Why Businesses Use Hosted Phone Systems

Running a successful small business requires expert marketing and sales, customer service, team leadership, product development and of course financial management.

Keeping the costs down, and cash flow up usually requires operating on a shoestring budget, to make your working capital stretch as far as possible.  Outsourcing tasks is often more economical and streamlining the work place which for many businesses includes shared or co-working enviroments.

One area where outsourcing is making sense for businesses is hosted phone systems.

Hosted Phone Systems Explained

Once upon a time, making sure all incoming business calls were answered in a timely manner meant making sure a reception desk, call center, or other physical location was manned at all times by a perpetually available employee. Thanks to modern technology, this is no longer the case (unless you really do prefer things the old-fashioned way).

Hosted phone systems leverage the power and convenience of modern mobile technology to keep a given business seamlessly connected when it comes to incoming calls, intra-office communications, and more.

• Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) interfaces help small business owners manage incoming calls by providing versatile, reliable, web-based access to important call-related features like conferencing abilities, call transferring, professional-level hold management, virtual receptionist services, and more.
• Integrated mobile apps allow you as the business owner, your office manager, your receptionist, or any other team member of your choice easily accept, transfer, or otherwise handle incoming calls from any supported smartphone.
• Many hosted phone service providers can even provide small businesses with starter packs that include everything needed to establish a professional call management system from scratch, up to and including user-friendly analog phone systems that are perfect for a front desk or other office space.

Startups benefit from this outsourced approach with a professional service and remember perception is everything, the new business may just be you but your clients will have believe your business is more established.

Existing businesses can benefit by integrating their existing telephony systems so even the business phone number remains.  The changeover is seamless.

Infact whatever the size of your business, providing the ‘personal touch’ is not only valued by the consumer, it’s crucial.  With technology now offering online chatbots, using hosted phone systems as well provides that instant response and with it improve the new sales process as well as assist in customer retention.

Lower Operational Costs

The lower operational costs of using a hosted phone system make it an attractive alternative for businesses.  A monthly fee works well with cash flow management and with advanced features like apps making it possible to answer or make calls from anywhere from smartphones what’s not to like about it?

Amazing Mobility

Managing incoming phone calls with ease when they’re forwarded to your smartphone or the phones of your team members.  Host team meetings so all your offsite workers can be in on the call too and stay connected and aware of business developments.

Grows With You

An independent, locally-owned business may start small, but given enough time and dedication, it could grow to be quite large indeed. It’s important to choose services and professional resources that are fully scalable according to your needs at any given time.

Modern office phone systems for small business work just as well for growing companies with several hundred employees as they do for a tiny start-up team of only a couple of people.

In other words, you don’t have to worry about outgrowing your system and eventually having to replace it with another that could well be a lot more expensive. What’s working for you right now will continue to work for you just as well in ten more years when you’re huge and established.

Summary

Businesses can make smarter choices to improve cash flow and reduce their liabilities and overheads while improving profitability.  Using freelancers, co-working and shared workspaces, outsourcing business functions and hosted services like phone systems just make sense.  See our blog for more tips on business management.