A Guide To The Selection Of A Phone System For Your Small Business
Do you really need to take time away from creating a business plan, a marketing contrivance, a personnel hiring strategy, and other really fun stuff in order to evaluate your options for the purchase of a phone system for your small business? The simple reply to this question is yes if your business will need an efficient and effective way to initiate and beget contact customers, vendors, employees, or any other members of the business population who may impact your bottom line. Sources including Gartner and the VOIP Resource Center suggest particular guidelines that will help your efforts to ensure the effective communication by your business with the world at gigantic.
1) Identify both your current and long term requirements. Experts suggest that a 3 year planning horizon is appropriate for most businesses. This time frame will ensure that you avoid the mistake of planning only for your immediate requirements rather than for the growth of your business that will occur during the 3 year period. This longer time frame will also ensure you succor from more economical pricing for your phone system in that the duration of the service contract is a major factor used by the service provider in the calculation of your company’s rate. You should take care to stay within the 3 year planning horizon to ensure the flexibility to upgrade your system to avoid technological obsolescence. You will want the flexibility to change your phone system if required to gain access to any modern technological advances that will befriend your company grow.
2) Gain an understanding of the methods used by the various phone systems to add additional ports, lines, and phones to an existing system. A PBX system is designed to accommodate a particular number of ports rather than the number of outside lines and number of extensions. The number of lines and telephones that can be accommodated by the PBX system is certain by the system’s number of ports. For example, if the system is configured with 45 ports, the system can accommodate any combination of lines and extensions that in total equal 45. The precise number of lines for the phone system is sure by the manufacturer during the construction of the particular circuit board.
3) Choose the specific phone system features that will be required by your business. Most phone systems incorporate a particular set of features. Therefore, be positive to compare the features that are required by your business model with those features of the systems offered by various vendors. The features worthy of consideration include:
a) Voice mail. Grunt mail records messages from business partners in the event you or your employees are unavailable to accumulate the call personally. Each employee or department is assigned a mail box which serves as a receptacle for incoming messages. The phone system you select should be configured with a sufficient number of ports to accommodate the maximum number of simultaneous incoming callers that may select to record a message on your system in addition to the maximum number of employees that may select to simultaneously access their messages.
b) Call Hold. The call fill feature enables an employee to place an incoming call on hold in order to perform a related task.
c) Call Forward. This feature enables one employee to transfer a call to another employee, a voice mail box, an auto attendant, or to what is known as a hunt group which is a logical collection of employees with the responsibility to reply to incoming calls on a first come first serve basis.
d) Conference Calls. The Conference Call feature enables the simultaneous communication of a group of individuals at different locations. This one system feature incorporates a number of separate features such as the number of users that can participate in the call as well as the particular function of the conference call itself.
e) Speed Dial. This function enables the user to select a code of one number or a combination of numbers on their phone location as a representation of a phone number that they frequently dial. They can then dial their business partner using this code rather than being required to enter the entire 10 digit phone number.
f) Redial. The Redial function is extinct to dial the last phone number entered by the user on the system.
g.) Auto Attendant. The auto attendant plays a recorded message to a caller and provides them particular service options in the event an employee is unavailable to accept a call personally. The ability to route the call to a specific employee or a specific mail box are examples of such options.
h) Paging. The paging feature is used to broadcast a message using the speaker of another employees hand set.
i) Location features. This feature enables seamless connections between the systems of local employees and those in another location on either a temporary or permanent basis.
J) Computer Telephony Integration. The CTI feature allows the interaction of software applications and your phone system. This feature is commonly former in customer service operations as well as to provide support to day to day functions such as locating and dialing the number of a business partner.
K) Find Me/Follow Me. This feature enables the re-routing of incoming calls to a different phone number specified by the user.
4) Identify the trade offs in product features and services that you will be willing to make. Although, core functionality will be offered of each PBX system, these features will vary in some ways from vendor to vendor. In addition, each vendor will offer a unique set of products and services in a number of different packages.
5) Review vendor references. Contact your peers in order to gather feedback regarding their experience with a particular vendor and product. In addition, data presented in trade publications and by industry analysts will identify key features of products and the effectiveness of the product in meeting particular business needs.
6) Calculate the price of the proposed phone system. The actual cost of your system will depend on the features you select, the vendor who provides the service, your business location, and a number of other factors. Other factors are the number of system users and the size of the system purchased with impact your cost. Your equipment can be purchased separately or incorporated into the monthly cost of operating your system. However, whatever the system configuration you select, be determined to identify what specific elements are included in any phone system package and what elements are considered to be in addition to the package, i.e., add-ons. Perform the calculations necessary to determine your total cost of ownership which includes maintenance fees. Also believe implementation costs, consulting fees, training costs, maintenance requirements, any yearly increases in costs, payment schedules, and any additional fees.
6) Understand the ability of the vendors to provide any needed services. The availability of services is crucial to the successful implementation of the PBX system. In addition, the maturity of the services provided by the vendor as well as the manner in which they provide customer service should be determined. The firm’s ability to address software bugs, perform system upgrades, and operate a help desk are critical considerations for the selection process.
7) Vendor Selection. Identify a short list of vendors who offer products that best meet your business requirements. Services record the most risky element of the PBX selection process as well as the most expensive element of the process. Submit a request for a quotation to the vendors and compare their responses in terms of both product offering and costs. Both vendors with a large presence in the market and smaller companies should be considered in this process to ensure you identify the vendor that is best qualified to meet both your needs and the limitations of your budget. You should also consider the cash position of the vendor, the track record of the firm’s management, the stability of the work force, the product’s release schedule history, the effectiveness of the company’s market position.
Regardless of the information related to the individual systems that you uncover during the process, the key question remains “How do I match the requirements of my business to one particular vendor’s PBX product and services? ” A thorough review of a product’s functionality, investment, interoperability, services will best ensure you select the best product for your organization. In all cases, the product and vendor evaluation process will lead to a more objective evaluation process, specific selection criteria, stakeholder consensus, and a more efficient implementation of the selected product
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Filed under Small Business At by on Dec 29th, 2010. 