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How a business presents itself to its customers has to be the single most
important factor in its potential success. In days gone by usually your first
contact with new customers would have been through your storefront or through
word of mouth, passed on by other satisfied customers. In today’s modern world,
telecommunication plays an ever increasing role in reaching potential new
customers.
In the last few years the rate at which computing and telecommunication
technology has advanced is simply astounding. With this increased rate of
technological development comes falling prices for products that were once
extremely expensive. This allows smaller companies to take advantage of
features and services that were once only available to much larger and richer
organisations.
Once upon a time the telephone was the primary mode of communication, whereas
now existing and new customers are able to reach you I a variety of different
ways. This article will give a brief overview of what is available and how you
can use it.
The Telephone
When the internet was first becoming popular, many experts predicted it
would kill off the telephone. Little did they know that in fact the exact
opposite would happen. The massive growth in online shopping has generated
massive amounts of customer phone enquiries, making the telephone still the
most important communication tool throughout the world.
The internet is undoubtedly an impressive medium for publishing information,
but it is not a person. Some customers would rather deal with a real life human
being rather than with a machine. There are many situations where a person is
much better suited to talk to customers than a machine is. The internet is not
so good at dealing with higher priced items. Customers enquiring about these
higher priced goods would in most cases prefer to deal with a person, and that
is where the telephone comes in handy.
Phone Systems
The selection and installation of an appropriate phone system is probably
one of the most important purchases a business will ever make. A bad phone
system will repel potential customers; a good phone system will help them,
guide them through a process, make it appear as though they have a direct line
and most importantly make them feel like their business is both wanted and
appreciated.
Phone systems with advanced features like voice mail, ACD (call queuing) and
auto attendant, used to be extremely overpriced. Because of the integration
between computing and telecom technology, prices have come down dramatically,
although system performance and features have actually increased. Now a market
that was once largely ignored by the telecoms industry and vendors alike is a
thriving sector with manufacturers constantly improving and upgrading systems
in a bid to attract your business.
The new phone systems developed for this small office/home office market sector
can be split into three basic categories: key systems, mini-PBX’s (including
PC-based phone systems), and LAN based phone systems.
Key Systems
In the past few years some of the best developments have been in low cost
intercom style systems for small businesses of typically 12 or fewer users. The
biggest market sector in the telecoms industry is undoubtedly that of small
businesses who have 10 or fewer users. It now seems almost comical that this
market was largely ignored in the past. New KSU-Less systems allow even the
smallest offices to enjoy more advanced features that used to be only normally
associated with larger more expensive systems. These systems are extremely cost
effective and designed to make use of existing telecoms wiring.
The systems in this category that have benefited most from development
investment are hybrid corded and cordless phone systems. These systems allow
users to integrate cordless as well as corded phones within intercom systems.
Office based employees would have corded phones whereas mobile employees such
as warehouse operatives could have cordless phones.
Mini-PBX’s
Mini PBX systems are ideally suited to companies who have more than 10
employees, but fewer than 100. Mini PBX’s can give access to features like
voice mail, automated attendant, intercom, computer integration and call
distribution.
There are 2 categories of mini-PBX phone systems, self contained devices and
computer based phone systems. There are a few companies who make self contained
systems. These systems are easy to install and require very minimal computer
and networking knowledge. These systems provide basic features like voice mail,
auto attendant, intercom and a few others. It must be stressed though that
although these systems will suffice for most small business applications, they
cannot always provide all the specialist features each individual business may
require. Mini-PBX’s that are computer based are generally speaking for the more
technically advanced users, and can offer a wider range of features that can be
customised to meet a businesses requirements. A good example of advanced
features is advanced IVR (auto-attendant) scripts. This allows computerised
phone systems to route calls to specific groups based on how the caller has
responded to prompts. These computerised systems allow even small companies to
handle their calls in a way normally associated with large call centres.
LAN (IP)-based phone systems
Companies that have installed a high speed local area network (LAN) for
connecting their computers can use this same network as the backbone for their
office phone system. Many phone system suppliers are edging towards this
approach, and there are already several LAN-based phone systems which use a
company’s Ethernet data network to transport phone calls and data.
LAN-based phone systems were a very experimental idea. They had unpredictable
audio quality; neither did they offer features that users of conventional phone
systems take for granted. This has all changed as phone system vendors have
retooled the business phone systems to use data networks as their backbone.
©2005, 2006, 2007 Business Phone Systems Direct. All rights reserved.
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