With continuous advancements in the telecommunications space, business phone systems now have a larger impact on businesses than ever before. As your business grows, you should assess whether your current phone system meets your needs. Does it still help your workforce with the tools they need to be more efficient?
This guide discusses 10 signs you should consider a phone system upgrade.
1. Phone system is too expensive
The cost of on-premise PBX can pretty much skyrocket before you are even aware. This is due to on-site maintenance, licensing, new phone lines, technicians’ charges, etc. If you are at this point, switching to a VoIP phone system is your best shot at saving costs.
With VoIP, calls are transferred via an internet connection and you do not need hardware installations. Save on costs with unlimited local and low-rate international calls. Add new phone lines seamlessly and manage your phone system from a central dashboard.
2. Lacks new features
If you are not sure of the new features you lack, ask these questions: Based on customer type and issues, are inbound calls routed to the most appropriate or any available agent?, Am I monitoring call quality? Do my agents manually transcribe voicemails?. If these questions showed that there is a huge room for improvement, you need new features.
Features of cloud-based phone systems such as call routing, call recording, voicemail-to-email or text, etc. boost your agents’ productivity and enhance customer experience.
3. Technology is out of date
Another sign that you need to upgrade your phone system is when it is difficult to find replacement parts and technicians whenever you need a fix. This means the phone system technology you’re running on is becoming outmoded. It also means that you will have compatibility issues as you cannot add new tech solutions to your tech stack.
4. Downtimes that halt your operation
When you experience downtime, can your customers still get what they need from you, or do your operations come to a halt? If it sounds more like the latter, then you need a phone system upgrade. Not getting this fixed is unhealthy for business profitability and reputability.
When you upgrade from a traditional business phone system, your phone lines run via the internet and cannot be affected by physical alterations. Many VoIP service providers guarantee 99.99% uptime, and even if an issue occurs, it is fixed in no time.
5. Phone system can’t scale
Is your company adding new employees or expanding to new locations but it is a struggle to add new phone lines? You’re ready for an upgrade. It is unreasonable to stick to a phone system that no longer accommodates and stunts your growth. Cloud-based VoIP is much more flexible and scales with your business. New users and phone lines can be added with just a few clicks.
6. Has security issues
Security should not be taken lightly by any business, no matter the size. If you’re still on the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), your calls can be intercepted, which is a risk you do not want to take.
Upgrading to VoIP phone systems provides you with higher security and privacy, so your data stays protected. You can also get accredited with global security standards such as HIPAA, PCI, ISO/IEC 20071, and SOC 2 compliance.
7. Your phone system can’t support remote work
Also, 74% of employers are more likely to stay at a company that allows them to work remotely. Is your company making use of these insights?
With an on-premise PBX system, your employee can’t just move their phone with them if they are out of the office. However, upgrading to VoIP brings mobility and flexibility to the table. Your employees don’t need to connect to the same physical phone lines.
8. Poor call quality
Poor audio quality makes your business look unprofessional. If you’re observing this sign, save yourself from inefficiencies and get an upgrade. VoIP and cloud-based solutions make high-quality calls possible and immersive. With the HD voice codecs that compress and decompress audio for speedy transmission, you can feel as if you’re in the same room as your caller.
9. Phone system is incapable of integration
If you can’t integrate your phone calls with the rest of your other communication channels like email, chat, text messages, and web— then, you need an upgrade. Unified communications (UCaaS) brings all your communication channels together on the same software solution.
It streamlines both your internal and external communication – meetings, calls, file sharing, tasks, customer calls, email, phone calls, website chat, etc. In short, UCaaS helps you track all interactions from one place.
10. Phone system is not reliable
As stated in the introduction, business phone systems have a larger impact on businesses than ever before. They can make or mar your productivity, customer trust, and most importantly, your opportunity to boost revenue. Hence, you need a phone system you can rely on in every circumstance.
Determine how important your phone system is for your business’s success. Is it providing great customer service? Does it help you talk with customers smoothly without an outage? Do you close sales easily? How is the internal collaboration among employees? If your current phone system is not fit to do all these, you should consider an upgrade.
Upgrade Your Phone System Today
Choosing the right business phone system for your organization requires collaboration with communications experts to know what features and support you need. Here at ULTATEL, we will walk you through the decision, implementation, and support phases of your phone system upgrade to help you better align with your business goals.
