Sunday, June 1, 2014

Automated Phone Systems For Small Business Owners Cut Costs

By Lila Bryant


A good and efficient phone system can boost the efficiency, and therefore profits, of a small business. Not many owners of these companies fully understand what systems are available and how much they cost. If they took some time to investigate the market they would soon see that VoIP phone systems for small business are a worthwhile investment and not an extravagance.

If you do decide to install a VoIP phone system, it is important that you have access to a high-speed Internet connection. Once this kind of system has been installed, it will make communication between employers and customers so much easier. You will be amazed at the number of facilities that will be available to you for such a small investment.

VoIP has improved a lot since it was first introduced. In those days the sound quality was poor and the connections kept dropping out. However, the equipment used these days, and the speed and reliability offered with high-end broadband connections has managed to eliminate those problems.

Installing a system like this will mean that your personal assistant, or secretary, are free to carry out tasks that are more useful for their time, rather than continually answering incoming calls. They can also be configured so that your customers can be routed directly to the person, or department, that they need to talk with. No calls will be left hanging, they will all play recorded messages advising them that their call will be answered, or give the caller the option of leaving a message.

Having your phone system running through a high-speed Internet system will also offer you video conference call facilities if required. Having the ability to meet with your customers like this can only improve your status, and also save on travel expenses for meetings that may only last a short time. This facility alone can help you recoup your investment costs.

As with everything, the more you are willing to spend the more features will come with the system. Some of the facilities that might be available to you include call forwarding, unified messaging, and voice mail. If you, or some of your clients, still rely on communication via fax, then this can also be built into the system and the faxes can be received or sent, via your email therefore there would be no need for a dedicated fax machine.

When you are weighing up the pros and cons of the packages available to you, a good thing to look out for is whether the supplier will offer staff training on this new system. For some of your staff members a new phone system could be extremely daunting, and training will give them the confidence to use it efficiently. Hands-on training will be far more cost-effective than any instruction manual.

An efficient phone system can boost your business, as sales will not be lost because incoming calls were not answered. All calls coming into the company will either be transferred to a human, who can either help or take a message, or be answered by the voice mail system of the person they need to talk with. This will give you a far happier customer base, and help sales.




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