Traditional phone systems can cause multiple issues due to their old technologies. If you’re not happy with your phone system and considering an upgrade, you may have some questions in mind. This guide is for you if you’re on the fence about replacing your legacy phone system with a modern one. We’ll take you through these 10 signs it’s time to upgrade your business phone system:
1. Old phone systems cost too much
Legacy phone systems could cost greatly with on-site equipment, licensing, maintenance, new phone lines, technicians, and international calls. Your phone bill may be high and unpredictable but upgrading your phone system to Voice over IP (VoIP) is an easy, cost-saving win. You can save up to 60% off your phone bill by switching to a cloud phone system. It has advantages like unlimited free local and low-cost international calling rates, saves on hardware and wiring costs, a user-friendly phone system dashboard and minimal costs for adding new phone lines and locations.
2. Legacy phone systems are becoming obsolete
Your old phone system will eventually go out of date. When a piece of your equipment fails it will get harder to fix or find new parts to replace. It’s both expensive to maintain and relies on technologies that grow old. And also adapting to new technology developments will be more difficult with older hardware systems. It may cause frustration, and compatibility issues could bring chaos. If you consider adding a CRM, new office phones or internal collaboration tools to your setup, upgrading to a new phone system will be beneficial at the same time.
3. Your phone system can’t grow with your business
It makes no sense to hold onto a phone system that delays your growth or prevents it altogether. If your company is growing fast and expanding to new locations and it’s complicated and expensive for you to add new phone lines or open new offices, you’re ready for a new business phone system. With VoIP services, you can add new phone lines and users with just a few clicks. It helps your business to grow and expand.
4. They lack important features
Your current phone system might be functional to make and receive phone calls. But features that come with cloud telephony can take everyone’s productivity to the next level. It’s not just about the phone calls themselves, but also about everything that happens around them. If you need more efficient workflows, you need new features. Upgrading your business phone system will give you access to call routing, auto-attendant, call recording voicemail-to-text, and many other features that will transform the way you communicate.
5. Old systems are vulnerable to outages
Traditional phone systems can fail by outdated infrastructure, aging equipment and natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Outages are expensive not just to physically fix, but also because they can lead to lost sales and even damage your reputation in the long run.
When you upgrade your phone system; phone lines run over the internet, so factors like bad weather won’t disrupt your service. If there’s an interruption to the service, your incoming calls can be automatically forwarded to a different number, like a mobile device. If an issue does occur, your service provider can troubleshoot and fix it remotely.
6. Old phones has security vulnerabilities
Traditional phone systems that transmit calls using audio signals are always under risk of interception from attackers. But the VoIP phone systems provide higher security, reliability, and privacy to businesses. Respected VoIP providers invest in military-grade security using Session Border Controllers (SBCs). SBCs act as firewalls that maintain performance and logical call routing, so your data never ends up in the wrong hands. Cloud phone systems meet the strictest security standards. Don’t make your phone system security and afterthought and wait until it’s too late.
7. Call quality and reliability is getting worse
VoIP services offer HD voice codecs that compress and decompress audio for rapid transmission over the internet to make high-quality calls possible. This technology works smoothly through VoIP phones and softphone apps. Advancements in voice quality on VoIP will make you feel as if you’re in the same room as your caller. You can avoid looking unprofessional because of technical issues of poor quality old phone systems.
Once you have a cloud phone system, a compatible VoIP desk phone or a mobile phone app, and sufficient bandwidth, you don’t have to do anything to experience HD voice. Simply get your phone service provider to make sure HD voice is enabled for your account.
8. Traditional phone systems can’t support remote employees
If you want to add a phone line that isn’t connected to an office phone, your legacy phone system will hold you back. If an employee is moving locations, they can’t just easily move their phone number with them. Your employees can be more mobile and flexible with VoIP.
When you move your phone system to the cloud, your employees don’t need to be connected to the same network of physical phone lines. They can take their phone number and all their phone features home with them through a softphone or a VoIP desk phone. This way your entire workforce will be connected while housing all your communications on a single phone system that’s easy to manage. Your remote teams can stay organized, focused, and flexible in their workday.
9. Your business needs unified communications
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a unified communications model that lets you run all your systems and tools from the same software solution. UCaaS for your internal communication means you’re bringing your meetings, calls, file sharing, chat, tasks, and all internal collaboration into one place and accessible from anywhere.
It also drives customer retention and loyalty because it lets your customers choose the channel they can contact you through so you can serve them better. If someone contacts you through email, phone, and website chat, UCaaS makes it possible to track all of these interactions in one place. Result is ultimate connectivity. You’ll get to work with hyper-focused teams and provide exceptional customer service to your customers, all from one place.
10. Phone system is crucial to your business
If you use a phone system to provide customer service, delight your customers, talk to prospects, close sales, and collaborate with coworkers; it’s crucial to have a modern phone system for your business success. It means your phone system is what makes or breaks your productivity, your customer loyalty, and your chance to bring in new revenue. If you can’t work without your phone system, you need one you can rely on in every circumstance.