January 7, 2022
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Business phone systems have become a part and parcel of every company, especially the small scale enterprises. A few years back, legacy telephone systems that brought with them lots of wires and hardware were ruling the market. But for small businesses, it was difficult to afford such huge initial investment as well as the long-term maintenance.
However, today, the scenario has totally changed, where small business phone systems are being conveniently adopted and used by companies of both small and large sizes. Since the “customer centric” approach is being highly practiced by businesses these days and “Phone Calls” are the No.1 mode of communication preferred by customers, phone solutions for small businesses are now a necessity. Source
Let us understand the concept further.
A phone system for small businesses is a communication system consisting of office telephones and mobiles, which are interlinked for call handling, call transfer, IVR, and voicemails. This type of phone system can function over a public switched telephone network (PSTN) or over the internet.
Cloud-based business phone systems are popularly used by small business enterprises that may not have offices in multiple locations or a large workforce. However, these companies may still have communication needs to engage with customers, partners, and colleagues. As per stats, in the year 2020, corporate cloud telephone system subscribers reached 204.8 billions. That’s a big number! Further, this market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12% between the years 2020 to 2025.
When you decide to buy business phone solutions for your company, you need to choose from 4 types : Analog, PBX, IP PBX, and VoIP. Among all these, a VoIP Phone System is the most popular one, which is also known as a cloud-based phone system. The main reason for the popularity of a cloud phone system is its capability to offer omni-channel communication benefits. Also, you need not get involved in any kind of wiring hassles when you go for a cloud setup. Your communication system can kick start in just a few mins.
A small office phone system is ideal for your enterprise if you need to handle multiple calls. The right small business phone system will help you attain your business goals. Here are some of the features that you need to look for:
Customers no longer prefer a business based on the product or pricing, but how good the customer experience is (source). As a small business, you just can’t ignore this fact. Call routing is the process of handling and transitioning inbound phone calls to team members or departments. With call routing, you can ensure that customers are being answered by the right departments and that the call routing process is smooth enough to provide a good customer experience.
The importance of having an IVR in your business phone solutions lies in the fact that customers expect proactive communication from the businesses they deal with (source). Your company may have multiple departments such as sales, support, marketing, finance, etc. So, to ensure that communication flow is quick and smooth, multi-level IVR process should be there. Make sure that you are able to set up your IVR recorded messages without any hassle.
When we are talking about an IVR System, the next question that will come to your mind is ‘ How will I record the IVR Messages?’. A small business telephone system, which has text to speech conversion feature will solve all hassles involved in IVR recording. You just need to add your text and those will be converted to voice files. You can also read our blog post on 10 Reasons Businesses should not go for Free Text to Speech Service
Click-to-call buttons help to boost your business communication. Yes, as per stats, 88% of customers are more likely to initiate contact if there is a click to call option on a website. It is a wonderful tool of customer service as your website visitors can call you directly clicking on the Click-to-Call button. It is free for your website visitors, so there is more chance that they will not hesitate to make a quick call.
It is interesting that over 90% of businesses record their calls. Not only because it helps in resolving legal matters, when required, but also proves useful for quality and training purposes. If your agents are communicating with proposed customers on recorded calls, there is an increasing chance that right information is shared. Additionally, those calls can be reviewed and feedback can be shared to your call center team.
You might have a client base in multiple countries, so adding local numbers in your website is a good marketing technique. You can be easily reached through those local DID numbers, which can be connected to your business phone solutions.
The world has gone mobile and surviving in the market without a mobile app for your business just seems impossible. When it’s a cloud based solution, you should go for the one with a mobile app for added flexibility. As a small business owner, you cannot stick to your PC all the time. With a mobile app, you can manage your communication system from your mobile. Remote workers and those ‘on the go’ can easily take business calls through their mobile app.
A dashboard is a central place where you get to see the day to day activities of your business communication. How many calls have hit your system, how many have been answered, what is the call query resolution time, number of active agents, etc. These are some of the activities, which you can check from your dashboard.
Choosing a small business phone system involves a lot of things such as price comparison, features and your requirements. You need to analyze everything in detail before making the right decision.
KloudTalk is a Cloud-Based Business Phone System for Small, Mid-sized as well as Large companies. It comes with all required features of a small business such as Multi-level IVR, Click to Call, Text to Speech, Business Phone Number, Call Recording to name a few. It comes with a free trial of 14 Days during which you can test all features.
Note – This post was last updated on 7-01-2022.
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