The Best Phone System for a Small Business

If you are a small growing business, it is vital you have an effective business phone system in place. Furthermore, it is important to find a system that is affordable and gives you the best value for money. 

What is a business phone system?

A business phone system, also known as a PBX, is designed specifically for the needs of growing businesses. It provides a unified communication solution often offering a package of call management features and capabilities beyond that of a standard telephone service. PBX stands for Private Branch Exchange. The most cost effective PBX phone systems are often offered through VoIP providers. Users can communicate with one another over the phone via internal lines, allowing you to easily make and receive external calls. PBX phone systems are a more affordable phone system solution when compared to traditional hard wired phones, as they are cheaper to install and maintain, as well as offer advanced communication features, like video conferencing, speech analytics, instant messaging, and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) software.

 VoIP powered phone systems typically suit small businesses, as they provide a robust and scalable communication solution, allowing companies to handle a higher volume of calls and to customize their setup according to their specific business requirements.

What features do business phone systems offer?

Zadarma is a globally recognised VoIP phone system provider. Their cloud PBX phone system is used by businesses globally. It provides a ready made business phone solution that is quick and cost friendly to introduce, with a simple set up and configuration process. With a Cloud PBX phone, you will not need to buy expensive equipment and deal with hardware and telephone wires. You can simply connect to the network via the internet while your phone system is created and maintained on the operator’s servers. A PBX phone system lets you connect virtual numbers across different countries. It will allow you to forward and route calls to the different agents.

Zadarma’s business phone system’s features and benefits

The Zadarma PBX phone system offers an abundance of call features, suitable for small business use. The most popular features are mentioned below.

Call forwarding, rerouting & recording 

Zadarma offers call forwarding and rerouting which allows you to direct calls to different numbers or offices, through routing calls on to a mobile or landline number. Call recording allows you to record all calls through setting up PBX extension lines with call records sent by email or stored in the cloud. Zadrama offers call recording features free, for up to 3 extensions. Theres a ‘virtual phone system’. It allows recording  and forwarding calls. In addition to that that, you can also monitor, control and analyse the performance of individual calls. It offers an inbuilt stastics feature just for that. 

Virtual numbers & virtual office capability 

Zadarma’s phone numbers are multi-channel which allows customers to easily reach you, so you will never need to miss a single incoming call. This may be an essential service feature for your small business needs. You can instantly establish a virtual phone number and a virtual office, with a perceived local presence. This will allow your business to create numbers with local area codes that will not charge your callers long distance fees. This provides the advantage of appearing to have a local presence, but also ensures that potential customers won’t have to pay extra just to contact your business. A virtual number and the appearance of a virtual office are both essential to any regional or growing firm.

Free access to Teamsale CRM

Teamsale CRM has been built with small businesses in mind. Zadarma offers all users access to Teamsale CRM free of charge. The Customer Relationship Management system is allowing businesses to grow relationships with existing and potential clients and suppliers. Teamsale CRM is extremely easy to set up and start using, instantly providing a central place to store customer and prospect data, track customer interactions, and share information with colleagues. Customer service teams can access every question, every service request, every preference and every past contact detail on each returning customer, providing relevant communication instantly. 

Video Conferencing

When investigating VoIP providers ensure you review their video conferencing capability. Zadarma provides a free video calling service as part of their standard PBX price plans, allowing any business or individual to communicate across borders without any boundaries. The more advanced VoIP providers will offer real-time video communication, virtual calling and virtual meetings. This provides employees and clients with better understanding and improves collaboration, which is vital for rapport building with new clients. 

Speech recognition & speech analytics

Zadarma’s PBX phone system can not only listen to call recordings and review text transcription, but also provides visibility of call analytics data for further internal business processing, analysis and improvements.  The speech recognition feature is a paid for service and the price depends on the language of recognition and phone system price plan you are on. All options include free transcription minutes along with the analytics feature. Speech analytics, also known as call analytics, is a specialized technology that enables the extraction of relevant data from either a real time conversation or a previously saved audio file. 

Multiple lines and numbers

Zadarma allows you to link up to 20 numbers and lines from different providers to the PBX itself. If you are looking to link external numbers into your Zadarma virtual PBX, this is straightforward. If you have a traditional landline number connected via a copper line, the process involves using a VoIP gateway with an FXO port. 

Incoming call scenario and voice menu 

There”s a “routing” feature that Zadarma’s PBX’s voice menu offers. This let’s different teams (e.g. sales and /or customer service)  route calls that align with the working hours, timezone and other factors of your team memebers. This ofcourse boosts your productivity and exponentially reduces unhappy clients because even without any available personnel, your callers will have a customized prompt. Incoming call scenarios are a group of extension numbers that will receive incoming calls in a specific situation, for instance timezone or cities. There’s also a feature to organize the management of your calls, customize IVR settings to better suite your needs, and oh yes, music (that’s played when the callers are holding the call). In a few seconds you can set your working hours and enable “missed call notifications” so you always know when you had a caller.  

Voicemail and automated responses

The auto-response text setup and scheduled answering machine features allow you to automate responses to frequently asked questions. You can customize and record responses on your answer phone as well as set up your company voicemail for all calls that are missed outside business hours.  

CallerIDs

Zadarma’s PBX provides you with a CallerID. This is basically your ‘outgoing’ number. This is what your recievers see. You can set any number as your called ID as long as it’s connected to or verified for your account. Wouldn’t it be better if you could use alternative IDs when you call from different nations or cities? That’s possible as well. You can even set device specific IDs so different devices display different IDs. 

Affordability & Pricing

Zadarma’s phone system provides a standard price plan. This is perfect for small growing businesses. When comparing VoIP phone system providers, it is essential you check their call rate criteria. Zadarma offers 3 VoIP plans. The ‘Standard’ package is free to access for up to 5 users. Zadarma is known to offer 30,000+ phone numbers in 100 countries. A toll-free telephone number can be provided through Zadarma also. This allows any international customers to receive toll-free numbers free of charge. A toll-free telephone number is billed for all arriving calls, instead of incurring charges to the originating telephone subscriber. 

Integration capability

Zadarma PBX currently integrates with Microsoft Teams, Hubspot, Bitrix24, Zoho CRM, amoCRM, Salesforce, Megaplan, RetailCRM, ZohoDESK, PlanFix and WireCRM. Additionally, as mentioned previously, the Zadarma PBX phone system integrates for free with the TeamSale CRM. This integration will enable your small growing team to deliver a heightened personalised customer service experience to each inbound and outbound client call. 

Mobile applications

Zadarma offers Android & iOS smartphone apps that can be used with or without the Cloud PBX. You can therefore utilize these apps when traveling abroad. Smart push notifications notify you when you receive a call, your mobile is pinged and the app is activated so you can accept the call. Both apps have renewed and refreshed interface designs with accessible features, the ability to copy a number and the instant delivery of SMS messages. 

Which business phone system is best for small businesses?

It is important to consider what your business needs. If you are planning to use the phone system for business purposes, with a need to manage regular inbound and outbound calls, then a PBX phone system with its supporting call management features is the way to go. Cloud VoIP PBX phone is at unprecedented popularity today. It’s probably due to the the overall features that  Zadarma’s PBX phone system offers including call transfer, call recording, forwarding, call routing to name a few. Other features include voicemail, call management, speech analytics, voicemail and video conferencing, perfect for small business use and then there’s more.