Phone systems are crucial to the everyday operations of every business. Without it, communication and collaboration among staff and customers will just be impossible.
If your business still relies on outdated, traditional phone systems, you may be in trouble. Outdated hardware may just not satisfy the telecom demands of today, which can hurt the productivity of your employees and, eventually, your business. Here are three common issues that may arise from your outdated phone system and ways to resolve them:
Outdated hardware
Unfortunately, for any phone system, this is bound to happen at some point. With telecommunications constantly experiencing advances in innovation, it may only be a matter of time until your phone system becomes obsolete.
What happens if your system becomes obsolete? It can lag, cause disruptions, or give up completely. For older systems, the average cost of a minor repair is $200. For major problems, it can jump to $2000. Moreover, downtime to fully repair the system can take anywhere from one to three days. Updating your phone systems helps ensure that your business is ahead of potential problems. It’s good to seek new options every six to ten years.
Overloaded lines
Your phone system should scale as your business grows. If your company is growing faster than your phone system, it may be time to upgrade.
Have you gotten complaints of missed calls from customers? This may be because your phone system has its lines maxed out and, therefore, cannot accept any more calls. Lost revenue because of missed or unanswered calls is estimated to cause billions of dollars in the U.S. Moreover, according to the Baltimore Post Examiner, nearly 90 percent of customers whose calls were not answered would never call again. If a customer had questions or concerns you weren’t able to answer, they could end up chatting with one of your competitors instead.
Limited features
Do you think that the limited features of your present phone system aren’t an issue? Think again. Just like how phone systems can become overloaded, your growing business might need a new set of features to keep up with your evolving communication demands.
If you want to conduct videoconferences in the future that require remote employees to join in, will your current phone system support that? How about auto-responses or touch-screen features? All of this can matter for your business. This is why it pays if you invest in modern telephony technology such as a business-grade PBX phone system. It’s a feature-rich system that has features such as extension dialing, customer wait queues, music on hold, call conferencing, and business hour settings.
A study from Hanover Research found that despite the rise of video, email, and social media, three out of every four small and medium-sized enterprise owners said that voice communication is still essential in their operations. This shows that despite the advent of new communication technologies, many still prefer the good ole phone call. This highlights the importance of ensuring that your phone systems are responsive and fast to maintain high quality of service.
