Business Phone Services Vs Phone Systems: The Better Option

The technological advancements over the past decade have enabled many VoIP companies to emerge and provide the best phone systems for medium businesses and companies. As a small or medium business during these transitioning times when working from home is the norm, they might be considering adopting either regular business phone services or full-blown business phone systems from their local service provider. There is a long list of options for VoIP phone systems ranging from resellers to customisable ones, which can be daunting. Before making the final choice, it is important to understand what each of their services entails. 

What Do Business Phone Services Do?

Business phone services provide the company with a basic communication network that includes desk phones, a business phone number, fax machines, official fax numbers, voicemail receivers to enable them to make and receive calls. These can be seen in small shops or businesses like a brick and mortar shop where the local provider connects them with the phone service in that area. Although they are simple, they come with many limitations with the requirements of medium and large businesses. 

Limitations of Business Phone Services

• Phone services do not provide any advanced communication functionalities like mobile capability, schedule-based re-routing, cloud communication, send messages, transfer media, phone menu greeting, extensions etc.
• With an additional fee, some phone services might provide call-forwarding and nothing more than that.
• Phone services also limit the communication to only local phone numbers as local providers control them. This would be a huge disadvantage for companies that work with clients in different cities and overseas.
• No toll-free number could make the business limited to potential customers in the geographic market.

How Are Business Phone Systems a Better Option?

Business phone systems provide all the features that phone services provide and more that can help the business grow and develop exponentially. They not only help manage inbound and outbound calls among employees and local clients but also engage in information and data transfer with other partners and clients. 

Features of Business Phone Systems

• Multiple-lines: They provide a vast variety of features, including multiple lines for employees to attend multiple calls at a time and switch seamlessly between them. This feature is necessary for medium businesses as they grow and have more calls to attend.
• Visual voicemail: Phone services not only store recorded messages but also transcribe them into texts that can be shared directly with the managers or employees via email or texts.
• Audio-video Conference Calls: Multiple callers from multiple locations can participate in a single scheduled call. And it provides the option for making video conference calls with employees that proves to be a necessary feature for businesses now with employees working remotely.
• Wireless Connections: Modern phone systems have handsets that support wired and wireless connections that provide easy mobility.
• Automated Attendant: Business phone systems offer auto attendants who can greet the callers and redirect them to the right person in the company to help them with their queries.
• Software Phone: It allows the employees to make calls over the internet and not depend on local providers and phone lines to get the calls through.
• Hunt Group: This feature helps to receive important calls from customers or clients that the businesses don’t want to miss. They route not only phone calls but also other local extensions and re-routes the incoming call to the closest phone system available.

Phone systems for medium businesses offer caller ID, spam blocking, call forwarding, speed dial, headset port, microphone muting and other features that make communication smooth and seamless for employees and clients.