To thrive in today’s economic environment, unified communication is required
Yes, those old traditional landlines are about to disappear. In 2017, almost 90% of phone numbers were connected to mobile devices or internet phones. Some experts predict that 2020 will be the year when landline phones will finally be phased out. (To be fair, they might not go away that fast. Believe it or not, after all, there are still people who use analog modems.)
But even when landline phones aren’t popular, many businesses still rely on traditional Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone systems for their day-to-day operations.
Their trust in these systems makes sense: landline phones are not vulnerable to remote hacking (although analog lines can still be hacked locally through old-fashioned eavesdropping), they usually work even after a power outage, and all of them are based on internal implementation, giving the owner full control. Owners like to have complete control over everything that affects their business (especially those that affect the bottom line).
But the world of work is rapidly changing, and for any business to succeed right now, they need a better alternative – unified communication.
How the old phone system harms businesses
In today’s business environment, older PBX phone systems have some pretty serious limitations. Some of them affect the business and cause:
Terrible Customer Service: Left voicemail in the 90’s waiting for a response! In fact, most consumers want to communicate with businesses online, be it online ordering, emailing, texting, or real-time chat. If this is the only way to contact your business by phone, then you are probably missing the most important opportunity to quickly resolve service issues, retain customers, and improve your reputation.
Poor Internal Communications: Office workers can be frustrating using the old phone system. Imagine leaving a voicemail message to your boss about an urgent problem and not receiving a response within hours or days. Relying on outdated technology will reduce employee productivity, which can cause other problems. According to a 2018 study by Unisys Corporation, these frustrated employees are 450% more likely to leave their jobs than employees of companies with better technology solutions. While this research may sound far-fetched, the emergence of outdated technologies is likely to point to bigger problems for businesses. However, this questionable study supports the claim that old technology will cause serious problems for the company. Therefore it is worth mentioning. It is clear that updating the system and improving everyone’s communication is better than recruiting and training new employees.
Less Versatility: As many companies have moved to remote work, they have found that the versatility of landline telephone systems is much lower than that of VoIP-based PBX systems. The landline telephone system is bound to a specific geographic location and connected to the company’s independent telephone network through telephone hardware (such as telephone lines, telephone wall ports, etc.). Therefore, they cannot be easily integrated with computer software applications, SMS and MMS messages, video calls, chat applications and other excellent functions that make remote work easy. A uniform communication system, on the other hand, supports all these tools, so that remote employees can easily get started.
Difficult to diagnose problems remotely: Diagnosing and repairing problems with traditional PBX systems requires technical personnel from the IT department (if any) or the telephone system provider to resolve the problem. The process includes testing connections, evaluating internal and external components, as well as devices that can be tampered with outside the building. This means you have to arrange a day and a day for repairs, while at the same time your system is still in a faulty state, resulting in lost revenue. On the other hand, to solve the problems of cloud-based systems, you can get technical support 24 hours a day and use your system to get things back up and running quickly. No appointment is required.
Difficult to Grow: As the business grows, it is difficult to expand the old phone system. Usually each new batch of users has to add a lot of new hardware. This hardware is usually proprietary, expensive, and may need to be installed by skilled technicians.
VoIP PBX systems also connect to all of your business locations, enable you to respond to messages and requests in a timely manner, and can easily be scaled up or down at any time. In short, a VoIP PBX system moves and grows with the ever-changing needs of your business. Your old phone system limits your options to serve employees and customers, and it ultimately cuts into your profits.