Approximately 51 percent of all Enterprise Phone System buyers experienced indirect costs that initially were not taken into account.

Total cost of ownership (TCO) for an enterprise phone system depends on the number of employees, technology of the solution (time-division multiplexing [TDM] or Voice over Internet Protocol [VoIP], for example) and the solution delivery model (on-premise or hosted). Costs associated with implementation and support will influence the true cost of owning and using an enterprise phone system, ultimately making it much higher than the listed price of the system.

In addition to the standard license fee and implementation cost of an enterprise phone system, there are other costs to consider when budgeting phone system TCO, including:

• Auxiliary software costs
• Training costs
• Integration costs
• Infrastructure costs;

The 3 most common indirect or unexpected costs that you are likely to experience when you buy an enterprise phone system are:

• Internal hardware, such as equipment replacement
• Service, such as unexpected labor
• Licenses for supplementary software for functions such as information management or integration (SQL, for example)

Src: http://www.focus.com/research/buyers-guides/pbx/buyers-guide-enterprise-pbx/

Now that you know what type of telephone system buyer you are and determined your business needs, you should begin to narrow the variety of telephone products down to the phone systems you need. Regardless of your business size and needs, there are some basic "must-have" features that are standard to most business telelphone systems such as:

• Call management features including call transfer, call back, call hold, call recording and speed dial
• Auto attendant
• Security features including firewalls and device authentication
• Monitoring features including Caller ID
• Conference call support (with no operator required, at least for small groups)
• Voice Mail
• Intercom

Depending on your business’s requirements and your budget, look for additional features such as:

• Call routing management features such as call hunt and seamless call transfers to mobile phones (sometimes known as “call flip”)
• Contact center features such as automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), computer-telephony integration (CTI) and outbound dialing
• Mobility features such as find me/follow me and remote extensions
• System administration features such as operator console and real-time monitoring
• Multisite management
• Unified messaging (and perhaps other unified communications [UC] features)
• Conference bridge setup and management

Read More about Costs of owning Telephone Systems.

Src: http://www.focus.com/research/buyers-guides/pbx/buyers-guide-enterprise-pbx/

A telephone system is the central nervous system of communication in any business. Managing incoming and outgoing calls must be efficient and productive in order to ensure customer satisfaction and minimize employee frustration/training to learn how to use an enterprise phone system.

When buying an enterprise phone sytem for your business, you need to consider what type of buyer you are. What are your business needs?

Basic Buyers are usually business owners that need a simple phone system that provides traditional and IP phone features. This buyer has a limited IT budget and expertise in telephony. Basic buyers are usually smaller companies supporting no more than 500 users.

Intermediate Buyers are people that need a relatively more complex telephone solution. You may need to support a large volume of calls, need more sophisticated features such as unified messaging, VPN, multiple connections and enhanced security. Intermediate buyers usually have an IT staff or someone with IT expertise including IP telephony. Intermediate buyers represent midsize companies supporting between 500 and 2,500 users.

Advanced Buyers come from companies that need complex telephony solutions. This can include multiple distributed sites, advanced call center features that enable increased availability, automation, optimization and integrated management such as automatic dialers and oversite. Telephone solutions for advanced buyers can include extensive IT resources and expertise. Advanced buyers represent large enterprise settings from 2,500 to 10,000 users or more.

 

Read more about Telephone Products.

If you're a business owner, the scrutiny and service demands of your VoIP service provider should exceed that of a residential customer. Quality is a requirement and guarantees should be provided. The complexity of the hosted voip system increases exponentially as more lines get added and the range of features you may need could be very different.

Our Polycom IP Phones come in 6 different models with a variety of different features that you may or may not be familiar with. This comparison guide should help you identify features that your business will need. If you have questions about these features and how they pertain to your business, our sales staff would be happy to assist you.

You may think that switching to VoIP communications for your business will be unneccesary and a huge hassle. Well, it can be especially worthwhile if you are looking for ways to lower your monthly phone bill and if you are working with the right VoIP phone company.

Our hosted VoIP service enables you to ditch your old PBX phone system and pay a hosted VoIP solutions company to manage this equipment. A hosted solution will let you avoid the expense of investing in upgrades and maintenance and ensures your system is up when you use a hosted VoIP solutions company that guarantees uptime. Keep in mind that VoIP services don't function during power outages or when your internet goes down. Hosted VoIP companies such as NSG can guarantee your VoIP connection while taking advantage of the low cost of VoIP service.

NSG also offers a variety of HD phone equipment to choose from. The price for HD VoIP phone equipment has come down over the years and Polycom offers more bang for your buck than many other manufacturers.

If that is not enough, here are some other reasons you should consider switching to VoIP:

•     Less Expensive Phone Service
•     Affordable Long Distance & International Calling
•     Mobility
•     Convience
•     Free Calling Features

VoIP is good for your business primarily becuase of savings on long distance charges. If your company uses for VoIP for is communications, you can place long-distance calls through the Internet rather than through telephone company's PSTN. By communicating through the interenet, you can avoid paying long distance charges. Since you probably already have a broadband Internet connection.

voip conference phone for small businessA different type of telephone is required to use VoIP telephone services, but the cost for HD telephone equipment is affordable for small businesses and on par with regular telephone equipment. Plus, you have a variety of options to choose from.

On top of the cost savings of long distance calling, merging voice and data on one network provides and opportunity to add web conferencing, e-mail and voicemail messaging. This is easily achieved since VoIP integrates all of your communications on your IP network rather than havig to add a seperate telephone line. Another advantage of this offers is bundled billing, adding all of your communications expenses onto one itemized bill.

A fully integrated VoIP system is an excellent option for your business, and small businesses stand to gain the most. If you would like more information about our hosted VoIP solutions, our Polycom VoIP phones, call or email us today.

Welcome to our site!  We are excited about this new method of keeping you updated about our products and services.  We will be updating our blog with news and information about VoIP products and why it is a great choice for your business.

Please check back as we add new articles.