Outsource Your Phones!!

In Part 2 of using virtual services to save money and keep you focused on the real needs of your business, I want to suggest outsourcing your phones.

Not any phones, mind you. If you have up to 4 lines in your business and you are happy with store-bought phones and plain old telephone services, called POTS lines, you are probably in good shape. I'll work on finding deals for POTS in future editions of The Business Perspective.

Today, I mean outsourcing a phone system. If you decide to buy a telephone system for your small to medium sized business, have you evaluated the investment fully? Even a modest Key System, the basic "starter" phone system, will run $5000+, require a modest installation fee, and tie you to your telephone vendor for maintenance and support fees. Are you prepared for that investment? A better question is how can you use that $5000-$7500, plus annual maintenance, to invest back into your business? Whatever business plans could benefit from that money now become opportunity costs lost to a phone vendor.

Consider outsourcing your voice service to one of a number of top quality business voice specialists. Pick a vendor, buy business class VoIP phones, and let a trusted partner maintain your services.

You'll find two tiers of service in the business class VoIP space:

1. Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) depending on a home Broadband connection from a phone or cable company. These services usually deliver a VoIP gateway that connects to your Broadband service and phones. Some of these devices plug directly into your home phone jack, which turns all of your internal phone jacks into VoIP phones. You can use off the shelf phones or pay extra for "optimized" phones that improve the quality of the Voice call. Generally, this is the type of digital phone service that you can order from your cable company or from a national service like Vonage. It's acceptable for a very few number of lines, but does not scale and offers few business class features. You also may not be able to get a business white pages listing for your business number. Avoid it unless you need just 1 or 2 phone lines and free long distance.

2. Hosted PBX - A PBX, or private branch exchange, is another phrase to mean phone system, so a hosted PBX is a service that delivers the features and adaptability of a phone system, but over the Internet. Anyone with 5 or more voice lines in their business should consider the option of a Hosted PBX solution for their business.

A Hosted PBX leverages economies of scale and Internet technologies to move voice calls through your Internet connection to the voice gateway of a major telco company and routes those calls over the Internet to their destination. Typically, services are available on a per line basis, includes a large block or unlimited long distance, and full service features for your business. You can have an auto attendant, call routing, hunt groups within your company, and call forwarding services. The best companies offer conference calling and full integration into your network systems, which means that your phones will integrate with your email service and contact lists so that you don't lose phone numbers ever again.

Because these systems are basically software, there's no on-premise equipment for you to maintain. Essentially, your desktop phone becomes your phone system. The carrier maintains all of the other hardware, and your ongoing maintenance costs are built into your monthly service charges.

I've been on VoIP systems for more than 3 years, and though the quality wasn't always stellar, the services have steadily improved, and the call quality is now virtually indistinguishable from a traditional land line call.

One of the best benefits of a hosted PBX system is portability. When I need to work from home, I just bring my phone to the house and plug it into my Broadband router. Within 30 seconds, the phone synchs with the VoIP provider and I get all my calls as if I am at my desk.

We've moved offices twice as our business grew and changed. Most recently, about half of the staff moved to a new building, while the other half started working remotely. No problem! With hosted PBX, all we did was move the phones and register new e911 addresses with the providers. Everything else is packaged in the software, the phone, and the network.

The only initial expense is for VoIP desktop phones, but just about every provider offers selections from solid vendors like Cisco.

Check out Speakeasy, Bridgevine, and Packet8 to name but a few of the top providers in the category. And, let me know if you have any questions about how to save with VoIP in your small business.