How to Buy a Phone System

There are many factors to consider when purchasing a phone system. We’ve
highlighted a few of the key considerations to think about when evaluating phone
systems.

Investment Horizon

Make sure you buy a phone system that will grow with your business. Too often,
businesses buy what they need now, not what they need over the next 3 years. If
you plan for less than 3 years, you’re likely overpaying because vendors expect
you to use a system for a 3 year period and pricing often reflects that. If you plan
for longer than that, you’ll be using a phone system that may become obsolete
and will be missing features at the end of its life that could help your business
grow.

Sizing Your Phone System

Ensure that you understand how the phone system will change as you add (or
subtract) lines and extensions. Phone system vendors design their phone
systems to fit different size businesses. Traditional phone systems, or key
systems, stuck to fairly standard sizing configurations based on the number of
outside lines and internal extensions a business requires. Standard
configurations include 3 lines by 8 telephones, 8 lines by 16 telephones, 12 lines
by 24 telephones, and 24 lines by 48 telephones. More recently, advanced
phone systems, or PBXs, have been sized by number of ports. A phone system
with a capacity for 32 ports can have any combination of lines and telephones
that add up to 32; the increments of this ratio being determined by how many
lines or stations the manufacturer puts on the different circuit boards.
Tip: Always make sure you ask how much adding additional ports, lines, or
phones will cost and in what increments they can be added.

Basic Phone System Features

The features of your phone system start with the basics of what your business
will use to communicate externally and internally. Most phone systems ship with
a core set of features that any business requires. Some are obvious like
voicemail, while some are not so obvious, like the ability to put a call on hold.
Here’s a list of features to at least be aware of when considering a purchase:

Voicemail – Voicemail is a non-negotiable feature in this day and age and allows
callers to leave messages in specific mail boxes usually assigned to employees
or departments. Make sure the phone system has enough ports to support the
maximum number of callers who could simultaneously leave messages or the
maximum number of employees who could simultaneously check messages.
Call Hold – The ability to place a call on hold is a basic, but often forgotten
feature. It’s useful for employees to place calls on hold when they need to seek
help before answering a call or perform a function on the call like forwarding or
conferencing.

Call Forward – Businesses use call forwarding to transfer calls to other
extensions. Calls can be forwarded to employees, voicemail boxes, the autoattendant,
or hunt groups (logical groups of employees like the sales department
– where the call is transferred to the first person to answer).

Conferencing – Creating a conference call is a critical business feature,
particularly for organizations that interact with customers, consultants, and other
external parties. Look for systems that allow you to conference up to 5 parties at
a time. Also look for conferencing that allows the originator of the conference to
exit the conference without disconnecting the other participants.

Speed Dial – Speed dial allows callers to assign commonly dialed numbers to a
button on the handset. Pressing that button will then dial the number associated
with that button.

Redial – Similar to speed dial, pressing the redial button on a handset will redial
the last number called.

Auto-Attendant – The automated attendant often takes the place of a real
receptionist. We’ve all interacted with auto-attendants before – they are the
recorded messages you hear when you call a business that provide you with call
routing options such as “press 3 to speak with someone in customer service.”
Paging – Not necessarily a required feature, but a useful one when used
appropriately, paging allows an employee to broadcast a message to the speaker
of another handset.

Advanced Phone System Capabilities

More and more businesses are focusing on a few advanced features that are
providing significant benefits to them, including:
Location features – Many businesses want to make use of modern location
features that allow a distributed workgroup in several cities or locations to
operate as if they were all extensions to a single phone system. These location
features make these issues transparent and can even handle employees working
from home or temporary locations without callers having any idea that employees
are in different locations.

CTI – Computer Telephony Integration, or CTI, allows the phone system and
computers to interact. Allowing callers to click on a number displayed on their
computer screen to dial that number is an example of CTI use. A more advanced
example is integrating your new phone system into a CRM application.
Find Me/Follow Me – Find me/follow me service allows the phone system to
track down employees regardless of their location. For example, a salesperson
may tell the phone system to route inbound calls from his office line to his mobile
phone when he is on the road. More complex rulesets are easy to set up.
Pricing Phone Systems

In isolation, a new PBX phone system should cost a business between $700 and
$1000 per user. But pricing options range very widely. You can choose monthly
plans that are fixed and predictable in cost or you can buy a lot of expensive
equipment outright. Both are good choices under different circumstances.
Per user prices can drop significantly for larger companies who have more
employees and must purchase larger systems. Also, make sure you look for addons.
Very few businesses actually purchase a phone system in isolation. Most
end up purchasing new phones and/or service packages that increase the total
purchase price. Regardless of your decision, pay attention to total cost of
ownership, again, over a 3 year cycle. Maintenance costs can hit you when you
least expect them.

Let the Vendors Compete

Finally, make sure you let the vendors compete for your business. We
recommend that you develop a shortlist of 3-4 vendors and solicit quotes from
each. Diversify the list by including large incumbent players alongside upstart
vendors who often can deliver better price/feature value than large vendors.
For more information on Phone Systems, see the VoIP News Phone System
Resource Center.


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