Did you know that almost half of all small businesses fail within the first five years? There are many reasons that this happens, for example, choosing a business that isn’t very profitable, failure to understand the current market and customer’s needs, uncontrolled growth, inadequate cash reserves or a very common one, believing you can do everything yourself.
The list goes on but perhaps the most major factor and certainly one that we have seen time and time again with small businesses, has nothing to do with a lack of business knowledge or financial mismanagement, it’s simply down to the image you portray to your potential customers.
Most customers have little interest in how your business is working behind the scenes, what they want to see is a good sense of stability and professionalism and whether or not when it comes to the crunch, your business can stand up against the ‘big boys’.
A professional-grade telephone system such as Cloud Phone, can help a small operation look big to its customers.
When many small businesses start up, using a mobile phone or home landline as your business phone number is not uncommon, however, as the business grows and you take on more and more customers you need something more professional and in keeping with the image of your business.
Cloud Phone from Tech IP will greet and manage your callers for you. This means that when potential customers phone your business, they won’t be met with an engaged tone or even worse there call not being answered at all. With a Cloud Phone it gives you many options on how best to manage your calls. You can set it up to ring several phones at the same time or in sequence – put callers into a queue – redirect calls to your mobiles automatically when you are out – transfer calls to internal extensions or to mobiles and you can make sure that your calls can reach the right person every time.
Cloud Phone systems give you peace-of-mind having a single low-cost number without being caught out by expensive diversion charges. Almost all Cloud Phone systems offer a simple and easy to use forwarding feature. This feature doesn’t function based on pre-set criteria, but it allows you to forward calls in real time.
With basic call forwarding, you can forward calls to other employees, so if you need to work from home one day you can have your calls forwarded to you without your customers ever knowing you’re out of the office.
Another benefit of choosing a Cloud Phone is the ability to integrate it with other IT software allowing you to record all calls, receive voicemail via email and set up your office anywhere in the world through one central number. You can also use a switchboard style service which will allow your small business to look much larger to your customers and present a much more professional outlook.
A simple Cloud Phone can be set up to allow users to select the department they need using their keypad, even if all options go to the same person.
Having to keep a firm eye on your finances and not overspend does not mean that you have to look new or small to your potential customers. A Cloud phone system is easiest and most cost effective way to give your business the competitive edge it needs and allow you to become a small business with a big voice.
To find out more about how a Cloud Phone could help you save money and improve customer communication, contact us today on 0800 505 3350. Alternatively visit our Cloud Telephone Systems page where you can read all about our complete Hosted telephone solution that provides an extensive range of fixed and mobile telephony capabilities to suit your business.
