The best business phone systems: medium / large companies

As you’ve probably noticed, most of the information you find (on the Internet), for business phone systems, is targeted at small companies. Small companies are the majority of businesses, so it makes sense why it is mostly what you see written about.

What about a mid-size to large businesses? What are the best phone systems for a bigger company? Are the best solutions for medium or large companies, different than the solutions for small businesses?

As a long-time business telecom consultant, (who works with nearly all the business telecom solutions on the planet), I’ve worked with both large and small phone systems, many times over. The answer is yes… they are a little different.

Don’t get me wrong… every company needs to scan the features they need vs. what is being offered by each vendor. There are a few key criteria, however, which are insignificant to small companies but “must-haves” for most medium or large companies.

If your large company purchases a phone system without these five key criteria, you’ll probably be gnashing your teeth for the next 3 years. The five things to look for are: Hosted PBX; Low Cost per User; Customizable User Permission Templates; Ability to Add Users Manually; and Hybrid Capabilities.

I will explain each, and why they are critical for bigger companies.

Hosted PBX

Medium and large-size companies typically have multiple locations and remote users. For this reason alone, a Hosted (Cloud-based) Phone System (a.k.a. PBX), makes the most sense. Here’s why:

• Better call quality for all employees. Each site’s phones connect to your hosted VoIP provider’s nearest data center (rather than having to back-track to corporate).
• No need for a complicated project, configuring nationwide phones to talk to one-another, configuring an MPLS network, etc.
• Fully managed by the hosted VoIP provider. No more dispatching local phone vendors at each site to make changes to the phone system.
• Only pay for what you are using, as your company scales up and down.
• More uptime, because you’re not relying on phone lines. Employees have mobile apps and soft phones which can receive calls. Calls can also be re-routed to other sites, within seconds, through the admin portal.

Cost per User

Medium and large companies are best-suited with a hosted PBX, but they must be careful to pick a solution with a pricing model suited for large companies.

Most hosted PBX providers are targeting small companies and therefore, have pricing plans which only fit small companies. This means they include (and charge for), a call path for every user.

Larger companies, however, do not need a call path for every user. In fact, they typically only need one call path for every four users. Therefore, medium and large companies need to find a hosted VoIP provider who charges for users and call paths, separately.

I can’t emphasize this point enough. This pricing strategy, alone, can reduce the cost of hosted VoIP by 50%, for bigger companies.

User Permission Templates

With many hosted VoIP phone systems, every time a new user is added, the admin must manually checkbox each permission item, for that employee (i.e. international calling blocked, call monitoring blocked, call recording allowed, visibility of other employees’ call records, etc.). This can be torture if your company adds new employees on a constant basis (as many medium and large companies do).

There’s a better way… Some hosted PBX service providers allow the admin to create custom templates for users (i.e. sales, customer service, management, etc.). This will save you hours… You’re welcome!

Add/remove users manually

As we discussed above, your company has employees coming and going a lot (just because of the sheer number of people employed for the organization). Another snafu you don’t want to learn the hard way is some hosted PBX providers do not allow you to manually add new users or delete users from your phone system. Instead, you must call them and place an order for a user to be added or removed.

This is a real pain for bigger companies. You already have a lot of work to do. You don’t want to continually have to place orders with providers and wait an hour or two… when you could have done it in five minutes with another hosted PBX provider. So, find a hosted VoIP provider who allows you to add or remove users, manually, without their help.

Hybrid Phone System

Let me guess, you don’t want to convert your entire company to the new phone system right away. You want to move to hosted PBX, in a phased approach, right? You’re not alone. What medium or large company has every single site, needing the exact same timing? Nobody.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could install one site at a time, and the new phone system would still be able to interconnect with the old phone system? Well, it’s possible. Some hosted PBX service providers are “hybrid capable” and can interconnect to your existing on-prem phone systems.

There are obviously a ton of other business phone system features your company should consider but those five are important specifically for medium to large-size companies.

Once you have those five items dialed-in, you can switch your focus to all the other features and functionalities your company needs in their phone system.

By using this approach, you will eventually narrow the field, down to the best phone system for your company.

Here is a good place to start, which will allow you to filter the best business VoIP solutions, by the criteria I mentioned, above.

Email or call me (877-465-3505), with your questions!

About the Author
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.