Small Business Phone Solutions
Finding the proper Small Business Phone Solutions can be a very daunting task. If you don't know much about technology, then you're probably standing there wondering what the difference is between VOIP, POTS. Do you need a PBX or not? What do all these acronyms even mean?
To begin with, you need to assess the size of your business. A small business with fewer than 5 phones could simply get individual phone lines from the phone company for a reasonable price. When you start getting more lines than that, though, you may want to consider a VOIP system. VOIP stands for Voice Over IP, which is essentially the same as saying that your phone will go over the computer networking cables. Your phones will basically talk to a computer that routes the phone calls to the proper phone, and takes care of all the important stuff. This is usually the route that you'll want to strongly consider, in this day and age. The phones and equipment can cost a little more, but it's worth it in the long run.
Using VOIP for your small business phone solutions can also be a huge advantage if you have any sort of call center environment set up. Even a 2 person call center can benefit. It's not extremely difficult to program everything into the computer that processes the calls, and most novices can learn it fairly quickly.
Another benefit to using VOIP small business phone solutions is the ability to send your voicemails to an email address. When anybody leaves a voicemail for you, the computer that runs the system is able to save it as an mp3 file and email it to whatever address or addresses you want. This allows you to receive voicemails without having to pick up your phone. This can be done with many high dollar PBX solutions, but can also be done with a decent server running Linux and Asterix.
As you can see, there is a lot to think about when choosing your small business phone solutions. You can get a ton of flexibility and configurability by choosing a VOIP setup, but if you don't need all the bells and whistles, then a regular POTS connection will work just fine. Make sure you do your research, though, and know exactly what you're getting. The list of acronyms can be very confusing, so ask the right questions, involve the right people, and you'll be set. I wish you good luck in finding the right small business phone solutions for your company.