Geckotech Blog
Why Would a Business Buy a Phone System Anymore?
While I could understand this happening five or 10 years ago, that was before the concept of outsourcing or hosting your phone system just like you host your Web site with a service provider. Do people who buy phone systems also buy their copy machines and purchase office buildings?
Business owners have heard the same thing over and over again: focus on your core business and do what you do best. As a business owner, I have always followed those teachings by outsourcing non-core elements of my business. Every hour I spend in QuickBooks trying to be an accountant is an hour not spent building my business.
Every minute I spend searching the Web for HR forms or figuring out how to help my employees with their 401(k) is time not spent growing my business. Like many other progressive business owners, I have instead chosen to hire a billing company, a surrogate CFO, a staffing agency and a Web hosting company to take care of those things that they do best and allow me to focus on my business.
In the world of phone systems, not much has changed over the last 20 years – that is, until now.
The Old Way
Open the yellow pages, find a company that sells phone systems and ask for a quote. They would sell you a standard phone system for $20,000 that includes all the cabling you need and an integrated voicemail system for about 20 people. They leave and tell you to call AT&T and order some “POTS” lines or a “PRI”.
You probably call your IT guy who tells you he doesn’t know anything about phone systems and you proceed to deal with installing a PRI yourself and talking to the local telecom technicians (in their language). What about the Internet? You probably call AT&T back and order a T-1. Your office manager’s cousin shows up to configure the router and tells you to buy a firewall.
Though you finally have Internet access and a phone system working side by side, what happens when the power goes out? Who do you call? The phone guys? Your IT guy? AT&T? The cablers? What happens next month when you need to add your 21st employee and you find out your phone switch only supports up to 20 phones and now you have to purchase an “upgrade module” and pay for it to be installed? Even so, that will only last you until 30 phones.
Why would anyone want to deal with the headaches? Ask any business owner who has purchased a phone system if they’d do it again. They probably learned more telecom acronyms than they care to know and developed a hatred for the local phone company.
The New Way
These days, you can get more for your money by using someone else’s phone system delivered as a managed service. Going to a specialized service provider gives you all the functionality and features of a full-blown VoIP phone system without having to actually buy the “system”. In fact, that big hunk of metal in your phone closet doesn’t exist in the world of managed services.
All the “brains” to your phone system are located in a secure, redundant facility hosted by the service provider (just like your Web site). Your phones act more like computers and run over the same data network as your PCs but are kept completely private and secure through the use of high-tech network devices.
Due to enhanced features, your employees now have voicemail they can check in Outlook or on the Web. Their incoming calls are automatically screened and routed based on user-specific rules that are easily administered through a Web site.
You can put phones in all your branch offices throughout the U.S. with minimal effort and now you’ve got a seamlessly integrated national or global phone system that allows you to intercom associates across the country as if they were in the next office over. If you have a problem, you have one number to call and one local help desk that is familiar with your business and your needs.
The managed services model makes sense for most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for a number of reasons:
- Without the expense of building an infrastructure, you get a high-speed Internet connection; a cutting-edge business phone system with automatic call distribution, voicemail, call forwarding, intercom and conferencing; and integrated voice, fax and e-mail messaging.
- The service provider is responsible for building in system redundancies for disaster recovery and built-in business continuity so the phones can go anywhere.
- As your business grows or shrinks, so does your phone system.
- Because IP telephony is state of the art and still subject to change and growth, the managed services model offers the ability to keep up with improvements in the underlying technology.
While the idea of outsourcing non-core business functions is certainly not a new one, it’s finally an option for business phone systems. If you ask any business owner what they remember most about starting their business or moving into new office space, they will likely cite their major pains as technology and furniture.
The telecom industry is notorious for being complicated. It’s about time we have options that allow us to pass up traditional phone companies and work with specialized service companies to implement our voice and data needs. Here’s the kicker: it’s actually more reliable than doing it yourself.
The service provider houses all the brains to the system in a secure hosting facility and has at least two of everything. If any piece of equipment fails, there’s another just waiting to back it up. It’s that company’s job to make sure the system is running and is 100 percent available even if your office is not. In an emergency, just go home. Bring your IP phone with you or redirect your calls to your home or cell phone via the Web site. After many years of testing and enhancing technology, there is finally a reliable alternative to purchasing, managing and maintaining a phone and Internet system: subscribe to the service offered by a professional. The strength of VoIP in the current market has enabled service providers to office a hosted, managed service that is as reliable and sounds the same as tradition phone systems.