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5 Questions To Ask Yourself When Shopping For An Office Phone System

Your office phone system can be a huge boon to your productivity if you play it right. You can also make some expensive mistakes if you shop for one without fully considering your needs.
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself when shopping for a new office phone system:

1. What Is Your Typical Call Volume?
On a typical day, how many simultaneous calls do you handle? Lost calls equate to lost business, so you need to make sure you get a phone system capable of handling your typical call volume at bare minimum. Ideally, you would want to have some leeway for days when the phones are extra busy. With traditional phone systems, this is a hardware limitation, with VoIP it depends on how fast and reliable your internet is.

2. How Fast Are You Growing?
When installing a new phone system you need to plan ahead. Don’t just look at how many users you have now, ask yourself how many you will have in a years time. If you’re expecting a lot of growth you’ll need a phone system that can handle this, preferably without the hassle of installing new hardware. Many VoIP phone systems allow you to add as many new users as you need with a simple update to the software. Assuming you’re VoIP ready this is a great way to go for businesses who need scalability.

3. Who Answers Your Phones?
With modern office phone systems, there are a number of ways you can handle calls. Call trees allow users to manually choose where they get directed, but some businesses prefer to stick with the tried and true receptionist model. As a smaller business, you may even want to opt to have individual numbers for each team member, removing the need for any fancy call handling features.

4. How Much Redundancy Do You Need?
What would you do if your ability to make calls was compromised? As an example of this let’s look at VoIP phones. VoIP phone systems, while fantastic in many ways, are entirely dependant on your internet connection. That means if you lose power or you’re having internet issues, you lose your ability to make calls. For that reason, many businesses choose to keep a simple landline phone around in case of emergency. In an age where everyone has a cell phone ready and waiting in their pocket, this is less of an issue, but it’s still something you should consider.

5. Do You Have Multiple Locations?
If you have multiple worksites that need to be able to easily coordinate with each other, you need to get an office phone system that can facilitate this. It’s about more than being able to call the other offices. You need features that allow every office to act as a unified whole no matter how far apart they are.

These 5 questions should give you a better idea of what you need in an office phone system. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at Atlantic Communications today. Our team has decades of experience as a full-service business phone provider. We’ll be there to offer you our expertise every step of the way, from choosing your new office phone system to installing it.