5 Signs that Your “Old School” On-Premise Phone System is Holding Your Business Back
On today’s relentlessly fast-paced and hyper-competitive business landscape, there are only two directions: forward towards growth, or backwards towards…well, we all know how that horror story unfolds. To say the least, it ain’t pretty.
It goes without saying that every business — whether it sells jet engines or coffee cup lids — needs to head towards success, and away from failure. This is so blatantly obvious, that they don’t even teach it in business school. At least we hope they don’t need to teach this.
Yet despite this truth, many businesses are held back from achieving their full success and profit potential — not by marketplace dynamics or aggressive competition, but by their very own “old school” on-premise phone system. Here are the 5 key reasons why:
1. They’re getting much less for far more.
There’s a really good reason why advertisers don’t try and sell things with pitches like “why pay less and get value, when you can pay more and get hosed?”
Yet that’s exactly what is happening to many businesses that are forced to spend thousands of dollars a year for an on-premise phone system that essentially stopped being “technologically advanced” around the time of the first moon landing. And of course, the fees they pay are always going up year after year. They never, ever go down.
2. They’re not accessing advanced features.
A long, long time ago — we’re talking before smartphones roamed the earth and “the web” was something spiders weaved vs. people surfed — the only companies that could afford advanced phone features were large enterprises.
However, technology has changed this, and now ALL businesses can access advanced calling features they need like voicemail-to-email, music-on-hole, auto attendant, and more. There’s only one problem with this, and it’s a big one: on-premise phone companies don’t want to send this beloved cash cow into retirement, and so they continue charging ridiculous — and totally unjustifiable — fees for advanced features. In many cases, small and mid-sized businesses cannot even access certain calling features unless they spend a massive amount of money on a brand new system. Phone companies love this. It makes their cash cow moOOOooOOoOooOo with joy.
3. Their customers are getting frustrated — and heading elsewhere.
As noted by CustomerExperienceInsight.com, today’s customers don’t just want, but they DEMAND more personalization, more responsiveness, more options, and more convenience. If they don’t get these requirements, they disengage and head to a competitor.
On-premise phone systems are part of the problem vs. the solution. Instead of enabling employees to be provide an optimal customer experience anytime and anywhere, they force employees to stay at their desks — or worse, constantly send customers to voicemail or put them on hold for excessive amounts of time (which is really a bad idea, since studies have shown that about 1/3rd of people won’t wait on hold at all, and about 60% will hang up after a few minutes).
Add it up, and it’s a recipe for customer disengagement and churn — which is the fastest ways send a business backwards vs. forwards.
4. They’re forced to hire costly IT staff or get drilled with pricey maintenance fees.
When it comes to technical support, businesses with on-premise phone systems have traditionally faced a “lesser of two evils” scenario. Either they hire IT costly staff who have the specialized skills to manage the system, or they sign-up for a very pricey maintenance agreement. This is the “golden goose” for phone companies (who lives on the same farm as the cash cow…it’s all very rustic).
5. Scalability is virtually non-existent.
All businesses — from startups to unicorns — face ongoing scaling challenges. Some are scaling up and onboarding more people. Others are consolidating, outsourcing and downsizing. Either way, the key to success is agility and going with the flow.
However, on-premises phone systems are categorically not built for scalability. As a result, many businesses are saddled with capacity (lines) that they don’t need — or they are forced to pay through the nose to increase capacity in order to accommodate new hires.
The Solution: Hosted VoIP
The solution to ALL of these problems is simple: switch to a hosted VoIP system from Carolina Digital Phone! That’s because our system:
- Delivers significant — and in many cases dramatic — ongoing cost savings. Our customers consistently get more for less vs. less for more.
- Includes a full range of carrier-class advanced calling features, such as auto attendant, voicemail-to-email, music-on-hold, video conferencing, business SMS, and more.
- Enhances customer experience through features like live call forwarding, hunt groups/ring groups, and more.
- Is supported, monitored and managed 24/7 by our team of experts. There are NO additional maintenance costs, which is great news for CEOs and other executives, and even better for IT staff who don’t have to deal with end user help tickets!
- Easily and affordably scales up or down. Customers can add extensions in a matter of minutes. Or if they are consolidating, they simply let licenses expire.
The Bottom Line
In business as in life, it’s important to know who your allies are — and it’s arguably even more important to know who your adversaries are. For many businesses, one of the biggest threats to their success and growth isn’t outside their walls: it’s rooted in their on-premise phone system. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that permanently ending this threat is straightforward and simple: contact Carolina Digital Phone today for a free consultation. Call Today (336) 544–4000. Discover how we will transform your telecommunications system from an adversary that holds your business back, to an ally that drives your business forward!
