New Year, New Phone System

It’s the start of a New Year and once we’ve all tidied away those Christmas decorations and polished off that last piece of stilton and chocolate, we’ll probably be doing what all well-intentioned people are doing, setting ourselves some hopeful, yet probably unachievable New Year’s resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions are often hard to stick to, but usually come from the very best of intentions, driven by the desire to make your life better in some way. But have you ever thought about making New Year’s resolutions for your business?

What could you change in 2023 to make your business run smoother? Or make your colleagues’ lives easier? Or provide your customers with a better experience?

Now, we might be a little biased but we believe that successful businesses are built on great communication and collaboration. And at the heart of that sits your phone system. So, if you experienced any 2022 niggles with your existing phone system then implementing something new is a must-have resolution for 2023.

Our top 5 phone resolutions for 2023

Resolution #1: Make it scalable.

After the devastation of COVID-19, businesses are looking at 2023 to be a year of growth, so if your phone system doesn’t easily scale you need one that can. Look for a provider that offers flexible contracts and allows for users to be added and removed at any time. And obviously it needs to be cloud-based so it’s easy to move to new sites as you expand giving a seamless transition for your colleagues and your customers.

Resolution #2: Embrace the cloud.

If your business still uses any ISDN or PSTN services, from September this year you won’t be able to make any changes to your services, you won’t even be able to add new users. Cloud voice solutions are growing in functionality and the best are now rivalling unified communications and contact centre solutions for integrated features, giving a far superior calling experience for customers and collaboration experience for colleagues. Plus, in the vast majority of situations a cloud phone system will save you considerable money over an on-premises system.

Resolution #3: Look to the future.

Covid-19 showed us all that we need to be prepared for anything. With communications being core to every organisation, being out of touch is simply not an option. You need to have a phone solution that keeps people in touch with each other and your customers wherever they are. There’s also the rising trend of workers seeking hybrid or remote roles – according to a report by Owl Labs, 38% of jobs originally designed to be in the office are now either fully remote or a hybrid of in office and remote hours. And on top of this, 2023 sees a considerable update to the Government’s Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill with employees now being able to request flexible working from day-one of employment, being able to make two requests each year and reducing the employer’s time to respond to just two months (from three). Giving staff more say over their working pattern has proven to make for happier employees and a more productive business, so with this wholehearted commitment to working flexibility, it’s imperative that businesses are adopting a more flexible anywhere, any device communications strategy too.

Resolution #4: Achieve more for less

There’s a cost-of-living crisis going on which is having a knock-on effect to every business, so the last thing you want to be doing is investing in new systems, right? However, in the vast majority of cases, upgrading your phone system to a more modern version will actually save you money. Not only in the monthly service charge but also by providing you with greater visibility of your customer calls so you can better streamline and manage your teams, ensuring an optimal customer experience at all times. No missed calls mean no missed sales opportunities. You’ll also get access to many more features – functionality like SMS and WhatsApp integration to allow you to open up new customer communication channels; or mobile and softphone apps to enable anywhere working. Plus, as it’s all in the Cloud there’s no expensive maintenance costs like there is with an on-premises solution.

Resolution #5: Go big or go home

The truth is that technology moves on all the time, so if you’ve had your phone system for a while then there’s going to be something better out there for a better price. We’ve recently partnered with Xelion, an innovative new cloud phone provider that combines the best of communication and collaboration functionality to give businesses a single platform for calling, video, instant messaging, Teams and more. It also integrates with unlimited CRM platforms so colleagues have instant access to customer data. It’s got everything on your 2023 phone wish list at a price your CFO will love!

If a new phone system has made it onto your New Year’s Resolution list, then we’d love to have a chat and give you a 5 minute demo of our cloud telephony platform which we promise ticks all the boxes in your 2023 wish list!

Email us at  hello@windsor-telecom.co.uk, or give us a call on 0800 160 1111.