65% of people would rather contact a business by phone

We understand if you’d think a business phone line was a relic of the past when the internet didn’t exist. After all, most customers nowadays would e-mail or connect via web chat or your social media channels, right? While digital methods of communication are increasingly common, the reality is that a significant number still prefer to dial a business landline number.

 

Consider these statistics:

• Research by LeadFerno found that nearly half of respondents still choose a phone call as their preferred method of contacting a business.
• The ZenDesk 2022 CX Report found that ticket volume for phone calls increased nearly as much as e-mail and web chat combined from 2020 to 2021.

 

It’s clear that having a local number for your business still matters. While serving your customers via electronic methods is still very important, forgetting about your phone service is a mistake.

 

A basic office phone and service will only do for the smallest businesses, and most businesses need more functionality to run their business effectively and manage incoming call volume. Besides serving the customers that still want to speak with you on the phone, there are other reasons why business phone systems make sense for most businesses.

We’ve listed six of the biggest advantages below.

Manage high call volume better.

Business VoIP phone systems handle high call volume by nature. Features like call routing, call transfer, call forwarding and music on hold ensure every customer is answered promptly. Of course, IP phones also offer many internal communication and collaboration features.

Gain valuable insights.

A business landline lets you track your calls and serve your customers better. Daily, weekly and monthly call statistics can identify peaks in call traffic where additional staffing is necessary. You can also track other metrics like time to respond, average call length, and more, all of which can help you improve the customer experience.

Answer every call with an auto attendant.

It’s impossible to answer every call right away at your busiest times. At the same time, you don’t want your customers spending too much time on hold or, worse yet, get a busy signal. This is where a virtual receptionist, also known as an auto attendant or Interactive Voice Response (IVR), is the perfect solution.

 

Every call is answered immediately, and you can choose between a touchpad system or voice recognition for your callers to interact with. The caller chooses from the menu and is automatically directed to the correct department.

 

By using an auto attendant, you’ll always know the general purpose of a call. While larger businesses more frequently use auto attendants, they can also be helpful to small and medium-sized businesses. Even if you’re a sole trader, using an auto attendant can make you appear as large as your biggest competitors, even if all the options come to you.

 

But perhaps the best reason for a virtual receptionist is the capability to park calls in queue if an extension is busy. With music on hold, potentially intermixed with promotional messages about your business and its services, you’ll keep callers engaged until you can answer their call.

Set up multi-tenanting with ease.

Multiple business phone systems can operate on the same business phone line, making it possible for owners and managers of multi-tenanted premises to offer the service to their tenants as part of their lease. In a competitive real estate market, that could be an edge.

Make downtime a thing of the past.

The last thing you want is for your business to lose connectivity. A VoIP line offers exciting new functionality, but what happens when your internet connection fails? Business phone lines and systems have redundancy built into route your call elsewhere should a system failure occur.

Use call lists to ensure calls reach a human.

Referred to by several terms – call lists, hunt group, line hunting, rotary lines, and others — this feature uses call lists to attempt to reach the appropriate person. Suppose a caller enters the call queue, and five operators are assigned to the option the caller selected. Line hunting would try each of these five numbers in a predetermined order (or next available) to attempt to connect the call.

We’re ready to help!

Perception is everything in business. Large businesses already know the advantages of a business phone line, and overall costs have fallen enough that business phone lines and systems are within reach of small and medium-sized businesses.

 

Our customer service experts at Business Telecom are trained in all the options available to our customers. They are ready to hear about your communications needs and recommend the next steps. Contact us today.