Many small businesses go without a phone system, relying on cell phones, home phones, perhaps a few business lines, and a fax line. They figure they can just answer the phone, and, all is well. Not always... Let's go over some unique challenges affecting businesses of this size.

First, you have the problem of bodies! If 3 people are out sick or on vacation in a business with 9 people, that's 33% of your resources. This is much different than a large business, were you simply do not find 33% of the employees missing.

Even if people are in, what if they have to pick up some parts, office supplies, go to a doctor appointment, pick up kids, and endless other errands? They are still not in the office, back to problem 1.

What if employees are sick and working from home? How can they be reached by callers? What if you run a real estate office or landscape business and people are almost always out of the office? What about night time callers? We could go on and on with the challenges facing these very small businesses. Finally, you have loosely organized companies or virtual companies where everyone works from home, that is really a challenge!

One common strategy often used is to simply rely on a mix of cell phones, simple multi line phones, answering machines, VOP phone lines to "save money", and more. If you are out of the office, you give someone your cell phone. If you are at home today, give them your home phone. Quickly, a caller may end up with 3 or 4 phone numbers, this is a problem! Depending on your business, this may provide a very bad image to your callers as you might imagine, and, waste the customers time trying to find you. In real small companies, say a person or two, people quickly realize you are a one or two person company, and may not do business with you.

In todays world, owner-friendly™ small business phone systems are quite affordable compared to the market 5 or 10 years ago. The key is finding one that is at a good price point, does what you need, is hopefully self installable and reliable. Ideally, from a company that has been around a while.

What types of things will you gain from this? One good use for a small business pbx is the capability to use auto attendants. Auto attendants provide numerous capabilities not otherwise possible. While for some, that sounds like a bad personal touch, when properly done, it is a GOOD thing for small business. Please see our links to our blog about the wise use of an auto attendant. Also, a good small business system has message on hold. In a business of the size mentioned, it is simply not possible to always answer every call. If a customer is waiting or on hold, why not tell them more about your company? Properly done, this can earn you money and inform customers of products or services they may not have known you offer. Fax lines can then be shared with voice lines, eliminating the expense of a rarely used fax line. A good small business system will support some called remote extensions. This is where I call in, dial your extension since I know what it is (being a repeat caller), and, the phone system connects the call to your cell phone, without the caller even knowing your cell or home phone number! This keeps you in touch and allows the customer to know only one phone # instead of many. Real Estate agents often like using a feature known as all bridge, whereby they can call the office from their cell phone or home phone, and, dial OUT from the office on a land line. This makes their business name and number show up on caller ID and prevents people from getting their cell phone number. Auto Attendants can be used to provide directions to your company, emergency support after hours, and much more.

All these features used to cost more than $10,000. but are vastly cheaper today. There are only some of the benefits to be gained by going with a small business phone system, there are many more. Think about how you do business, and, how that might be improved. Are you really providing a professional, easy to deal with image?

We are SOHO PBX Consulting Inc., a wholesale distribution company with a lot of small business market experience.