Before you can make the decision about what you need from a phone system and what features should go on your checklist, you need to be sure you know all about the surrounding parameters. You need to know about the network you are connecting to, the size and expandability of the system you want and what the mission critical business application you need from a phone may be. This includes subtle decisions like how much disruption to operations and training your organization can tolerate in the transition.
There are three basic kinds of phone system. The first is what is called a keyless system or a KSU-less system. These are very lightweight phone systems that are for organizations with fewer than ten employees that also have very basic phone requirements. The advantage of these systems is that they are very inexpensive and very easy to set up and run. They are portable and can be moved easily if you relocate. Typically you get very little support and maintenance from your service provider in a keyless system. In addition, features like preventing users from picking up a line in the middle of another call are often impossible to implement.
Next largest is what is called a key system. These use a key system unit (KSU) that is a central control unit that provides features and functions for your phone system that aren’t available on ordinary phones such as extension management and locking users off from lines that are in use. These are essentially closed, ‘black-box’ units that provide 80% of the functions of a basic PBX system for a lower cost. They are typically used in businesses with from 5 to 40 or 50 employees that have only basic business telephony needs.
Finally are PBX systems – these are the most common kind of business phone system and they are the most flexible. With PBX systems that are designed fro as few as 5 users and as many as several thousand users in multiple locations. You can choose to have the PBX system on your business premises or you can have it hosted at a service provider who then performs upgrades and maintenance for you.
Then you have to look at the features of the phone system – these are different than the features of a particular phone itself. They are the features that provide the added business value which is the reason you turn to a phone system in the first place. It may be that you business needs clear, easy-to-set up conference calling, or call tracking that can be tied in to a client billing system, or the ability to tie employees’ cell phones into the overall phone system, or any of over a hundred other complex features that can be important in business.
Beyond the basic decision of what the phone system should do is also the decision about how to connect the phone system and if you have the required infrastructure or networking in place to support the phone system you want. You may find that you have to budget a network upgrade or a broadband supplier upgrade. And that may change your budget priorities.
But it is easy to forget the basics when you start looking at advanced features. Before you let yourself get seduced by ‘find-me-follow-me’ and click-to-call, you might want to check that your basic business-critical functions are covered. For example, there are many VoIP phone systems that have advanced features but do not offer paging or intercom features.
The other non-negotiable issue is call quality. Fortunately there are a few basic issues to make sure of in terms of call quality and if they are dealt with then VoIP will often offer better call quality than any older phone technology. The primary issue is bandwidth. You need about 128kbps of bandwidth per active call line in your phone system. You also want to evaluate your internal network to look at priority of traffic and latency to make sure that packets get routed internally fast enough to maintain call quality. A good VoIP service provider can help with analysis and guidelines to make sure your system can keep up and some service providers will offer real-time monitoring to make sure your phone system can keep up.
The last issue is around hosted versus on-premise systems. This comes down mostly to a business decision. Do you need to maintain control and core access to management and features of your system in house? Or do you want to install and forget and not think about your system? In the latter case you should look seriously at hosted solutions and in the former at on-premise solutions.
Key Questions to ask yourself before deciding on a phone system.
What is the size of my business in terms of number of employees using the phone now?
And in two years?
What kind of internal computer and network systems do I have? Can they handle VoIP?
Do I need to install something new or perform and upgrade?
What are the core features I need from a phone system – no matter what? The features that I cannot leave out for the good of my business?
The answers to these questions need to be your foremost guide. In terms of size you need to be able to figure out how many extensions (actual phones) you need AND you need to know how many outside lines you need. Typically this is about a third of the number of phones but if your business involves a lot of calling for sales or service reasons, you may need more. In terms of your network you do NOT want to install a phone system and then discover that to make it work effectively you need to spend as much again on upgrading your network. And in terms of features you do not want to compromise on the features you need just to get something fancy which may or may not fit into your day-to-day operations.