Replace Your Phone System Instead of Repairing It
How many years has your business used the same old phone system? Chances are, you’ve upgraded or replaced your company’s computers a few times since your phone system was the newest bit of technology in your office. Now, your phone communications might be the victim of poor sound quality, long hold times, or dropped calls. And even though your system still allows you to make and receive calls, obsolescence and downtime are just right around the corner. The older your phone system, the harder it will be to find replacement parts or service technicians with the knowledge necessary to repair it. It may be time to replace your phone system instead of repairing it. Here are a few key considerations to keep in mind.
Modern Phone System Features
Your office phone system might have been cutting-edge technology at the time it was installed, but time and technology have a way of marching on. Today’s phone systems are more robust than ever, with features designed to boost your availability to your customers and vendors. Some of these features include:
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- Cell Phone Integration – New phone systems like Allworx allow you to answer your office phone from your cell phone as if you are right in your office. Remain on a call by switching from your desk phone to your cell without an interruption in service.
- Voicemail to Email – Voicemails are emailed to staff inboxes instead of the old-fashioned need to dial in, type in codes, and listen through a long string of emails. You can prioritize voicemail messages and route voicemails as easily as forwarding an email.
- Outlook Integration – Make one-click calls right from Outlook.
- Call Recording – Capture conversations by recording them, right on your phone system.
- Call Routing – Route calls according to specific protocols, such as ringing the receptionist when you’re in a meeting or sending calls directly to your voicemail. A one-time setup allows you to create as many as 7 different conditions for routing calls.
- Computer Phone – Staff has the ultimate call control dashboard, combining the ease of a PC-based interface with the high voice quality of a new IP phone.
Call us for a free review of your phone system.
Stay Competitive With Features That Keep You Connected
As your employees use more advanced tools in other parts of their home and work life, it makes sense to replace your phone system with advanced office phones. Old phone systems require a complex network or even long distance to dial from one office location to another. Modern phone systems allow 3 or 4 digit extensions to span the whole country. A sales tech can dial an engineer’s extension from across the country to get a quick answer while they are meeting with a new lead. You can easily transfer someone from one location to another without the risk of dropping the call.
Dropped calls are just one challenge of old phone systems. What happens if the power goes out or you lose your internet connection at the office? Allworx phone systems include a rollover feature that allows your phones to ring through to your cell phones without giving personal phone numbers away.
Modern Phone Systems Give You More Flexibility
Modern small businesses must have the ability to adapt to change. Old phone systems make it difficult to add and remove new phone lines as staff changes. What’s more, most employees now use their personal cell phones for work, which can make it extremely difficult to capture customer contacts in a central location. If an employee stores their whole customer contact list on their phone, you could be ruined if they leave the company and take that information with them. Allworx phone systems feature a shared address book so that contacts are shared across the company. You don’t lose productivity while trying to track down the new customer’s phone number from your co-workers.
Lieberman Technologies uses and recommends Allworx phone systems for their ease of use and flexibility. During snow days or when someone has a sick kid home from school, our software developers are able to work from home and take calls from clients as if they are in the office. When we are expecting a call from a client that we want to take in the conference room, we easily ‘hot desk’ our extension to the conference room phone so that we can take the call there. We used the ‘hot desk’ feature when we renovated our building and web designers, software developers, and partners were working in different locations throughout the building. Our Allworx system made it easy to change desks multiple times during this process.
Consider All of the Options When Repairing Your Old Phone System
The more efficient your phone system, the better your customers’ experience. Happy customers mean better business. If you are wondering how to update your hold music or you have turned to eBay to shop for spare parts for old phone systems, give us a call. Our staff can help you see if any of these features would benefit your business. We can also demo the Allworx phone system we have in our office and show you how it helps us run our small business every day.