Business phone services are slowly becoming more and more popular in the business world, especially the small ones. While there are some really big and large names in the industry, small business phone service providers are slowly but effectively making their names and becoming more and more popular with start-ups and small companies or organizations.
Let’s take a deep dive into the world of business phone services and all the categories, variations, and benefits of using these services. We are also going to discuss the best small business phone service providers and their features, services, and packages, and which one you should go for.
What is Small Business Phone Service Providers?
A business phone service is a system, where a company uses multiple phones in a connected way. This allows for features like call handling and calls transferring, call conference, extensions, shared message boxes or voice messages, and many more features.
Business phone services can be small in size and networks like only some telephones and extensions, to massive and complex setups like private branch exchange (PBX) which is mostly used by large companies or organizations.
Small businesses or organizations don’t need any kind of massive and complex system to meet up their needs, therefore most small businesses go for small business phone service providers. There are some companies that specialize in this segment of users only, and develop their packages and prices according to the needs of small companies.
Why & When Do You Need a Small Business Phone Service Providers?
Business phone services are a really essential part of growing the business. In the old days, a business phone system was simply a method of making and receiving calls. But in this modern time, business phone services do so much more.
Business phone services or systems allow the company employees to communicate with each other by calling, video, or text message. But the first reason why you need a business phone service for your company is to deliver good customer service.
In this global era, a business phone service allows the company to make and receive calls to anywhere the customer or client is. In a usual phone line, there are always matters like roaming and excessive charges – but a business phone offers no hassle and instant communication. And for a business, communication is the key to growth.
Not only calls, but messages and other inquiries also play a big benefit to the customer communication, and a business phone service offers excellent versatility and instant message receiving ability and also the feature to reply back only in a matter of seconds.
Along with helping to deal with the customers easily, business phone services also ease the pressure on the employees. Big companies use massive and complex business phone systems – but small companies don’t need to invest so much in this. Rather there are small business phone service providers who have special packages and services that are designed to suit the necessity of small ventures.
On a small business phone service, employees can communicate with each other very easily and the time lost in communicating in other complex manners or meetings is saved. Therefore, this increases productivity by a margin.
Also, last but the most important reason is, business phone services are comparatively cheaper than personal phone services. In a business, employees need to make a lot of calls and messages and voice notes either to clients or customers, or each other, or to the employer, and small business phone service providers provide a really good value for money for these services.
Small business phone service providers
How to Find the Best Small Business Phone Service Providers?
There are plenty of companies offering plenty of options in the segment. While some companies focus on a certain feature, another company focuses and strengthens another feature. So, to find the best small business phone service provider, you need to know your main focus, cost expectation, and many more thing.
The first thing you need to decide is what type of business phone system you want to go for. There are options like a landline, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), Virtual phones. Also if you choose VoIP or virtual platform, you need to decide where you want to host the equipment, or if you want to shift the whole system to the cloud.
You also need to decide things like whether or not you want a desk telephone on your company premises or reception, or you are comfortable with a virtual phone device that relies on mobile devices.
If your business does not require to communicate to customers, clients, or earth another outside of the premises, you can opt for physical business phones and host the equipment on the office premises. But, if your company or organization needs to attend business from outside the office like home office or meetings on the go or anything else, you should choose a virtual machine. A virtual machine relies on the mobile and internet connection to operate calls, messages, voice messages, and other services.
The biggest benefit of virtual phone systems is that compared to traditional phones or business phone lines, they give the employee to connect with their business identity on the go or remotely, and this not only is a good value for money solution but also gives a professional feel to the communication. But, everything has a downside. In this case, that is the dependency on an internet connection.
Employees or employers need to be connected to their respective internet connections to communicate. Also, some services need to use the mobile or phone network to operate and uses the minute on that operator, while many others use mobile apps that are solely dependent on the internet connection to make a call.
A physical desk phone running VoIP depends on the company’s internet connection to operate and make calls. While this sounds better than virtual machines which on some services use the mobile network, it also has that internet dependency. But, on the plus side VoIP systems give the employees or the employer access to the phone line from their mobile devices. VoIP solutions are best for small companies that have an operating office and also need to communicate while being remote or from outside.
What is the Best Small Business Phone Service Providers?
There are some renowned small business phone service providers, who have gained popularity because of their good services and good value for money.
Nextiva
Nextiva is known for its cloud-based VoIP phone system which is really popular in the industry. Nextiva is considered as the leader in the industry and offers great value for money against their services.
Nextiva started their journey all the way back in 2008, and since then they have served over 100,000 companies with their small business phone services. They have really redefined the VoIP services and offers, and most of the users of their service always gave positive feedback.
Nextiva has several packages ranging from 1-4 users and all the way up to plans that can accommodate over 100 users. They have a record of almost 100% uptime with no crash or outage on the system.
Nextiva offers packages starting from $18.95 a month per user to higher price tags depending on the features. Currently, there are 4 packages from Nextiva that are most suitable for small businesses or companies.
Essential:
- Costing starts from $18.95 per month for every user
- Features unlimited calls
- Unlimited video calls
- 1500 toll-free minutes
- Voice message to email notification facility
- Unlimited fax via internet
Professional:
- Starts from $22.95 per month for every user
- Limitless conference calls, each call has a limit of 40 participants
- No limit on video calls, up to 250 users can join a call
- 3,000 toll-free minutes
- SMS notification of voice mails
- Voicemail to email notifications
- Integration with Salesforce, Zendesk, and Hubspot
- Customer support for 24×7
Enterprise:
- The package starts from $32.95 per month for each user
- Features all the facilities in the Professional package
- Unlimited participants on unlimited video conference calls
- 12,500 toll-free minutes per month
- Unlimited contacts list
- Call recording facility
- Video conference recording facility
- Features integration with MS Teams, Oracle sales cloud, ServiceNow
Ultimate:
- The package starts from $57.95 per month for every user
- Carries over all the features in the enterprise package
- Features service productivity
- Features ticket management
- Provides automatic surveys
- Facility to see the customer journey analytics
Along with their attractive packages, Nextiva is known mostly for their 24×7 customer service, almost 100% uptime, and easy to use features and interface. To a business, features on the business phone service are necessary but the service needs to be reliable for any lossless communication, and Nextiva ensures that with a guarantee.
Even when offering competitive package prices, Nextiva offers flexibility in the package prices when a company purchases for a longer duration like annual plans or 3 yearly plans. When longer duration on the packages are applied, the package prices drop a lot for every user and this offers any small business the best value for money.
The main features of the Nextiva business phone service are:
- No limit on local calls
- A minimum of 1,500 toll-free minutes to use
- Easy to use desktop and mobile apps
- High Definition video calls
- Call management
- Integration to google contacts, Microsoft teams, and other services
- Call queuing option
- Call hold music for caller
- Automatic call forwarding option
- Voicemail to email notification
- Voicemail to text message notification
- Simultaneous ring facility
- Free and unlimited fax via internet
- Many more
All the packages, including the basic one, includes a desk phone, a phone for conference rooms, a Computer app to manage phone calls and texts and emails, a mobile app for before mentioned services, and many more.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Question: How does a business phone system work?
Answer: A business phone system can work in many ways, from a local landline number to VoIP connections from business phone service providers.
Question: Which is the best type of Business Phone System?
Answer: VoIP systems and virtual machines are recognized as the most effective, versatile, and value for money business phone system types.
Question: Which are the leading business phone system providers?
Answer: Nextiva, RingCentral, Phone.com, Ooma, 8×8, and many more are the leading business phone system providers in the USA.
Question: How much it costs to get a business phone line?
Answer: Business Phone services start from as low as 19 USD per month to higher depending on the provider and packages they offer.
Question: Does Business Phone Services come with unlimited calls?
Answer: Many providers have packages that have unlimited calls in the USA and Canada over VoIP connections.
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Conclusion
Whether the small is big or just a small start-up or organization, a business phone system can really benefit the employees and the whole company. Small business phone service providers nowadays have packages that really come at a great cost and benefit the business to grow. If you are a business wonder or manage a small business, you should definitely go for a business phone service for your company. No matter which provider you choose, as long it is a good one, your business and communications within it will grow.
