5 Premium Features Your Small Business Phone System Must Have

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Despite the proliferation of email and other internet communication technologies, phone systems remain an integral part of business operations. The phone system represents the half-way point between the speed of the internet and the flexibility of in-person communication. However, for modern companies, simply having a business landline and a book of employee phone numbers isn't enough. Business owners are seeking to gain competitive edges through more robust, premium phone system features. Here are premium features that every small business phone system must have.

VoIP Functionality

Voice over internet protocol or VoIP is an emerging technology that many business firms are adopting for their phone system needs. Compared to an analogue phone system, VoIP uses the internet to send and receive voice messages. Compared to older phone systems, it is more efficient and costs less. VoIP also tends to transmit higher quality audio compared to many legacy analogue phone lines. For this reason, business owners should make sure that their phone systems have VoIP functionality.

Mobile Twinning

Mobile twinning is a way of integrating a variety of phones together to form a single, cohesive system. As offices become more dispersed, mobile twinning simplifies this process by allowing employee phones to be an extension of the existing phone infrastructure. For remote work employees, this means that their work phones can still make, receive, and transfer calls when at home or in the field. This feature also has the advantage of reducing administration overhead as it simplifies the process of expanding a phone network. You should consider adding mobile twinning to new or existing phone systems to build effective communication throughout your organization.

Conference Bridges For Phone Meetings

Phone meetings are an important part of any business that conference bridges can greatly help facilitate. Conference calls are one of the main ways that business owners can communicate effectively with many or even all of their employees. More than just a system that allows for conference calls, a modern conference bridge can also allow for video calling. Allowing meetings to take place outside of specialized rooms and even across great distances saves business owners money while increasing productivity. If you are unsure of the most effective system to implement, consider reading a business phone systems review to learn about the available options. Business owners dealing with increasing remote work should make use of conference bridges to keep their teams collaborating.

Custom Music And Audio Cues For Holds

A common feature of large businesses' customer service lines is hold music, a feature that can help small businesses as well. For many customers, hearing audio feedback helps them understand that they are being listened to. Companies can also use custom hold music to further their own brand identity by playing marketing messages during a hold time. Finally, this space can also be filled with answers to common questions that customers may have to lighten the burden of customer service. Small business owners should make use of custom audio over phone lines to shape the customer's impression of their business. These tools are one of the latest business owners ideas for good communicators.

Call Recording And Playback

For any business, record keeping and reviewing is an important aspect for success. Call recording is an inexpensive and thorough way for businesses to look over almost every aspect of their business. For example, if a customer places an order over the phone, accountancy records have an automatic redundant backup that can be referred to in case of clerical error. Additionally, any customer service program can be monitored to ensure quality. Moreover, a business can refine itself by looking at what over-the-phone activities are performed well and which ones are performed poorly. Call recording and playback is a cost-effective premium feature that allows business owners to keep accurate phone records with little effort.

A small business phone system should have a number of baseline features to be useful to the modern business owner. It should use VoIP technology over analogue methods in order to both reduce cost and increase quality. It needs mobile twinning in order to easily expand the phone system with every new employee that joins the company. Conference bridges should be included as a way of allowing large groups of employees to communicate effectively. Custom hold music and audio cues are a necessary tool to shape impressions and assist small business customer service lines. Finally, call recording and playback allow a business to keep accurate phone records and continually review their own systems. While these features do cost money, small business owners should be sure that any phone system they use for their office has all of these features as they are well worth the price.

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