Internal Phone Systems are Limited by
the Number of Phone Lines and may
Choke a Small Business

"Please hang up and call your pharmacy. They will contact us on your behalf if necessary..." This single phrase was the response to 70 percent of the calls to a local medical office I setup this past week. The physician in the office told me her lines (and her staff) were to busy answering the phone and repeating that phrase to take care of patients in the office.

I had a referral from an associate to a doctor who needed a "phone tree". He needed to have a caller make a selection to reach different people in his offices. The phone tree he described started with the basics:

We have a new client whose phone service provider is Suddenlink. She needed calls to be answered if her line was busy or she did not answer after 4 rings. In order for our Virtual Receptionist to go live the client had to add change the Basic Call Forwarding to No Answer Call Forward with Suddenlink.

I was contacted by an office manager for a doctors office and she was trying to figure out how to add an auto attendant to the office phone system. She had many quotes for new office equipment and all much too expensive and complex for their needs. After talking for a few minutes we had just the solution she needed without changing her equipment.

Phone systems have limitations that may choke a small business. During normal call situations a small business phone system should be capable of handling several calls at once. If the system can't manage more than a couple of calls then the system may be loosing customers.

Do you know haw many calls you are missing? If you line is busy and someone gets your voice mail do you get notified? We have a new feature for our clients, Hang Up Notification. This new feature will send an email to you, as if the caller had left a message.

Small offices with only a hand full of phones and phone lines have the challenge of how much phone system will be right for them. Buy too much and you waste money, buy to little and you don't get the features that you need.

When you setup your business phone services you may consider the receptionist at the front desk as a key component to the system. She (or he) will screen your calls giving you the option to take the call or not. In an automated phone system a Virtual Receptionist will screen your calls and give you the option of being connected or not in much the same way.

Many phone companies have basic call routers called Centrex. They are a very simplified PBX allowing their customers to have basic call routing to phones in an office without having an internal phone system. These Centrex services usually have a single recorded menu and have hard coded call routing to the phones in the office.

I have been answering questions on FixYa.com about small office phone systems. Primarily the AT&T and Panasonic 4 line phones. One of the most common issues is integrating the phone with a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). The phone usually has an intercom problem or lit line when the line is hung up.