Top 5 Challenges of Choosing a Business Phone System

Your business phone system connects you to customers, colleagues, and all your mission-critical contacts both inside and outside of your organization. Finding a business phone system that can seamlessly connect these parties while also providing reliable service, support, and the right blend of features for your needs becomes a balancing act of comparing research, vendors, and numerous other considerations.

Challenges & Solutions for Choosing a Business Phone System

To help you simplify your decision-making process, we’ve compiled the top 5 challenges for most businesses when choosing a business phone system, with solutions provided by our experts. If you start with these insights, you will be that much closer to having the best business phone system for your needs!

1. Challenge: Choosing from a wide array of options in a rapidly changing market. 

Depending on how long you compare business phone options, sometimes there are new developments in the market by the time you’re nearly ready to make a final call! While it is always a good idea to do some research on your own, getting through the many different tools, platforms, and new changes can take time away from running your business. To get off on the right track from the beginning, look for a business phone vendor that offers a future-proof system designed to scale and adapt to new trends. Business phone vendors that make it a priority to stay on the cutting-edge of technology, as well as provide solutions tailored to your needs and goals, will be able to provide your business communications with an edge. You will save time, money, and avoid sinking costs into technology that becomes quickly outdated. 

Solution: Choose a business phone vendor that stays on top of the trends for you. 

2. Challenge: Finding business phone solutions that integrate with your current technology. 

Integrations can be tricky for any business that wants to maintain their current investments while upgrading business phone solutions or needs to integrate their phones with other business applications. Business phone systems that offer a “one-size-fits-all” approach may not capture all the nuances of your workflows. To ensure you’re getting the best integration available, your business phone vendor should offer custom integration services. This way you can have an expert provider evaluate your current setup and determine how your systems need to work together to provide the most cohesive experience possible. 

Solution: Source a business phone vendor that offers custom integration solutions. 

3. Challenge: Protecting your business from security concerns and remaining compliant with industry regulations. 

Cyber threats are on the rise, leaving many businesses concerned about their private data. Communications technologies are a prime target for security breaches since they are constantly changing, touch all areas of the business, and often prone to human error. This makes finding a trustworthy and secure business phone vendor a top priority. The right vendor will offer a blend of built-in security features, compliance with regulations relevant to your business, and 24/7/365 system monitoring to ensure your ongoing protection.  

Solution: Choose a business phone provider that offers built-in security and compliance features. 

4. Challenge: Upgrading an older system to a cloud-based business phone system. 

Many businesses are still playing catch-up with their technology, especially with ongoing changes to how businesses stay connected to employees and customers. Cloud-based business phone systems allow for greater flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency than ever, but transitioning from an older system to the latest technology poses a significant challenge. To ensure you get a full-scale evaluation of your current system, custom recommendations for your needs, and a frictionless transition, partner with an expert cloud technology vendor to be your guide. The right provider will have a thorough understanding of both the old and new technologies and be able to provide a clear roadmap for helping you reach your goals. 

Solution: Choose a cloud technology partner that guides your transition. 

5. Challenge: Finding a business phone provider that offers reliable customer service. 

Reliable customer service is often treated as a given when evaluating business phone solutions, but this may be far from the reality. A quick search of technology vendors often reveals customer complaints ranging from long wait times for support to lengthy downtime and service outages. To help narrow down your options to business phone providers that will follow through on the customer service you need, look for quality indicators such as: 

• Advanced Service Level Agreements 
• 24/7/365 proactive monitoring and maintenance 
• 99.999% guaranteed uptime 
• 80+ Net Promoter Scores 
• Fully-managed services tailored to your needs 
• Dedicated and accessible support personnel  
• Transparent discussions around the type of support offered 
• Vetted customer reviews 

The right provider will be able to walk you through the level of support they offer and ensure you are satisfied with your experience. 

Solution: Look for vendors that offer advanced SLAs, proactive monitoring, and can provide other quality indicators. 

A common theme when searching for the right business phone system is that it often comes down to the provider behind it. As the backbone of your business, your business phone solution needs a reliable technology partner that provides complete solutions, services, and support for your needs so that you can focus on reaching your goals. If you’d like to tackle all the challenges discussed in this blog at once, consider reaching out to S-NET! We are technology experts dedicated to your success, with solutions for all your business phone needs.