Have you ever wondered how huge businesses manage to deal with so many calls? From small scale businesses through large businesses, the backbone of a business phone system is their PBX, or "Private Branch Exchange." From the rudimentary days of the old switchboard systems, to the vast, feature rich business phone systems of today - it's more than just a means of communication - the PBX is how your business stays relevant in a fast paced business world. Let's have a look at what it takes to bring this technology into your company, or upgrade its existing system.
It's not like deciding on your long distance carrier or cell phone. In those markets, the options are limited and it's mostly one size fits all.
But a PBX is an entirely different decision. Businesses have many different needs and specific desires when it comes to communications. This is one of those decisions that changes everything, determining your ability to scale with future needs and expansion, your ability to leverage the power of the internet in your communications network (with technologies like VoIP,) and your ability to remain bulletproof and immune to services outages, with things like battery backup UPS systems and remote administrative capabilities. With your business phone system playing such a vital role, let's take a look at a thing or two that you might need to keep in mind.
Employee salaries are the price of doing business. However, paying someone just to answer phones, or taking time away from an otherwise skilled employee to perform this menial task is really a waste of funds. You'll be glad to know that most of the same features can be taken care of by many of the business phone systems these days, and usually can do it better than a human. At the most basic level, these "Auto Attendant" features includes options such as allowing your users to navigate a (potentially huge) menu system, reach specific extensions or access information recordings. Now if only they had a phone system that will brew a pot of coffee...
More interesting are auto-dial capabilities, which can be used to provide a wide array of useful functions. At the most basic level, many of us associate PBX auto-dialing with robo-calls, or telemarketing. However, the systems can do much more than that, especially when blended with modern technology. For example, sending text messages to cell phones automated for instant and informative personal, departmental, or company-wide alerts and notices. Recordings or messages can be delivered as well, and many packages even provide text to speech for reading messages to the recipient, such as crucial e-mails, news or stock alerts, and more.
If you'd prefer not fit a PBX into your business's physical location, there are hosting options available. Rather than installing a machine to service your business, a hosted PBX is a run remotely, usually leased on a monthly or yearly basis. The advantage is largely that you can take a hands off approach to the system, and have little investment in equipment. Calls can easily be routed to other numbers as well, such as cells and home phones. The advantages do come at a price though, with much of your system being tied up remotely, which can become a nightmare should you later switch to a local system. Transferring everything from menus to voicemail to extensions to the new system can become difficult.
No one can predict the future, or determine how their business will change and expand in the coming years. However, your choice of business phone system will be one of the crucial factors in shaping those coming years of expansion. As you can see, the technology and flexibility of today's business phone systems is astounding. The PBX forms the nervous system of your company, extending into each nook and cranny, delivering vital messages. Without choosing a powerful and business phone system though, that nervous system is left lacking, and your business crippled. Power and expandability are critical in finding the PBX that's the right fit for you.
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