How to Pick the Best Phone Service for your Business
I came to share with you today about the best small business phone systems, because as a small business owner myself (15 years strong!) selecting the right phone system, internet and technology for your business is simply just a pain the ass sometimes! Especially as you grow and work to scale. If you are like me, you may have a team, and you can trust them somewhat. But YOU STILL need to KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW! With that said, let’s get started.
Today I am going to share with you why so far I believe NEXTIVA is the best phone service for just about ANY business currently in 2018. I’m basing this selection off of using several other service providers. Those service providers include Ring Central (they super suck), Vonage and AT&T (The TRUE PIMPS of the Industry) (If you want a SUPER GREAT read about the history of AT&T and Vegas read “Fortune’s Formula” )
I am basing the criteria for this based upon:
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Quality of Sound of Calls
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Reliability of Actual Phone Service
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Ease of usage of the phones
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Ease of usage of the “On-line Control Platforms”
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Hold Music and Message Capabilities
When it comes to phones, maybe you are just starting off with one or two phones and then you need to add some later. This is what I wanted in my solution. Because of the new workplace we live in, where your “office can be anywhere”. You may need phones in different locations, maybe you have call centers all across the state and you need “trunk” capabilities. I wanted a phone system that allowed me to ACTUALLY GET ALL MY CALLS! This is how I got started on this search anyway. AT&T always wants you to sign up for a bunch of stuff you may or may not need. The phones sound great, but I don’t have $100’s of dollars available to throw at a phone system. I had Ring Central for about 5 years, but when I tell you they sucked. That’s an understatement, my phones would ring busy, calls wouldn’t come through, it was the worst! However, I did like that they allowed you to “section lines”, meaning a phone line could ring to 3 different people at the same time, and if they didn’t answer, then it would automatically forward down your “list” so you didn’t miss the calls they actually let you receive. But the customer service was always super friendly, terrible and overseas. I love everybody! However, when on the phone, I really need to understand the help I am getting. Nextiva help is US BASED and SUPER RESPONSIVE! (Don’t believe me? Complete this form) Taylor (my designated rep, they make you feel so special) will get back with you, probably faster than you want him to.
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Quality of Sound of Phones
This is actually two part. The first depends on what actual phone you are using. I have heard phone horror stories. But to me, you really can’t go wrong with Cisco/Linksys Phones. I have had this phone here for 9 years and it is GOING STRONG! How I signed up for Nextiva in the 1st place is, I didn’t want to buy new phones. The phones I had were just fine. So, Nextiva allows you to bring whatever VOIP phones you have already. However, if you don’t have any phones, they have a NICE selection of phones to choose from. They ALMOST got me on the upgrade. BUT…I had recently read this LIFE BUSINESS CHANGING BOOK called “Profits First”, this book showed me how to cut key expenses and grow my profits.
The 2nd part of Sound Quality is your actual internet connection and THEN the provider contrary to popular belief. Your internet connection plays a HUGE part with these VOIP phones. Bad Connection, you sound crazy. However, on the Nextiva service I sound “closer” to the person I am talking to.
Reliability of Phone Service
This is how I found Nextiva in the first place. Like any relationship in life, you wake up one day and say, “You know what? I just can’t take this anymore, ANYTHING is better than this!” So you go out and start to look for something better, anything than what you have at home. Usually 2 things happen, you realize life really does suck sometimes and you currently are getting the best of what you have…OR, you go out and say I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT GOT BETTER THAN THIS! We are all apprehensive, because let’s face it, starting over in ANYTHING is just hard, time consuming and scary. Hence the reason we stay in some mistakes so long. But I had had enough. So I took 2 days out of my life to research all the small business service providers out here. I looked at 8×8, I looked at OOMA, I looked at Vonage again and a few others. In the beginning I wasn’t checking for Nextiva at all. As a matter of fact, true story as to how they got me. I tend to not like to give my phone number out, they found me based on my company name (google) and got my number and called me. They explained their services in detail to me and they were HONEST with me about where they fell short. For example, there “cell phone app” gets a little wonky sometimes, but hey, nobodies perfect. For the price point, I’m not leaving. Once I got switched over, it was few hours of my day, but NOT DAYS! All of a sudden, I didn’t have anymore problems with my phones, I was getting all my calls. They even diagnosed and solved my problem with my previous provider for me, where my actual provider couldn’t figure out what was going on. I have now been with Nextiva for over a year and a half and the service as NEVER gone out. Additionally, I found their online paystub generators extremely convenient, adding another layer of efficiency to my business operations.
Ease of Phone Usage and Platform
The Nextiva Platform is super easy to use and login from anywhere. You can change your hold music, messages, phones, locations and several other features on demand. You don’t have to call anyone to do it for you. But you CAN if want to for NO ADDITIONAL FEES! AT&T doesn’t let you touch anything, Ring Central was restrictive and confusing (as you can see, they made me very upset, they literally had me MISSING MONEY!!!) With Nextiva, you login, change whatever you want, each extension gets it’s own bells and whistles. This platform gives you the perception of being “huge and official”, while you might just be tiny and at the house.
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