How to Choose the Right Phone System for Your Business

Your phone system is a vital part of your business. Here's how to choose the right phone system and why you should consider a cloud phone system.

What's a Cloud Phone System?

A cloud phone system is a business communications solution that's hosted by third-party provider. Businesses access the phone service via the Internet. There's no complicated installations or hardware because it's hosted remotely. Organizations just sign up, then use the service.

Why You Should Consider A Cloud Phone System

In the past, large enterprises had the huge advantage of being the only ones able to deploy an advanced business phone system because they are the ones who have the resources for it. If you remember the pre-cloud era, businesses needed to invest in their own infrastructure to host an advanced on-premise phone system. It meant complicated installation of expensive hardware like servers and PBX boxes, not to mention the maintenance of such systems.

Small companies just did not have the resources to compete; that is, until cloud-hosted phone systems arrived and gave organizations an alternative, which is actually better than the old on-premise systems of large companies.

Advantages of a Cloud Phone System

A cloud phone system provides scalability, versatility, and mobility. It easily adjusts to the needs of the business, it can be implemented in multiple locations, and it can be accessed by its users from anywhere via the Internet.

That versatility and mobility actually made it possible for more companies to allow people to telecommute, and for budding entrepreneurs to establish and run legitimate businesses from their own homes. This also lead to other benefits such as tax deductions for running business from home, and a significant reduction of carbon emissions from daily commutes.

The problem, however, is that with the rise of cloud communications also came the rise of cloud phone system providers. Suddenly, companies have a lot of options to choose from. This is usually a good thing.

Yet, not all cloud phones systems are created equal. It also takes time to fully adjust to a new phone system. That's why your business should get it right the first time.

4 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Phone System

To help you out, here are some factors that you should consider before choosing a cloud-based business phone system:

#1: Functionality

Before talking to any provider, you better take stock of what you need from your phone system first. Most advanced business phone systems have the standard auto-attendant, which answers and routes every incoming call, and answering rules, which lets you customize how each call is handled.

There are also the standard user features like caller ID, call screening, and call forwarding. There are cloud-based phone systems that are also offering audio and video conferencing capabilities, as well as group or team messaging.

Once you identify the functions you need, you can weed out the providers that are not able to meet your requirements.

#2: Reliability

Since cloud phone systems are hosted by third-party providers, you are essentially trusting an outsider to maintain your business communications. That is why it is important to also investigate the capability of the provider to maintain close to 100 percent service.

You can start off by asking about their data centers. What are the redundancy measures in each one? How do they ensure that their servers are in tip-top shape? How many data centers do they have and where are they located? This is important because in the event of a disaster or something going wrong in one server or the whole data center, you have the guarantee that other servers or other data centers can take the slack.

#3: Security

Your company data, including voice calls, will be traveling through the public Internet. You have to ask the provider about the security measures they are implementing to make sure that your data is safe while in transit. Most providers encrypt all transmission endpoints to prevent a breach and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) to strengthen the login process for both administrators and users.

#4: Price

I've purposely put price last on the list. I fully understand that price is important for business owners. Yet, if you only consider price, you miss out on better options. You may also wind up paying for it in the end.

Some providers have cheap prices because they also provide cheap service. You might find that for a few more dollars, you might be getting more value for your money based on the factors above. You might even be surprised that the price gap is not that wide either.

There are a lot of cloud-based business phone system out there; use this guide to choose the right one for you.

To view the original article, visit the MileIQ blog.