What to Look for While Choosing the Business VoIP Phone System?

Communication is the most powerful tool for any business to progress. But finding the perfect business phone system can be a challenging task. With dozens of options available in the market, each with its own features, functionality and tools, it becomes hard to choose the best business phone system in Australia. Making the right choice while selecting the phone system can impact your business performance. 

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system is an internet-based phone system that has overtaken the traditional phone lines. These phone system came with some outstanding features like auto-attendant, voice mail, and customer relationship management. VoIP converts analogue telephony audio into a digital format that can be transmitted through the internet and convert an incoming digital call to standard audio format.  

VoIP phone systems for small business are either “hosted” or “premise-based”. The cloud-hosted solution doesn’t require any hardware or equipment to be installed on your business site, the provider delivers the service over the internet. One only need IP telephones connected with the data switch at your business location. Whereas, in the case of on-premises VoIP, one need to install unified communication server on the site. The hardware is kept on-site in your server closet. 

Factors to Consider While Choosing the Best VoIP Phone System 

You will find several articles based on this topic, but they often suggest you an incomplete solution. Today, we are going to explain how to make a wise choice while choosing an office phone system for small business in Australia:

Features of the Phone System 

Yes, this is the most crucial part of making a choice. Your provider will tell you the features of the phone system provided by him, but what if you don’t know which features you require for your business. First, you need to understand your business telecommunication requirement and how you are going to apply these features to improve communication. A VoIP phone system should at least have minimum features like: 

• Mobility 
• Instant messaging 

• Voicemail to email 
• Call log 
• Call recording 
• Call reports 
• Desktop control of your phone system 

• Send and receive instant messages 
• Call Transfer 
• Ability to login at any device
  

How to Evaluate VoIP Phone System Provider 

A qualified phone system provider will be able to present you with both the solution and will help you out in choosing the best one that suits your business needs. They introduce you with features of both and tell you about available plans and packages. You can evaluate them on the basis of:

• Price: Evaluate the pricing tiers and packages of each solution.  
• Set-Up: Hosted VoIP doesn’t require much time to set up and maintain, on the other hand, a premise-based phone system has an upfront cost of hardware and installation. 
• Usability: Analyze which one is easier to use. 
• Call Management: Which features and tools of call management do they provide? Review them and then decide. 
• Call Quality: Check online reviews of your provider to see what their customer has to say about their call sound and quality. 

• CRM Integration: Doesn’t your provider offer integrated tools for CRM platforms for managing the customer relationship. 
• Features: Compare the features provided by different providers to see who is offering you more at less price. 
• Warranty: Know the warranty period they are offering and understand what all it includes. 
• Customer Support: Compare the type of support they are providing. If you are choosing on-premises VoIP, then 24/7 support is necessary to address urgent issues.
  

Before selecting a provider, understand what all he has to offer and what if you encounter any problem with the phone system. Is he offering you a good deal or not?

Expenditure 

No matter which type of VoIP phone system you choose, but don’t forget to calculate the total cost and monthly recurring expenses of it. You are going to use the same system for a long time, and these expenses are going to add up your business expenditure. 

Hosted VoIP includes per user monthly recurring fee. Check the difference in the features they offer you as basic user and premium user. If you ask for additional features, then you will need to pay additional fees for it. In some cases, IP telephone fee will be added to your monthly recurring fee as “rental” or your IT telephone cost is included at the time of installation. On premise phone system have higher upfront cost as one need to purchase voice server and licensing, and spend money on installation. 

Final Words 

Choosing VoIP phone systems for small business is not an easy task. This is a long-term decision that is going to affect your business productivity and return. You must analyze your business communication needs before approaching a service provider. Once you have a rough idea on what kinds of features you are looking for, you can select your service provider based on the factors discussed above. Take time, but make a wise decision to improve your business productivity.