In the fast-paced world, seamless communication and instant collaboration are the Holy Grail to success in business. When it comes to communication and collaboration, nothing can beat the efficiency and sophistication of an advanced business phone system (such as an IP PBX system).
Contemporary business phone systems use Internet Protocol (IP) technology to provide seamless communication as well as enhance the productivity and efficiency of call center agents.
This blog post discusses how an advanced business phone system can help in boosting efficiency and productivity and how to choose the right business phone system.
Benefits of business phone system
Business phone systems have the following benefits:
- Cost-effective: VoIP-based business phone systems reduce call costs by leaps and bounds. They can yield potential savings of at least 50 percent on local calls and as high as 90 percent on long-distance and international calls!
- Collaboration: Effective collaboration between team members is crucial for productivity. Sophisticated business phone systems enable seamless video meetings, conference calls, and group messaging, enhancing intra-team and inter-team collaboration.
- Integrations: Contemporary business phone systems easily integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) software, project management platforms, and productivity tools, enabling businesses to streamline workflows and access comprehensive customer data.
- Self-service options: Business phone systems offer a wide array of self-service options such as interactive voice response (IVR), allowing customers to resolve issues and find answers to queries independently, saving time for both customers and agents.
- Remote work: Modern VoIP-based business phone systems have facilitated seamless remote work by providing efficient and secure communication tools, enabling professional handling of incoming and outgoing calls without the need for additional hardware installation.
- Flexibility and scalability: Business phone systems are extremely flexible and scalable. Be it peak season or lean time, you can adjust your entire workforce by adding more staff during busy seasons and reducing staff during lean periods. These phone systems also provide flexibility when it comes to remote work capabilities, which enable employees to work from anywhere in the world.
- Minimum physical space: As advanced business phone systems no longer rely on servers and specialized hardware, they reduce the dependence on a lot of space. Using reliable business phone systems agents can work from anywhere by using a laptop, headset, and internet connection.
- Real-time monitoring and insights: Contemporary business phone systems come equipped with real-time analytics and reporting tools, providing valuable insights into key performance indicators (KPIs), call metrics, and customer satisfaction, facilitating performance tracking and improvement efforts.
Must-have features of a business phone system
When it comes to choosing a reliable business phone system, features are among the most important deciding factors. A reliable and trustworthy business phone system comes with these features:
- Auto provisioning: How easier your life would be when you can remotely activate your phone, assign extensions, set wallpaper, and configure keys! With this feature, you don’t have to provision your phone system manually.
- Audio conference: This feature enables you to make several concurrent calls and has more than a thousand participants in the conference. This feature enables users to collaborate and work virtually with team members.
- BLF and presence: This feature allows you to configure your VoIP phones with busy lamp field (BLF) function keys to check agents’ availability. It also enables managers and supervisors to check how many agents are available for a call and how many of them are busy.
- Call analytics and reporting: Advanced business phone systems provide detailed call analytics and reporting, offering insights into call volumes, call durations, peak hours, and other metrics, helping businesses optimize call handling and make informed decisions.
- Call monitoring and whisper: Supervisors and managers can monitor live calls and provide real-time feedback to agents using call monitoring and whisper coaching features, enhancing agent training and improving the customer service quality.
- Call recording: Sophisticated business phone systems offer call recording capabilities, which enable businesses to record and store calls for quality assurance, compliance, training, or dispute resolution purposes.
- Conferencing and collaboration: Business phone systems come with advanced conferencing features, which enable teams to hold virtual meetings, share documents or screens, and collaborate in real time.
- CRM integration: Integration with the customer relationship management (CRM) system allows businesses to sync call data with customer records, providing valuable insights and facilitating better customer management and personalized interactions.
- Least cost routing: This is one of the most important features in a business phone system as it has a direct impact on an organization’s communication costs. It selects the most affordable path to make outgoing calls or handle incoming calls.
- Multi-tenant: This is the ability to accommodate many users in a single instance of the software. This is extremely useful for service providers as they can accommodate many customers and tenants under them.
- Multi-level IVR: Multi-level IVR (Interactive Voice Response) can provide a broad range of self-service options to customers. It’s extremely useful at a time when many customers prefer self-service options to speak with agents for routine tasks.
- Payment Gateway Integration: This feature integrates with a wide range of payment gateways and enables clients to pay their phone bills without any hassle.
- Prepaid and postpaid billing: This feature enables customers to pay by using any currency in the world. It can also send invoices automatically to the customers’ bank accounts and help them pay on time.
- Real-Time analytics and reporting: This can help in measuring a wide range of real-time productivity metrics such as Average Handling Time (AHT), Average Hold Time, Average Talk Time, First Contact Resolution (FCR), Wait Time, Occupancy Rate, Customer Satisfaction Score, and more.
- WebRTC: It enables real-time audio, video, and text communication functions between web browsers and devices. Using this feature, agents can bypass the need for complex integrations and add-ons.
How to handpick the right business phone system
When choosing a reliable business phone system, there are several factors to consider. Here are some tips to help you make an informed decision:
- Determine the purpose and set a reasonable budget
Before starting your research, find out the purpose behind buying the business phone system and evaluate your needs. How many agents will you have in your call or contact center? What’s your expected call volume? What are the desired features? All these questions will not only enable you to zero in on the right features but will also help you set a reasonable budget for the business phone system.
- Use the internet to look for reliable business phone system providers
While searching for a high-quality business phone system, take the help of the internet. Use some high-intent search terms such as:
- “Top business phone systems in 2023”
- “Best virtual phone system for small business”
- “Best business phone system for small businesses in (your area)”
- “Multi-line phone systems small business”
- “Cost-effective business phone systems in (your locality)”
After pressing the enter button, you will find many websites on the first search engine result page. Make a note of top-ranking business phone system providers and visit their websites.
You will also find the websites of some reliable and reputable aggregators such as G2 and Software Suggest. Visiting their websites can help you get a lot of information in one place. You can compare features, ratings and reviews, pros and cons, and more.
- Look at the features and reviews
While looking at the business phone systems, try to find more information on their features and pricing plans, as well as any additional services or integrations they provide. Also, take a look at the provider’s network infrastructure and features.
Moreover, look for reviews and comparisons of different business phone systems. Pay attention to both expert reviews and customer feedback to get a comprehensive understanding of the system’s performance, reliability, and customer satisfaction.
- Contact sales teams and request demos
After shortlisting a few providers, reach out to their sales teams. Discuss your business requirements and ask any questions you may have. Probe more about their solutions, pricing plans, and if they offer a free demo or trial period. If they don’t offer a free demo, then politely end the conversation and move on to the next service provider. Repeat the process till you find a provider that’s ready to give a free demo.
- Introduce the system to your team and seek their feedback
After the service provider agrees to provide the free demo, introduce the software to your team and seek their feedback. If your business uses other software or tools, such as CRM or help desk systems, ensure that the phone system integrates smoothly with them. Also, make sure that the provider offers reliable customer support, preferably 24/7, in case you encounter any issues or need assistance.
Summing up,
In the digital age, modern business phone systems are indispensable for businesses. They play a huge role in delivering proactive customer service and they also enhance collaboration and communication between team members. Choosing the right business phone system can make all the difference in your business’s growth and success.