Most small businesses are looking for ways to save money or reduce costs. Even those that are doing well, are keen to spend money wisely and never want to spend more than they need to. One significant expense that you might wonder if you could do without is your office phone system. A PBX phone system, on average, will cost between $800 and $1000 per user. These are the most popular choice for businesses that have over 40 employees, with different departments and offices, which need multiple lines and the ability to direct calls accordingly.

A key system is often used in businesses that have between 5 and 40 employees. It uses a central control panel to arrange multiple lines and connections and gives people an easy way to monitor which lines and extensions are in use. A key system is usually less flexible than a PBX but offers many of the same features. It tends to cost between $300 and $1000 per employee using the system.

The third choice when it comes to traditional phone systems for businesses is a KSU-less system. Rather than having a central system, these offer each employee their own phone. With the ability to connect to a central line and link to others in the system. These are often the first choice of small businesses with less than 10 employees and can cost $100-$250 per phone. So, as you can see, whichever system you choose, an office phone system can be costly. But, there are alternatives.

Why Your Business Still Needs a Phone Line

One option that you might consider is getting rid of your phone line entirely. Over half of us no longer have a landline phone at home. We are altogether wireless, using our smartphones to communicate, and even then, most of us would rather send emails or messages, than make a phone call.

But, while you may be able to avoid speaking to people on the phone at home when it comes to business, a phone line can be essential. Talking on the phone can be much clearer than spending messages. Sometimes, we need tone and inflection to get across a message, and written words will simply not do. Having a phone line gives people an easy way to speak with you. It can increase trust and loyalty and help you to develop relationships with customers.

Moving into the Cloud

If you are still thinking about upgrading your phone systems to key systems or PBX lines, stop right now. Instead of spending more money on the same old problems, risking missing calls, poor line quality, confusing systems, and extraordinarily high costs, stop. Learn from other areas of life and business. How do you communicate at home? Do you use a landline phone? Or are you more likely to send a WhatsApp message? When you are the customer, do you make calls? Or send emails? Are you still saving files to a floppy disk? Unlikely. Chances are, away from telecommunications at work, you are using the cloud for almost everything.

Don’t spend another dime on your business telephone system. Instead, move your telephone line into the cloud with a cloud-based hosted VoIP telephone system from Carolina Digital Phone.

Taking your phone lines online has many advantages. Not least that it offers better quality calls with less risk of downtime, loss of service, poor quality, and call dropping, you can use online cloud-based services to make one on one calls, as well as group conference calls, using virtual wires, instead of wired systems. Depending on what service you choose, you could even use your existing equipment, with new benefits.

Carolina Digital Phone offers small businesses a personal service, with all of the benefits of big business VoIP. You’ll have constant and friendly support, fast responses, and a pricing structure that meets your business needs and fits its budget. Other benefits include; getting to keep your local numbers, access to Auto-Attendant and Custom Prompts, unlimited calling in the US and Canada, pickup and hold options, voicemail to email services, easy setup, time-based call routing, and smartphone connectivity.

Using cloud-based telephone systems can increase productivity in your office, improve customer relationships and loyalty, save you money, build business relationships, and boost your reputation. It can also reduce stress in the office, boost mood and morale, free up time to spend on more important things than worrying about phone lines, and be well worth the time that it takes you to sign up. What’s stopping you from making the switch?