The Ideal Small Business Phone System

Your small business phone system should do much more than basic telephony. When you invest in any technology or platform, it should deliver value. If it doesn’t, it’s just an expense with no return. If you haven’t considered the return on investment of your phone system, it’s time you did. 

Key Takeaways:

• You need to find a modern phone system for your company to generate an excellent ROI.
• A phone system with a desirable ROI maintains business continuity, reduces downtime, and permits rapid scaling through unified communications as a service.
• The ideal system improves customer experiences, provides actionable analytics, and offers a wealth of features beyond voice calls.

Find out how to build a phone system that does more than ring!

A Modern Business Needs a Modern Small Business Phone System

Small business leaders strive to operate optimally and efficiently. One of the most critical ways to do this is with technology. That’s why on-premises legacy phone systems don’t work for modern businesses. They are money pits that limit accessibility to one location and don’t have the features that provide mobility or agility.

If your small business phone system is still living in the past, it can’t drive ROI. Instead, it will be a cost that continues to increase, and your return is a lot of frustration. The first way to build an ROI-focused phone system is to deploy one that’s cloud-based.

You’ll immediately see reduced expenses because you eliminate hardware costs. Your provider is now responsible for infrastructure. These capital expenses of servers and other hardware never go down, making it impossible to derive ROI when you’re paying for them yourself. 

With a cloud-based system, your overall costs for such a platform will be much less, eliminating the need for expensive equipment and technical experts.

How the Right Phone System Generates ROI

How else does a cloud-based phone system offer ROI? It has many features, attributes, and capabilities that make it a smart investment.

You Can Have Less Downtime and Stronger Business Continuity

With a cloud-based small business phone system, you can have peace of mind regarding downtime. With an on-premises system, that’s always a worry. 

If the power goes out, your phone does, too. How much might you lose with no communication system? The impact could be devastating, and your customers may never trust you again.

With the cloud, you can feel confident in reliability with a 99.999% uptime guarantee. That’s because there are redundancies in place. Additionally, phone solutions that live in the cloud are usable from anywhere and on any device. You’ll always have a safety net for communications and a robust business continuity plan.

Scaling Requires Little Investment

As you grow, your small business phone system can grow with you, requiring only minimal costs. Scaling is crucial for small businesses. As your brand increases its revenue, you’ll need to add new employees. If you’re using an on-premises solution, that will be costly and cumbersome, as you’d have to get your provider to come physically to your location.

On the other hand, with the cloud, you can easily add or remove users. Phones are plug-and-play, so there’s no IT assistance needed. Your employees can also access all features via an app on mobile or desktop. With this platform, you can onboard new staff more quickly and give them the communication tools they need to succeed.

Accessibility Drives Better Customer Experiences

When customers need to contact you, is your small business phone system creating roadblocks? If so, they may go elsewhere. Modern customers have high expectations about access. 

Imagine that salesperson Jane heads out to lunch. Her biggest client tries to call her with an urgent matter. If he has to wait, he could grow frustrated. With a VoIP system, he can still reach her whether she’s in the car, walking down the sidewalk, or sitting in a café.

When your customers feel like you’re there for them, it builds loyalty. That pays big dividends. With cloud-based communications,  it doesn’t matter where you are; connection is possible from anywhere.

Call Analytics Offer Actionable Insights

A platform that offers call analytics is also a source of ROI. For customer-facing employees like salespeople and customer success specialists, understanding their phone usage can be insightful.

You’ll be able to track metrics and performance related to multiple actions. From reports, you can find patterns and trends that allow you to optimize employee efficiency and increase customer engagement.

You Can Easily Get More Than a Phone System

You’ll get the greatest return when implementing a unified communications as a service platform. A phone is one component, but UCaaS offers so much more in one integrated solution. These small business phone system tools empower your employees to be more productive and support customers.

A UCaaS system can include:

• Video conferencing, which is a must-have for more impactful meetings and should offer screen sharing and annotation options
• Team chat, a vital tool for internal communication when people need quick answers or support
• File backup and collaboration, which enables better teamwork because employees can work on a document simultaneously and also serves as a secure repository that’s accessible from anywhere with the right credentials
• Business integrations with a variety of systems, including CRMs, to streamline business workflows

A UCaaS platform is more cost-effective than standalone modules for each communication and collaboration tool.

A Small Business Phone System Should Empower You, Not Limit You

Now that you know how to build an ROI-focused phone system, you’ll want to compare options. There are many on the market with similar features and costs. How do you know the best choice for your company? 

Selecting a solution built for small businesses is a start. Look for one with award-winning customer support, a robust onboarding program, and uncompromising security and reliability.

You’ll find this and much more with Intermedia Unite. Find out how we can help your company succeed today with a top-tier small business phone system.

Mark Sher

Mark Sher, a 30-year telecom and cloud communications executive, is the SVP of Product Marketing for Intermedia Cloud Communications, a leading provider of UCaaS, CCaaS, and business cloud application solutions to partners and the businesses they serve. In his role, Mark has global responsibility for all direct and indirect product marketing at Intermedia including product launches, product messaging and positioning, competitive intelligence, analyst relations, and cross-channel pricing.