Why you should switch to a business VoIP system if you’re a small(er) business?
For most people, the only time that they ever think about their phone system is if their office is going through a once in a decade upgrade and if they are one of the lucky few who’s in charge of managing the upgrade. Or their phone system has sucked the kumara and they’re madly Googling fix pbx!
And for others that “upgrade” never came, sadly.
If your phone gets you from Point A to Point B without a problem, why bother with changing it at all? Well there are many good reasons to do so and here are 5 that you should consider if you’re a small business with fewer than 5 employees.
Voice Menu (aka Auto Attendant)
When a call comes in do all of you scramble to pick up the call before it hangs up? Or does your office manager spend 90% of their time transferring calls to the appropriate individual? With a cloud VoIP system, you no longer have to face these headache-inducing options because your customers will be able to select the department that he or she wishes to speak with from a easy-to-navigate voice menu (they also get to hear your friendly greeting which sets the tone for the rest of the call). A tip from a current customer:
“We are two man band and it was great to have a voice menu as its made our company look more professional (and bigger!)”
Portability
For SMB owners like yourself, we know business doesn’t stop even when you’re out of the office. Maybe you don’t even have a permanent office (we once contemplated this option) but you still want a landline number that connects your team, seamlessly? With a cloud VoIP system, your business calls will travel with you on your mobile phone, no matter where you are in the world (even when you’re sipping on pinã coladas in Cuba).
Scalability
So you have 5 employees now but you’re planning on adding one more employee each month for the next 6 months. Crap, what to do?! With traditional phone systems, you will need to buy new deskphones (and deal with their customer service people) and/or face the same set of problems to, now, a even greater degree as more people are connected. With cloud VoIP, you can take control of it all by adding a new user with a click. And once your new employee shows up on their first day, all they have to do is download an app onto their existing mobile phone or laptop. Done. Pow!
Cost (both actual and opportunity)
We know this is on the top of your mind because we watch every dollar that we spend, as a small(er) business. With traditional landlines the costs start to add up when you consider the costs of hardware, international calls, initial set up, and the opportunity cost from dealing with customer service people (dread, sigh). More importantly, the biggest cost is the one doesn’t show up on your bill which is the loss of a business opportunity due to missed calls and call transfers to no where!
With a cloud VoIP phone system, you typically pay a per user fee plus the minutes that you use. Fortunately, Cradle offers all of our customers an unlimited plan for both landline and mobile calling, so you no longer have to count your minutes.
It’s 2017
Cars are driving themselves, retails are disappearing, while some of you are still using copper lines to communicate with the outside world. We often tell our prospective customers about the idea of future-proofing because your businesses will likely endure many challenges, but a dysfunctional and hard- to-use phone system should not be one of them. It’s a worthy investment that can pay a lot of dividends today and in the future.
We designed Cradle to help small businesses connect to their customers and have them talk to the right person at the right time. And we’re more than happy to talk through any challenges that you may have!
