How can a telephone system help your startup?
When you’re starting a business one of the many things you have to establish is the communication services your startup requires. After the effort you’re putting into developing your products, services, and managing your team, you wouldn’t want to be let down by telecoms services that aren’t adequate for your colleagues or fail to present a professional image to clients. For any modern, forward-thinking startup a business phone system is essential. Read on to discover the communication services that your business needs (whatever the size or industry) and how to easily implement a phone system so you can focus on developing your startup.
Does my startup need a phone system?
You may be questioning whether modern businesses even require a phone system. These days we have email, messaging services tailored for businesses, and even live chat to communicate with customers, so what role is fulfilled by a phone system? Startups need a reliable way to talk directly to colleagues and customers and the modern business phone system, or PBX, is the best way to ensure this: Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology allows you to make calls over the internet, opting for a cloud-based system means the only hardware you need is the phones themselves, and it is scalable to ensure your communications are always apt.
Which PBX phone system is right for my business?
There are PBX systems to suit all businesses — from large to small and across all industries — therefore, it is really important to think about your business and to avoid wasting money on the wrong system. If your business is in the startup stage, a cloud-based phone system is almost always the right choice. Using the cloud means your workspace isn’t cluttered with equipment, maintenance is effortless, and becoming familiar with your new hosted VoIP system will be a breeze.
How will a phone system kick-start my startup?
We’ve established the advantages of modern cloud-based PBX for calling your colleagues and clients, but how else can they help a budding startup business?
- You don’t want to be tied to your desk.
If you’re establishing a startup, you’re going to be busy doing everything to ensure your business get’s the best start possible. Therefore, you can use a cloud-based phone system to make and answer calls wherever you are. Your employees can also work anywhere (whether from home in the UK or across the world) and, as the PBX is separate from personal lines, both you and your employees can keep a work-life balance.
- You don’t want one person to answer all the calls.
You may want to balance your incoming calls by routing them to multiple employees. This can be to allot an increasing workload as your business grows, or as different queries require specialist knowledge from different members of your team.
- You want to create a great first impression.
What better way to put your customers at ease than by having a phone system to present your business in the best light. A cloud-based PBX can give the impression your company has multiple departments, when you may just have a few employees, and the seamless communications provided make you appear incredibly professional to your clients through customised welcome messages, menu options, and hold music.
How do call features benefit my employees and clients?
Any good startup owner is dedicated to meeting the needs of their employees and clients, often before their own. Fortunately, by implementing a cloud-based PBX for your business, you’ll be helping everyone at once.
A cloud-based PBX allows you to access mute, hold, warm transfer, queue call back, and voicemail features during the client wait time; these features enhance the user experience and increase lead retention. Your employees will be happy to utilise call recording for inbound and outbound calls to easily give feedback, see the call history, and re-listen to ensure quality standards are maintained. You’ll be pleased to know about reports to easily track performance and caller trends and the actionable data insights on call performance.
How much does a cloud-based PBX cost?
The cost of your phone system will depend on the number of users you’ll require. However, as cloud-based systems remove costs for hardware and maintenance, you’ll be able to implement the system you require now at a low cost, and still be able to easily scale up in the future. For all the advantages on offer, it is far more cost-effective than you might expect. Microtalk offers cloud PBX systems in three pricing plans to accommodate the size of your business and the features your startup needs. Try it for free here.