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Business telephones: Pros and Cons

Friday, 8th July 2022

When it comes to choosing a business telephone system, sorting out all the details to get the best solution for your business needs can seem a bit of a minefield. We’ve broken down the key points of business telephones so you can understand the pros and cons and make the most informed decision for your company needs. It’s important to find the right system for you, considering working practices, customer expectations, security and work-life balance for staff.

Pro: Supports flexible, remote and hybrid working

Before the pandemic, flexible and hybrid working practices were only just starting to become more common, although most businesses lacked the technology and infrastructure to make it happen on a wider scale. Now that almost all businesses are used to hybrid or remote working in some capacity, ensuring your business phones are delivering the best service for your staff and customers is essential.

A dedicated business telephone system will allow you to access all the features needed for making hybrid working a seamless success. Guarantee you’re delivering excellent customer service and supplier communications from anywhere without any dip in call quality or access to features. Take hybrid working to the next level and equip staff with the right tools for delivering great work to customers whether they work from home, the office, on the go, or from a remote site.

Pro: Improves customers experience and response time

With less restrictions on when and where employees can take calls and respond to customers, customer experience can be greatly improved through a business telephone system. A complete business cloud communication system that operates with VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) means that calls and messages can be picked up and responded to on a desk phone, mobile, computer or tablet. Staff can work flexibly with their hours and location so customers can reach them whenever and wherever is convenient. Get in touch with our team today if you’re looking in cloud telephone systems.

Pro: Improved data security

In the digital era, protecting customer data and reducing the risk of a data breach or malware attack is top of the agenda. Having a specific business telephone system can help improve your security measures and provide an extra layer of protection for customer data. Business telephones include features such as firewalls, two factor authentication, off site server hosting, password protected user accounts and protected VPNs. Cut off another avenue for potential malicious attacks when choosing a dedicated business phone system from a secure provider.

Pro: All under one roof – unified communications vendor

One of the greatest time and money savers comes in the shape of an integrated business telephone system. When you have one provider and one point of contact for everything including your desk phones, mobile phones and SIM plans, video calling, broadband, and softphone apps, not only can you save money, but you save time by speaking to just one person for all of this. Unified communications also mean you have access to experts in all types of technology, who can recommend the right solution for your company and customer needs.

Con: Separating work/home can be harder

When work communications are so easily within reach, it can be very difficult to find the separation between work and home. Especially with hybrid working, if you lack a defined space in your home for working, being able to always access it thanks to improved business telephone systems can be more damaging than helpful.

Thankfully, many cloud phone system providers are aware of this and are keen to help users maintain a healthy work life balance in their technology use. Features like voicemail, call forwarding, separate work and personal devices, automated replies and more are all designed to promote a separation of work and life for employees, without reduction in customer service or experience.

Con: Initial system cost outlay

If your business is currently using a very basic package of mobile SIM only or leasing a standard landline service, switching to a more complete service with a business telephone provider will have a higher initial cost outlay. However, you’ll find that the system quickly pays for itself in terms of increased productivity, customer experience improvement, employee flexibility and more. You can also speak to experts in telecommunications to make sure you‘re getting the best possible package of features at a price that suits you, rather than settling for something off the shelf.