The holiday season is often when your business phone system gets put under the most strain. Even if you aren’t a retailer, many people try to work in service calls and other needs or your employees may have to make more outgoing calls than the rest of the year to reach their quotas. Your business phone system needs to be able to handle the increased incoming and outgoing calls without losing business.

How do you ensure your small business phone system is up to the task? There are a few signs that can help you determine its status.

  1. Can your current phone system handle an increased number of incoming and outgoing calls? It may serve you well during the slower seasons, but is your phone system able to keep up during the busy season, too? Much like the power companies, they must design the electrical grid to handle the largest power pulls, not just the average power usage.

  2. When you are on the line, do you sometimes hear clicking or static sounds during winter? This may mean the phone unit itself, the phone system or some of the wiring is failing, or that adverse weather conditions are affecting your service.

  3. Is your business phone system scalable? It is often wise to plan for your business to expand, so you need to have room to grow. If you are nearing your system’s capacity, it may be time to upgrade.

  4. Do calls get dropped for no apparent reason or do voice mail messages disappear (or never get saved)? These basic functions need to work for your company to succeed.

  5. How often do you need to make service calls for your phone system? When you are taking time and money to call for service repairs regularly, consider the annual cost of fixing an ever-failing phone system versus installing a new system. It’s not as expensive as you think when you pick the right provider and system.

  6. Are your current phone services cutting into your holiday profits? Many of our clients save hundreds of dollars or more on the monthly costs for their phone bill when they upgrade.

  7. Is your phone system able to support VoIP business solutions and is it compatible with your newer networking equipment?

This year’s holiday sales are expected to increase 4.1% nationwide over 2011 sales figures, according to the National Retail Federation. Is your business phone system ready? If not, or you aren’t sure, you can contact us for a no-obligation assessment of your current system and a quote for a new installation if your current system is obsolete.