Need a Telephone Solution for Your Small Business? Start Here. 

There are so many options when it comes to telephone solutions for your small business—it can be overwhelming. This guide will help you make sense of the various solutions available, so you can choose the best option for your local business. 

4 Tips for Finding a Small Business Phone Solution

Not sure where to start in your quest for the best small business phone system? Start by looking at the following factors. 

1. Consider Your Current Setup

The first thing to think about is your current phone system—and don’t just consider what features and hardware your current system has. You also need to consider what’s working well and what’s not working; why are you looking for a new system in the first place? This will help you pinpoint things to change and give you clarity on what features to look for. 

2. Identify Your Must-Haves

Considering your current setup will pinpoint some features you need in your new system. Add to your list of must-haves by thinking about your goals and the customer experience. How can you make it easier for your team to help your customers? Do you need the ability to move from a phone call to a text message if a customer prefers? What information do you need the phone system to pull up when someone calls? 

3. Test Your Internet Connection

While a VoIP solution tends to be the best choice for many businesses, you will need a secure, fast internet connection for it to work. Without sufficient Internet speeds, your calls will suffer in terms of quality. This can cause additional stress for your team and hurt the customer experience. 

4. Look at Your Options

You have two main categories when it comes to phone systems—a virtual phone system for small businesses (VoIP) or a landline. 

Landlines are the traditional choice and they stand out for their reliability and the fact that they work well even if your internet connection isn’t great. They also won’t be affected by power outages. 

But VoIP systems have numerous advantages that make them the ideal choice for most businesses, including the following: 

• They are much more affordable.
• They require less maintenance.
• They are easier to install and set up.
• They are highly scalable. 
• You can set them up to detect spam. 
• They include extra features.
• You can answer your business phone from anywhere with an internet connection. 

What to Look for in a Small Business Phone Solution

You already made a list of your must-haves for your phone system, but you may have missed a few things. Be sure to pay attention to the following in addition to the items on your list. 

Ease of Use

The solution you choose should be easy to use and work with you, not against you. The bottom line is that ease of use helps your customers and team. Everyone will be less frustrated. When considering ease of use, think about the learning curve, the ease of setting it up, the ease of scaling it up, and whether it has useful features. 

Flexibility

The biggest concern when it comes to flexibility is whether your chosen phone solution will scale up with your business. You want it to easily grow as your business grows. And if you currently have multiple locations, you want a system that can easily integrate across them to save you time. 

Features that Improve the Customer Experience 

You also want to look for a phone system with features that will improve the customer experience. The following are some specific features to look for. 

• Customer context: Look for a system that provides context for your customer interactions. For example, Podium Phones lets you see the previous conversation history, reviews the customer left for you, their transaction history, and all of the other relevant information about the caller. All this information is at your fingertips as soon as the phone rings, so your team doesn’t have to go hunting for it and can provide better customer service. 
• Channel flexibility: While many customers still want to talk on the phone, a large number prefer not to. Some phone solutions let you move the conversation from a phone call to text, and we’d recommend prioritizing this feature. 
• Business phone number for text and voice: Most small business phone systems will let you use the same business phone number to make phone calls and to text. That being said, it is worth confirming this before choosing a business phone system. Having the same number makes it easier for your customers to reach you and increases the chances they will answer phone calls from your company. 
• Voicemail: With voicemail capabilities, you give your customers the option of leaving a message if they can’t reach you. 
• Features for after-hours calls: You will also want to consider other features of the system for when a customer calls after hours. Can you set up a recorded message that says your hours? Will they use an IVR system to leave a voicemail with a specific person or be led to a recording with an answer to their question? Do you want calls forwarded to a mobile device? Consider what you need your system to be able to do. 

Cost

As with any other business resource, you will want to think about the cost of your business phone system. As mentioned, a VoIP system will usually be much more affordable than a traditional landline. Even so, it’s smart to compare costs. 

When comparing costs, remember that the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best. The cheapest solution may lack important features. It will typically be worth paying a little bit more to get a better-quality business phone system with additional features. 

Integration with Other Tools

You likely already use various pieces of software to run your business, and the best small business phone system will easily integrate with those. One example of this is the customer context feature mentioned above. 

For that feature to work, your chosen business phone system must integrate with the other systems you use to interact with customers. Podium Phones, for example, integrates with other Podium partners, such as your written conversations with clients and the review-building feature. 

Security

Ensure that the business phone system you choose is secure as well. After all, you don’t want to put your customers’ information at risk. Good business phone systems also have security measures in place to limit or prevent scam calls from coming through. This, in turn, lets you focus your energy on your customers instead of wasting time answering phone calls from scammers. 

Disaster Preparedness

As mentioned, one of the downsides of VoIP over landlines is that if the power goes out, so does your phone system. The best business phone systems will offer some sort of temporary backup. Maybe they will automatically play a specific message to callers if your system is down. Or maybe the system will reroute calls to a cell phone number when necessary. 

Learn More About Podium Phones

You don’t have to search high and low for the right small business phone system. Podium Phones offers all the features you need and is intuitive to use. It even integrates with your other Podium solutions to provide context when a customer calls.

Stop leaving leads on the line. Start getting more done in less time. Learn more here.