In the beginning stages of developing a successful business there are a lot of things to be considered. There is cash flow, office space, staffing, web presence, advertising, and product delivery to name just a few. One thing that may be overlooked in the development of the business plan is a quality phone system. A businesses’ telephone system is the major communication portal between them and their customers and potential customers. To overlook it could end up costing them customers and profits. A virtual PBX is a great solution for start up companies for a number of reasons – it allows the company to project a professional and well established image, it allows for flexibility and efficiency, and it has low up front and on going costs – 3 things that are vital for a start up business.
As it has often been said, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Many times when a customer calls into a company that telephone contact is the first impression they will get of the company. A business would be smart to make sure it makes the best first impression possible. A virtual PBX can do that. Using an automated attendant with a message that announces who the company is and directs them to the appropriate department, each and every caller is met with a professional greeting. As well, a toll free number can be used in conjunction with the virtual PBX systems also giving the impression of a well established and professional business.
A start up company may not have the up front capital to invest in an office space or a lot of employees. A virtual PBX will let the company be flexible in the way that they handle their incoming calls and still maintain their efficiency. Using virtual call forwarding, a virtual PBX will forward calls to any number the company chooses. This means that if they don’t have an office space their calls can be directed to them on their cell phones, to employees that are working from home, have different departments be forwarded to different phone numbers, or many other forwarding needs the business has. With this kind of flexibility, the company and its employees can still maintain efficiency and the freedom to do what needs to be done while not having to worry about missing calls.
One thing start ups are usually short on is cash. A virtual PBX has low up front and on going costs. If the company is looking into a standard PBX to handle their calls, they will find that an average starting cost is going to be about $10,000 and the monthly costs to be in the hundreds on dollars. Not only is this usually cost prohibitive for a company just starting out but, once they start growing and need to add lines or employees, they will have to upgrade their PBX and purchase all new equipment. A virtual PBX has a low start up cost in the range of $50 – $100 on average and then a monthly cost anywhere from $10 – $50 depending on the features required and number of employees it needs to support. Virtual PBX providers many times offer a month to month contract so that when a company is ready to expand, features and employees can be easily added.
When looking to start a new company, it is important to pay special attention to the phone system. After all, in many cases it may be the first impression a customer gets of the company. With funds being tight in the beginning the company may not have enough cash on hand to invest in an office space, a lot of employees, nor an expensive standard PBX phone system. Because of this, work needs to get done as flexibly and efficiently as possible. The ways a virtual PBX addresses all of these issues makes it the perfect phone solution for a start up company.
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You’re obviously associated with freedom800, one of the many newer providers of hosted PBX service. As someone who writes reviews for these services, I was wondering if you had any information about how your company stands out in the face of competitors like VoiceNation, my1voice, Ringcentral, and Virtual PBX (who much of the industry is named after). I’ve activated email notification of comment replies so that everyone will be able to benefit from this information.
Good question Bill. Yes, we’re associated as Telecentrex owns Freedom800.com. Freedom800 offers a business-grade virtual phone service, much like VoiceNation, RingCentral, GotvMail and VirtualPBX. The services offered through Freedom800 are powered by FreedomVOICE Systems who have been in business since 1996 and are one of the pioneers for this type of virtual telephony technology.
Our philosophy has been to differentiate ourselves from the competition through customer satisfaction. The core technology that powers the service in our industry really doesn’t differ much between providers, but the human element certainly does. Many of the providers in our industry simply license the technology their service is based on, which tends to put a heavy focus on the sales and marketing aspect of how their business operates. Their business models are based on a numbers game of getting enough new subscribers to keep the ship moving.
Often times apples to apples comparisons between providers tend to focus on pricing, but do very little to note customer satisfaction and service. Of course pricing is important to a small business, but as we all know, the cheapest doesn’t necessarily equate to the best value for a business. Value is determined by the customer and pricing is just one factor in overall satisfaction with a service.
Telecentrex could have chosen to market any provider, but the reason we chose to market FreedomVOICE Systems is because of the human element behind the technology. FreedomVOICE has built their platform from the ground up and many of the system engineers that have helped develop the technology are still with the company, which says a lot. It’s a truly business-class service that scales with the needs and demands of our customers. Although our service is month to month, our goal is long term customer satisfaction. A good indicator for us is our continually increasing number of new sales generated from existing satisfied customer referrals. This only happens when you make your customers happy. Not when you have the lowest prices or apply the latest marketing techniques.