Office Phone Set Up

Chapter 5

Setting up your office phone can be as simple and cheap - or difficult and expensive.

If you have read Step 3. PBX/Key/Virtual Office - then you have an idea of the costs associated with each and the differences.  Since you have already read that section, we’ll cover the highlights here. If you need to - go back and review Step 3.

Large Corporations traditionally use PBX or Key Systems with a central hub, extensive wiring and 20 to 100’s of phones and cubicles. Large systems like the previously described can cost thousands of dollars.

Home, small and average sized businesses use less complicated systems. Some use a basic wireless or hard wired system that can be purchased at any electronics retailer or large chain like Wal-Mart or Target. These small systems with a few extensions are only a few hundred dollars and are fairly simple to set up. The drawback is that they don’t do much. If you have a full time secretary and aren’t too concerned with getting information out to customers after closing time - then you’ll get by with this sort of system.  But what good business person would only choose to “get by”.  That’s bad business practice and a poor attitude.

Each of the above “hard-wired” systems need to be set up according to the instructions or by professionals.

The cost effective and more powerful alternative is to go with the Virtual Office System.  All you need is a phone.  If you have several people in your office - you may need more than one phone.  However, this service prevents the need for having physical equipment set up and extensive investment.

All equipment is housed in the service provider’s location (much like an internet service provider). The calls are routed via computer to locations you specify and include features such as:  forwarding, caller id, voicemail, fax mail, fax back, on hold music, multiple extensions, auto attendant, unified messaging, internet web site control panel, e-mail forwarding of voice messages and faxes and more.

As you likely read in Step 3, costs for this service are minimal (appx $10 to $30 per month, plus per minute charges appx 4 to 12 cents per minute).

After having extensive experience using the Virtual Office Systems ourselves and working with others who have used them with up to 100 other extensions or employees - we don’t see the benefit to spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on equipment and maintenance.

Typical office phone set ups use multiple extensions (i.e. press 1 for sales, press 2 for service, press 3 for billing, etc. or, press 1 for Bill, press 2 for Mary, press 3 for Joe, etc.).

If you’ve got people sitting at desks all day long - you’ll obviously want several phones set up with separate extensions tied together using one or more lines.  However, if you’ve got several people who work from home, or in the field, you can use a virtual office system and route the calls to wherever they are (home, cell, pager, etc.) all the while protecting their privacy because callers are using the main number and being forwarded.  The virtual office systems will work with the “people at desks” example above as well.  You’d simply just have separate lines which the main number forwarded to.

Continue to Chapter 6. Fax/Fax Forwarding>>>>

 

[Home] [Getting Started] [Unified Messaging] [PBX/Key/Virtual Office] [The Power of Toll Free] [Office Phone Set Up] [Fax/Fax Forwarding] [Setting Up A Web Site] [Automated Selling] [Cellular/Wireless/Paging] [Protecting Privacy & Security] [Making Systems Pay You] [Provider Listings]

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