However, they eventually become available to these business enterprises. VoIP is one such technology that has immensely impacted both individuals and business organizations. It has helped entrepreneurs get all those features which were earlier meant for big organizations only.

They can also have more number of phones attached with a single phone line. Internet phone service relies on internet for making and receiving phone calls. This makes the phone calls a lot more reliable and also increases the voice quality.

Some of the very small one-employee companies are now also using business VoIP because of being low cost. Let us have a look at different small business VoIP features.

Call forwarding and routing

Call forwarding has been an inaccessible feature for smaller businesses. However, now internet phone service providers offer it to entrepreneurs without any additional charge.

Now, calls cannot only be forwarded to other phone number but to other devices as well like home phones, laptops, and PDAs. Vonage, Axvoice (www.axvoice.com), Packet 8, and other leading VoIP services offer call forwarding feature.

Automated call distribution

This feature is particularly useful when inbound calls are to be taken by different agents. However, at times, there are so many calls to be taken that it becomes difficult to manually manage all these system. In this case automated call distribution automatically selects that agent who is available to take an incoming phone call.

Conferencing

Business organizations need to make conference calls in which more than two phone users are involved. Internet phone services for businesses offer this feature with which three or at times even more people get on a conference call to discuss matters that need many people on the phone at the same time.

Voicemail

Modern internet phone services provide voicemail feature. This feature lets businesses record all unattended phone calls in voicemail. In days of no-VoIP, voicemail feature was unimaginably expensive for small enterprises to afford.

Auto attendant

This feature allows internet phone services to direct the particular phone user to his desired extension. This kind of feature is particularly useful where a business wants to direct users from a given menu. Auto attendant helps reduce the extra incoming phone calls burden on the telephone operator.

Web based control

Modern business VoIP phone service providers offer a web based control panel. By logging into the account, business phone users can easily enable, disable, and modify all their phone features. This helps entrepreneurs and business management exercise more control on all the phone sets used.

Voice call data management

Many futuristic organizations use their voice call data to improve their services. They listen to the voice conversations and see where they can help get customer better service.

VoIP is a phone service having more features than landline phone. The cost of acquiring VoIP is way less than required for landline phone services.

Automated phone systems

Automated phone systems can be a tremendous help to the overall efficiency of your business, especially if you have a large number of incoming phone calls that need to be dealt with simultaneously.

While they have been traditionally found in large businesses where the expense of such a system was justified, there is now a growing trend of small to medium sized companies utilizing an automated system which is web-based and multi-dimensional in its use and application.

In other words, these phone systems for small business are more than just automated answering services – they are also able to provide analytical data and provide useful information to the consumer about current specials or sales which allows the organization to better serve their customers needs and target advertisements accordingly.

Although there will never be a direct substitute for real person-to-person interaction, the use of such automated phone systems is an ideal backup for any company that wants to have something to fall back on should their primary communication system become overwhelmed with calls.

This process also minimizes customer dissatisfaction as the caller can opt to go back into the queue for a real human operator if they do desire.

Automated phone systems can be outbound or inbound

While most organizations will want to utilize the inbound functionality, some will no doubt want to use such systems for outbound purposes.

Although many people disagree with the ethics and morals of calling thousands of people at the same time, they remain to be an effective way to do business for companies that want to reach a large audience of people in a short period of time and it is for this reason that many large companies that deal with everything from insurance to home loans use these methods on a daily basis.

Regardless of their place in modern society, it should be noted that automated phone systems also have important applications in such things as the implementation of town or city warning messages.

Other benefits of automated phone systems

If you think you most of your incoming phone calls could be handled without human intervention, then an automated system is definitely something you should consider.

Such jobs that could be handled without the involvement from a person include simple data entry tasks like paying a bill, checking a balance or activating a new credit card.

The above mentioned acts are something which we all have to do from time to time and while most consumers won’t like to admit it, it is more often than not much easier to enter a few numbers to get your information rather than having to wait in a queue for an operator to process the call.

With the proper restraint, an automated phone system doesn’t have to be something that will annoy or frustrate your clients or customers.

Obviously, then, the use of automated phone systems doesn’t seem so bad after all.

Preset programs have many good uses but inevitably some individuals do not enjoy having to speak to automated voices when actual people are needed for help

Achieving the right balance between customer convenience and satisfaction should be the goal of any automated system manufacturer or indeed any company which employs one.

PBX Phones

PBX phones are an ideal way to leverage existing phone lines in your business by creating a private branch exchange (PBX) network.

Since you are already familiar with the features you are using on your current phone system, a transition to PBX should in theory be smoother than trying to integrate a whole new system and learning new processes.

Another advantage of this option is that your existing equipment may already be able to cope with such a network. This will obviously save you money but also please your employees who will be able to avoid the training associated with yet another piece of new technology in the workplace.

Having said that, many employees may relish the chance to learn something new and indeed some will find the PBX system quite intuitive and dare I say enjoyable to operate after a certain period of time.

Consult a professional installer or dealer if you are new to the world of PBX phones

As with any process of selecting the right fit for your business, it is best practice to request quotes from individual PBX phones suppliers in order to get the best deal.

They may also be able to answer any questions that you may have regarding certain terminology or technology.

Hopefully by now this has given you a good place to start on your search for the best PBX Phones system for your business.

Although the initial cost of such a system may be higher than some other systems offered on the market, there is the ability to save on costly installation fees because in most cases, PBX systems are totally incorporated into the existing system with little or no fuss.

Office telephone systems

Office telephone systems seem to be one of those things that can either delight you or frustrate you. Nowadays many systems seem to come with a large array of features that business owners don’t understand and thus are unlikely to ever use.

Several studies have concluded the same thing – that only 10% of companies actually use all of the features on their own telephone systems.

If you are considering a future purchase, it would be wise to avoid going for the newest and shiniest model. Instead, go through the list of features on each setup and only look at those that will actually improve the productivity in your workplace.

Click here to view a selection of popular office systems

What do you look for in office telephone systems?

One of the most important features is the use of an automated answering service. I do not mean an answering machine but a recorded message (human or otherwise) that is played to every person who rings the workplace.

This message give instructions to the person who is ringing about how to reach a particular department based on the nature of their call. If you have a large volume of incoming calls and need some sort of queuing functionality then this may be the best option.

Real or automated?

Having said that, many smaller enterprises prefer to have a real person answer the phone as it provides a more personal touch to consumers and customers – people who are more savvy in this day and age about being placed on hold or diverted to overseas call centers for example.

Whether or not you choose to go down the automated phone or staffed phone route is entirely dependent on many factors including the size and profitability of your business, your budget and the type of business that you are in.

Voicemail, compatibility and ease of use of office telephone systems

Before you buy any phone system for small business, check to see if the office phone system you are interested in comes with any sort of voicemail features.

As the cost of a voicemail-enabled system is often expensive, it often pays to check if your existing service can be compatible with a new telephone system.

Perhaps more importantly, you have to make sure that the telephones are easy to use – it is the employees that are going to be using them in most cases and little training seems to be given on how to use them (I have been at one particular employer now for 7 years and everything I know about the communication systems I either taught myself or learnt from colleagues).

Having said that, you shouldn’t rely on the employees having to work things out for themselves though.

As a proprietor you cannot rely on your workers to be able to be adept at new things straight away and the sooner they get properly trained the sooner your productivity will improve. Intuitive and simple to use interfaces are the way to accomplish this.

Small business phone system reviews

If you have recently created a company you will no doubt have read through many small business phone system reviews.

Of course, each company would want you to buy their specific model, and you are often left bewildered and not really where to turn next.

The most important factor in getting the right phone system is knowing what you want and knowing what you need, as opposed to a salesperson trying to tell you themselves.

Small business phone system reviews considerations

Perhaps the most prudent consideration is something called range of motion. Basically it describes the amount of movement you can perform whilst talking on the phone.

Obviously cordless phones are great for people that like to be on the move while they are talking, but even these can have signal interruptions if you get too far away from the main receiver.

Phone systems that have a fixed cord are going to be more suited to offices or places of business with a large number of workstations where employees are required to be seated for the majority of the working day.

How many lines do you need?

Another important and often overlooked feature of a small business phone system is the number of lines that it will have. Multiple lines are useful for medium to large sized companies where they may be several incoming phone calls simultaneously.

This ensures that no important phone calls are missed and that your customers or business partners are never kept on hold or can’t get through to someone.

A lot of phones will have an interface whereby a light or indicator is assigned to each line so you can easily tell which lines are in use and which are free if you need to call out for example.

Do the small business phone system reviews mention important things like security?

Something else you may not have thought of is the security aspect of cordless systems. Most of them tend to run on a 900 mHz signal but this is easily picked up by commercial scanners and as a result your private phone calls can be compromised.

Look for phone systems that run on 2.4 or 5.8 gHz frequencies as these provide the tightest security.

Many companies have weekly conference calls or national communication meetings where a large number of managers sit in on a call, usually on speaker phone so that other colleagues can hear it aswell.

If such calls are a large part of your businesses daily activities, then consider buying a phone system that is wholly dedicated to conferencing only.

Click here to view popular best selling small business phone systems

Such phone systems for small business come with large speakers that ensure employees a fair distance from the phone itself are still able to hear the contents of the call without hassle. Obviously this solution is ideal for large companies with large conference rooms with lots of people sitting in on the call.

When reading small business phone system reviews, you also need to choose either half or full duplex technology. In a nutshell, half duplex functionality doesn’t allow the speaker to hear other people while they are speaking (that is, others are blocked from transmitting while one person speakers).

Full duplex allows several people to speak at once so this allows the speaker to hear input from others while they are talking.