With the economy in a shaky state, many businesses are clamping down on purchases to ensure that they are able to weather tough times.  But there are some good reasons to forge ahead with a new phone system, and to buy sooner rather than later:

(1) Tax benefits. This year, Congress passed the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 to help individuals and businesses and to spur economic growth.  You’ll want to consult your tax professional for all the details, or check out the IRS website here, but in brief the following benefits are among those in the Act:

• increases the limit up to which a business can expense property purchased and placed in service during its 2008 tax year;
• provides an additional 50 percent special depreciation allowance for property acquired and placed in service during calendar year 2008.

To take advantage of this, the equipment you purchase:

• must be new equipment;
• must have been acquired in calendar year 2008; and
• must have been installed in calendar year 2008.

(2) Special deals. Many phone equipment manufacturers and resellers are now offering very good deals on the purchase and installation of new phone systems and voicemail in an effort to get your business.  In general, you can expect lowered prices and added value to work in your favor.  (Check out our current specials for phone systems in Phoenix or surrounding areas.)

(3) Opportunity Costs. Phone system technology has improved significantly in the last few years, and now provides efficiency gains that you may not be enjoying on your current system.  Increased ease-of-use, tightly integrated and more responsive and powerful voicemail, flexible auto-attendant, and other productivity-enhancing features such as Unified Messaging, phone control via your PC, and Voice Over IP are all things that businesses with new systems can enjoy and use to their advantage.  In economics, opportunity costs are the value of an alternative foregone as the result of making a decision.  In this case, you should evaluate the cost to your business of staying with your current phone system and foregoing increased efficiency, competitiveness, and client satisfaction.

(4) Doing your part. While placing tight restrictions on spending is becoming more common for many businesses, experts agree that this actually exacerbates the country’s economic woes.  Making an important investment in your company’s future not only strengthens it in the long run, but makes your company part of the country’s economic solution.  And, because both Telco Ltd. and ESI (our phone system manufacturer of choice) are U.S.-owned and operated companies, you can feel good knowing that the majority of your dollars will continue circulating in our economy long after you have spent them.

There’s a feature offered on all ESI phone systems called Virtual Answer.  It’s so simple, but so useful, that it deserves it’s own mention.

I’m constantly on the phone.  With clients.  With vendors.  I’m in demand.  I might not get much done if I were constantly playing phone tag with people.  Thanks to Virtual Answer, phone tag is cut down dramatically.

Here’s how it works.  Say I am on a call, chatting away.  Another call comes in to my number via Call Waiting, and I can see from the Caller ID that it’s someone I’ve been waiting to talk to all day; however, I can’t quite get off my current call yet.  I press one button on my phone, and the second caller hears, “Hi, this is Stephen.  I see that you’re on the other line and I would like to talk to you.  Please wait just a minute and I’ll be with you shortly.”  This caller is then placed on hold.  The first caller has not been interrupted at all, and is completely oblivious to my second call or that I have put it on hold.

At this point, I can take a minute or so to wrap up my current call, and I can get to the second caller rather then him having to leave me a message.  Bam!  The vicious cycle of phone tag has ended.

I could also have given the caller an option to dial another extension, or go to my voicemail, if I so chose to record my Virtual Answer message that way.  There is also another type of Virtual Answer button (which can either be used instead of the first type mentioned, or as a second button in addition to it), in which instead of playing the recording and putting the caller on hold, it plays a message like, “Hi, this is Stephen.  I see that you’re on the other line and appreciate the call.  Please hold on while I transfer you to my assistant.”  The call is then automatically transferred to my assistant, who takes the call from there.

I’m not sure why no one else has this feature, but it’s amazingly useful, and I’m not sure what I would do without it.  It’s just another way in which ESI has shown innovation in its products.

When looking for a new phone system, one should realize that not all phone systems are created equal.  While, on the surface, it may appear that most phone systems have the same basic level of functionality, this could not be further from the truth.  All phone systems are based on unique technology and designs, and, when you take a close look, you will find vast differences in one manufacturer’s system to the next.  The three broad questions to ask yourself when evaluating a phone system should be:

• Does it have all the functionality, robustness, and capacity my business needs?
• Are the phones intuitive and easy to use?
• Can I see a live demonstration of the phones and their operation?

Here are some questions that you’ll want to make sure to ask as part of your checklist:

• Caller ID. Does the system support Caller ID on all lines?  Does this capability cost extra?  Do all phones have displays so that I can take advantage of Caller ID?  Can I add a caller’s Caller ID to my personal electronic “Rolodex” with one button press?  Will Caller ID be stored with voicemail messages?  Can Caller ID of the original caller be relayed on calls forwarded outside the office?  Can I review a list from my phone of recent calls’ Caller ID, along with whether I answered the call or it was missed, went to voicemail, or was redirected?
• Voicemail. Does the system support voicemail?  How many ports (simultaneous connections) does it have, and will this be sufficient for my needs?  Is it built-in, or added on?  Will my phone display show me how many messages I have? As I am listening to a message, will a counter on my display count down the time remaining in the message?  Can I transfer callers to voicemail in 2 button presses or fewer?  Can I easily send a message to multiple mailboxes on the fly without having to go through a menu?  When listening to a voicemail message, can I return the call by pressing one button?  Can I allow callers who reach my voicemail to be forwarded to me off site?  Can I be notified of new messages by pager or phone?  Can employees without an office phone still have voicemail?  Am I charged based on the number of mailboxes I use, or are as many as I need included?  Is Unified Messaging available?  Can I save a copy of a message to my computer for archiving or email?
• Auto-Attendant. Does the system have an automated attendant with the ability to provide multiple options to the caller?  Can the menus be several deep if needed?  Can callers be transferred to extensions, mailboxes, departments, overhead paging, remote IP extensions, off-site branches via VoIP, or to outside phone numbers?  Can I have multiple answer modes (such as day, lunch, night, and holiday), and can I either activate them on demand or have them follow a schedule?
• Call Recording. Does the phone have a dedicated Record button for one-touch recording?  Will the recording begin without a delay?  Can I record a call with or without notifying the caller?  Can I record a live conversation directly to my own or another user’s mailbox? Can I record a conversation to multiple users’ mailboxes, on the fly?  Can I save a copy of the recording to my computer for archiving or email?
• Automatic Call Distribution. Does the system support Automatic Call Distribution (ability to let caller stay on hold for the “next available agent”)?  Can calls be escalated if the caller has been in the queue for a certain amount of time, or if the number of callers in queue reaches a certain threshold?  Can the type of routing be flexible (i.e. longest idle extension, uniform distribution, or in-order distribution)? As an administrator, can I silently monitor calls for quality assurance purposes?  When monitoring calls for quality assurance, can I record the conversation for later review and employee feedback?  Is computer software available to facilitate communication between agents and administrators, and to allow administrators to keep track of activity (both real-time and historical)?  Can off-site users (i.e. telecommuters) be part of an ACD group?  Can I monitor them as well?
• Music On Hold. Is music on hold capability built-in to the system, or does it require additional equipment?  Are there pre-recorded tracks so I can hit the ground running?  Can I load custom tracks that will loop automatically?  Can callers dial an extension from hold?
• Built-in Help. Does the system have built-in help?  Does it have a built-in verbal tutorial on phone and voicemail features?  Is there a dedicated Help button?
• Conferencing. Does the system have built-in conferencing?  How many parties can be conferenced together simultaneously?  Is it easy to initiate a conference and add parties?
• Voice over IP (VoIP): Does the system support both local (on-premises) and remote IP (off-premises) extensions?  Do IP phones have all the same features and functionality as non-IP phones?  Can remote IP phones be moved from location to location geographically and plugged into practically any broadband connection, or does this require extensive configuration?  Do the remote phones use high-quality compression for the best voice quality?  Are SIP phones supported?  Are “soft” PC phones supported (local or remote)?  Can multiple, geographically distant sites be connected together?  Does this linking capability include robust features such as one-touch intercom/transfer, auto attendant or DID routing between sites, or ability to see when users at other sites are using their phone, in Do Not Disturb, or available?
• Presence Management. Does the system support door phones/security access readers using RFID technology (with security cards or keychain fobs)?  Can designated phone users unlock doors for guest entry from their desk?  Can I tell at a glance, from my phone, whether or not someone is in the building?  Can building or secure area access be limited based on a schedule?  Can a security card or fob be disabled quickly if it is lost or stolen, so that locks do not need to be changed?  Can the security readers also be used as time clocks, and can this data be reported on or imported into payroll software?
• Wireless Integration. Does the system support digital cordless phones in addition to standard analog cordless phones?  Do the digital cordless phones support a wide range of features, such as line and station appearances, transfer, conference, voicemail access, call record, do not disturb, overhead page, and more?  Can these features be accessed with one button rather than memorizing a code or button sequence?  Can users utilize a wireless Bluetooth headset of their choice with their office desk phone?  Can I automatically redirect cell phone calls to my office phone while I am in the office, without having to remember to forward and un-forward my cell phone (if that’s even an option)?  Can I run a cell line through my phone system as a backup line in case my regular lines ever go down?
• Expansion. Can the system be expanded easily without having to replace the entire phone system?  Can new capabilities be added to the system via a software upgrade?  Can software upgrades be done remotely?
• Support. Does the company I purchase the phone system from have extensive experience with this brand?  Do they have multiple technicians that are fully certified on the equipment?  How long have they been in business?  Are they a local company?  Do they have the ability to diagnose most issues quickly, without dispatching a technician?  If a technician needs to be dispatched, and it’s an emergency, will I get a response within a few hours or less?