a colleague because you can’t easily transfer them yourself.

Asking customers to sit listening for hours to music while waiting to speak to you just because your company doesn’t have an effective voicemail system may also prove to be another step on the road to business oblivion.

The modern small business phone system can relegate all these types of potential problem to where they deserve to be – the pages of history. It need not cost a lot of money to put into place business telephone systems that are fit for purpose and which mean you never have to miss a critical call or be delayed in making one.

The small business phone system has changed – and for the better!

Having a small business phone system is one thing – getting the best out of it is something quite different and this is where you can take advantage of our expertise in getting the right business telecoms solution for you..

At its most basic, a business phone system could be one line with one or more handsets connected to it, coming into your office over what’s called the PSTN (public switched telephone network) but few businesses today could operate on such a simple system.

Fortunately, office telephone systems are available that can incrementally grow the level of sophistication provided as your business grows and evolves.

Voicemail

Little is more frustrating to a customer than a phone ringing out unanswered or constantly engaged. Using an answering and voicemail service could make the difference between securing and losing a client.

Call routing systems

You may happen to be out of the office but want to pick up calls on your mobile. Your office telephony system can automatically be set-up to re-route calls to your normal office number so that they ring on your portable.

Conferencing

Travel is expensive, time consuming and not particularly environmentally friendly. Yet getting several geographically dispersed parties together for a meeting is frequently necessary.

The small business phone system can help reduce the number of journeys to meetings by using conferencing – ie. linking several parties together on the one call.

If you have access to some form of high-speed internet or phone connection, conference calling can also include video links so that all parties can see each other.

Selection systems

If you have a larger volume of inward calls, the sheer time spent asking each caller for their customer number, order number and personal details, can be very time-consuming and ultimately tedious for your staff.

It is possible to use a small business phone system that collects this information from your customers directly through keypad selections once their call has been automatically answered. This can then link directly to your PC systems so that your staff can see the customer’s information automatically appear on their screen as they pick up the call.

VOIP

The days of seeing staff desperately trying to balance a handset between their cheek and shoulder while they tapped into their PC, should have disappeared with the arrival of headsets.

Yet PCs and telephones have converged ever closer. VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) now means that even a small business telecoms system is capable of interfacing with the internet and receiving or making calls through that route as opposed to the PSTN.

This may result in call cost reductions and allow integration between phone and information sending services such as electronic client billing etc.

Sophistication doesn’t equal high cost

The small business phone system today isn’t always easy to distinguish from the systems operated by the very large corporate world. They offer a power, flexibility and capacity that would have been undreamt of by the small businesses of even a few years ago – and typically at an affordable price!