Small Business Phone Systems - A Brief Explanation
By Jason Morris, Sat Dec 10th

How a business presents itself to its customers has to be thesingle most important factor in its potential success. In daysgone by usually your first contact with new customers would havebeen through your storefront or through word of mouth, passed onby other satisfied customers. In today’s modern world,telecommunication plays an ever increasing role in reachingpotential new customers.

In the last few years the rate at which computing andtelecommunication technology has advanced is simply astounding.With this increased rate of technological development comesfalling prices for products that were once extremely expensive.This allows smaller companies to take advantage of features andservices that were once only available to much larger and richerorganisations.

Once upon a time the telephone was the primary mode ofcommunication, whereas now existing and new customers are ableto reach you I a variety of different ways. This article willgive a brief overview of what is available and how you can useit.

Voice: The Telephone When the internet was first becomingpopular, many experts predicted it would kill off the telephone.Little did they know that in fact the exact opposite wouldhappen. The massive growth in online shopping has generatedmassive amounts of customer phone enquiries, making thetelephone still the most important communication tool throughoutthe world.

The internet is undoubtedly an impressive medium for publishinginformation, but it is not a person. Some customers would ratherdeal with a real life human being rather than with a machine.There are many situations where a person is much better suitedto talk to customers than a machine is. The internet is not sogood at dealing with higher priced items. Customers enquiringabout these higher priced goods would in most cases prefer todeal with a person, and that is where the telephone comes inhandy.

Phone Systems The selection and installation of an appropriatephone system is probably one of the most important purchases abusiness will ever make. A bad phone system will repel potentialcustomers; a good phone system will help them, guide themthrough a process, make it appear as though they have a directline and most importantly make them feel like their business isboth wanted and appreciated.

Phone systems with advanced features like voice mail, ACD (callqueuing) and auto attendant, used to be extremely overpriced.Because of the integration between computing and telecomtechnology, prices have come down dramatically, although systemperformance and features have actually increased. Now a marketthat was once largely ignored by the telecoms industry andvendors alike is a thriving sector with manufacturers constantlyimproving and upgrading systems in a bid to attract yourbusiness.

The new phone systems developed for this small office/homeoffice market sector can be split into three basic categories:key systems, mini-PBX’s (including PC-based phone systems), andLAN based phone systems.

Key Systems In the past few years some of the best developmentshave been in low cost intercom

style systems for smallbusinesses of typically 12 or fewer users. The biggest marketsector in the telecoms industry is undoubtedly that of smallbusinesses who have 10 or fewer users. It now seems almostcomical that this market was largely ignored in the past. NewKSU-Less systems allow even the smallest offices to enjoy moreadvanced features that used to be only normally associated withlarger more expensive systems. These systems are extremely costeffective and designed to make use of existing telecoms wiring.

The systems in this category that have benefited most fromdevelopment investment are hybrid corded and cordless phonesystems. These systems allow users to integrate cordless as wellas corded phones within intercom systems. Office based employeeswould have corded phones whereas mobile employees such aswarehouse operatives could have cordless phones.

Mini-PBX’s Mini PBX systems are ideally suited to companies whohave more than 10 employees, but fewer than 100. Mini PBX’s cangive access to features like voice mail, automated attendant,intercom, computer integration and call distribution.

There are 2 categories of mini-PBX phone systems, self containeddevices and computer based phone systems. There are a fewcompanies who make self contained systems. These systems areeasy to install and require very minimal computer and networkingknowledge. These systems provide basic features like voice mail,auto attendant, intercom and a few others. It must be stressedthough that although these systems will suffice for most smallbusiness applications, they cannot always provide all thespecialist features each individual business may require.Mini-PBX’s that are computer based are generally speaking forthe more technically advanced users, and can offer a wider rangeof features that can be customised to meet a businessesrequirements. A good example of advanced features is advancedIVR (auto-attendant) scripts. This allows computerised phonesystems to route calls to specific groups based on how thecaller has responded to prompts. These computerised systemsallow even small companies to handle their calls in a waynormally associated with large call centres.

LAN (IP)-based phone systems Companies that have installed ahigh speed local area network (LAN) for connecting theircomputers can use this same network as the backbone for theiroffice phone system. Many phone system suppliers are edgingtowards this approach, and there are already several LAN-basedphone systems which use a company’s Ethernet data network totransport phone calls and data.

LAN-based phone systems were a very experimental idea. They hadunpredictable audio quality; neither did they offer featuresthat users of conventional phone systems take for granted. Thishas all changed as phone system vendors have retooled thebusiness phone systems to use data networks as their backbone.

About the author:Jason Morris is co-author, search engine optimization andmarketing consultant of Business Phone SystemsDirect. Specialists in the supply and installation ofbusiness phone systems and accessories