Why Internal Telephone Systems are the Backbone for a Successful Business
Modern businesses simply can not run without internal telephone systems, or business telephone systems as they are more commonly known.
We have rounded up the crucial information on how to find the best phone system for your business…
What is an Internal Telephone System?
A PBX (private branch exchange) is a telephone system located within a business’ premises, that switches calls between users on an internal exchange, whilst also allowing all users to share a certain number of external phone lines to make outgoing calls. An internal phone line is essential to business communication.
Internal calls can be made free of charge within the company, and calls from outside can be transferred from extention to extention within the company connected to the public switch telephone network.
What are the advantages of a business phone system like this?
For a small business stepping up to allow multiple staff comminicate and transfer calls business telephone systems make call handling an absolute breeze!
Internal phone systems provide much better communication between employees and offices. Workplaces with various departments need to be in contact with one another regularly during the working day, and direct communication is a much more effective and productive way of doing this than, for example, sending emails.
As for cost efficiency – using internal linking and phone extensions saves your business the cost from using the Public Switched Telephone Network or mobile phones. Getting a business phone system installed is not very costly, and long term can easily pay back the cost of an install with time saved, efficiency improvements and potential costs associated with other methods of communications used prior.
The beauty of an internal phone system is its sheer flexibility.
Most systems allow the easy addition of phone lines for expanding businesses, and changes are made easily with extra features. Voicemail, call recording, conference calling and being able to access calls from a different location all put internal phone systems above a general telephone system.
How can an Internal phone system change the way we do business?
There are a number of companies which already believe that having an internal office phone system is an asset to their business. Voip phone systems are quickly taking over, and even with those, costs are reduced, possibilities are widened and business communication is made easier and more adaptable. But what else can change?
The short answer is the space for business growth and adaptability. Moving from a public phone line to an internal telephone system is easy, and makes way for numerous changes that a company may want to make – especially business growth.
Choosing a Business Phone System
Before you get started with your setup, you’ll need to choose a business phone system. As a startup or small business, one dropped call could make the difference between viability and entrepreneurial failure, so it is important you seek advice from profesionals who can asses and advise appropriately as there are differing types of telephone systems for different sizes of business.
By way of exmaple, a large contact centre will have different requirements to a small business with 10 employees. That said, there are a lot of business telephone systems that are are modular and expandable, so you may find that even the larger busnesses are technically using the same system as a smaller business, although with lots (hundreds) or extra internal lines, more storage for voicemails, extra features for call routing etc.
Derek Anderson, a small business owners from London, told Tech-Mag:
It’s undeniable that we are in an age will perhaps too many communication options. The Internet did that and we are all too familiar with it. That said, nothing will ever beat voiced communication – and internal phone systems are essential to any business which communicates.”
Derek Anderson
Alternative options
Hosted VoIP is the latest solution to businesses needing an internal phone system. In short, phone calls are routed to a cloud based switch (essentially a piece of software on a computer server) which does all of the call handling for you. These can be managed and installed in-house, just like a regular business phone system. It is common however for VoIP services to be provided by an external third party on a subscription model. IP Telephones withn your business are simply connected to your internal network which is connected to your broadband provider – each telephone has its own username and login password to the systemand must be configured appropriately for its usage.
It is worth recommending that you should speak with your broadband provider and have a separate broadband line installed specifically for calls in this case. This way you have separation from your IT, so that if your IT broadband fails, your phones should still work, and vice versa. Fallback solutions should always be planned for mission critical equipment.
For an IT engineer, these can be relatively easy to set-up, however as always, it’s recommended to seek advice first.
Learn more
If a phone sysyem is something you really need to invest in and you need to learn more, we took a deep dive into all of the options available to you, click to read our Ultimate Guide to Business Telephone Systems.
Office Headsets
Once you have the system you want, and especially if you have a call centre or place which requires a high level of communication, it’s important to ensure you have the best office headsets for your needs – we reviewd and rated our favourites here.
