How to Choose a Telephone System for Your Business

Buyer’s Guide to Phone Systems

As a business owner, you have a number of important decisions to make regarding the setup and structuring of your business. After all, choosing a poor product or service that holds an integral role in your business’ productivity can be frustrating and even potentially devastating to your financial bottom line. One of the decisions you will make for your business is the choice for your business’ phone system. Quite honestly, choosing a phone system can be a bit overwhelming because of the technicalities involved when comparing one phone system to another.

Fortunately, it is not necessary for you to know every detail about the inner-workings of business phone systems, that job is better left to vendors and dealers. However, you should get to know the basics so that you can make an informed decision when you are discussing your options with potential phone systems vendors. It is our goal here to break down the differences between small office phone systems and commercial phone systems used by larger corporations, their average prices, advantages between systems and even terminology used by suppliers in order to help you choose the right setup for your business.

Why choosing the right telephone system is important

Telephone systems, whether for a small business or for a large corporation, are an essential part of how you communicate internally, with your clients, potential clients and partners. Large and small office telephone systems actually wield a great deal of power–they can enhance the perceived value of your business in the eyes of your customers and they can lead to increased productivity by your employees.

Likewise, the opposite is also true–business telephone systems can cause customer hassles and lead to decreased productivity within your company. Choosing the right phone system company is about not only costs and benefits in terms of the present value; it is the long-term values and benefits that this decision can provide that is important. Telephone systems are not cheap – this is a given. However, when you consider the bigger picture–the true values of an office phone system begin to reveal themselves when you consider how the phone system will affect, positively or otherwise, your business.

In order to weigh out these potential benefits and detriments, you need to assess which features you need in a business phone system, features that meet your needs today and the needs of your business tomorrow.