At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX
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@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
5 way conference call functionality, I'm assuming that means from the phone its self you can conference 5 telephone numbers.
This is outside of any conference service you may have. That's pretty nice.
That's not very interesting. That's a "for companies so small that they don't have a PBX" feature. If you have a PBX, you get unlimited conference calling capacity from that. No need for the phone to do it.
But in terms of a basic feature it's nice to have. "Oh I'll just conference everyone in" granted it's for the SOHO and MP businesses.
Even a SOHO should have a PBX. Once you are up to two or three people...
I would very much question this logic. An office of 2 or 3 people should have a PBX? Really? 2 or 3 people seems on the meh... use your cell phone scale. ..
Cell phones beyond a single user doesn't look like a business to outside callers. PBX gives you that professional appearance. If you don't use phones at all, of course that's a different matter, but if that were the case you'd not need a conference phone for the PSTN, you'd just use Skype or whatever. Once you are in this space, a PBX is needed.
Think about it, at what size do you stop telling people to just use their Yahoo Email accounts? One user.
Why most people can't tell the difference between a cellular number and a SIP or Pots number. It would simply appear to be a DID.
I get the argument, but I don't think at such a tiny scale do you go out and setup a PBX.
They can tell when each person in the company has an unrelated DID from a different city and that they take it with them when they quit
True, but why purchase DID's and go through the hassle when you're a SOHO or Mom and Pop shop?
For the reasons that I listed. What's your alternative in a realistic business? You really want a business that runs completely off of one person's cell phone? If you are a one person business and have zero intention to grow, okay. But once you grow to mom and pop status, it's too late and that's a problem.
How is a mom and pop or SOHO business not able to use a "home" phone or cell for business uses? It makes sense that they could use a PBX, but I don't see it has they "should".
So, I'm trying to follow this, you have your staff (mom and pop businesses have staff) and you give up your cell phone and leave it with whoever is working correctly? You are assuming that the owner(s) don't keep a cell phone with them?
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Or all calls, around the clock, go to the owner's published cell phone and they never travel or don't have their phone with them and deal with the calls themselves at all hours of the day and night? They put their cell phone numbers on their website or whatever?
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No I'm making the assumption that a Mom and Pop are literally the entire business. Both of whom work for the business.
Mom takes the calls, Pops does the work.
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@dustinb3403 said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
No I'm making the assumption that a Mom and Pop are literally the entire business. Both of whom work for the business.
Mom takes the calls, Pops does the work.
Even two people, you'd likely not want to be dealing with a cell phone that is also your personal phone, for the business and a cell phone is more costly than corporate VoIP. So even in the "two person business" a cell phone would almost never make sense. But a real mom and pop, would certainly need a real business phone system. Mom and pop does not refer to a two person business, but to family owners.
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Even most one person businesses would want to reconsider making their person phone the business phone as well. Email, maybe, but phone, almost never. You don't want customers having the same access that your wife does.
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@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
You don't want customers having the same access that your wife does.
That's sexist scott!
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@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
Even most one person businesses would want to reconsider making their person phone the business phone as well. Email, maybe, but phone, almost never. You don't want customers having the same access that your wife does.
I don't even want my wife having the access my wife has..... lol j/k
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@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
m and deal with the calls themselves at all hours of the day and night? They put their cell phone numbers on their website or
I tend to agree with Scott - the business should have it's own phone number, pretty much no matter what. So you could be super cheap and get a SIP trunk from voip.ms and connect it to a SIP app on your cellphone, and all of your employees could do the same, etc.
Or you can get a hosted phone solution that uses voip.ms for PSTN access and SIP clients from cell phones or VOIP phones to the PBX.
Or you can get your own PBX, put it wherever you want and again, use voip.ms for PSTN access and SIP client on cellphone or VOIP phones.
But simply skipping having a dedicated business phone number? that seems kinda crazy.
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As @dashrender just said, there is no realistic reason not to have a business number.
The PBX can anywhere, even part of the provider as illustrated by his point of having the phone talk straight to VoIP.ms.
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@dashrender said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
m and deal with the calls themselves at all hours of the day and night? They put their cell phone numbers on their website or
I tend to agree with Scott - the business should have it's own phone number, pretty much no matter what. So you could be super cheap and get a SIP trunk from voip.ms and connect it to a SIP app on your cellphone, and all of your employees could do the same, etc.
Or you can get a hosted phone solution that uses voip.ms for PSTN access and SIP clients from cell phones or VOIP phones to the PBX.
Or you can get your own PBX, put it wherever you want and again, use voip.ms for PSTN access and SIP client on cellphone or VOIP phones.
But simply skipping having a dedicated business phone number? that seems kinda crazy.
You can even setup a Google Voice number with all the trappings that go along with it.
There is almost 0 cost to having a business phone today.
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@coliver said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
@dashrender said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
@scottalanmiller said in Yealink CP960 - non-owner review:
m and deal with the calls themselves at all hours of the day and night? They put their cell phone numbers on their website or
I tend to agree with Scott - the business should have it's own phone number, pretty much no matter what. So you could be super cheap and get a SIP trunk from voip.ms and connect it to a SIP app on your cellphone, and all of your employees could do the same, etc.
Or you can get a hosted phone solution that uses voip.ms for PSTN access and SIP clients from cell phones or VOIP phones to the PBX.
Or you can get your own PBX, put it wherever you want and again, use voip.ms for PSTN access and SIP client on cellphone or VOIP phones.
But simply skipping having a dedicated business phone number? that seems kinda crazy.
You can even setup a Google Voice number with all the trappings that go along with it.
There is almost 0 cost to having a business phone today.
For a single line business, even really high end services like RingCentral are a drop in the bucket. $25/mo for unlimited minutes on a single line? No brainer if that's the high end.
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It's additional money on top of what is already in place, be it a home phone, a cell phone or something else entirely.
I don't entirely disagree, but if there is added cost for something as trivial as a phone for a tiny 1 or 2 person business, why bother?
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@dustinb3403 said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
It's additional money on top of what is already in place, be it a home phone, a cell phone or something else entirely.
Sure, but those don't meet the needs of a normal business, even most one person businesses.
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@dustinb3403 said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
I don't entirely disagree, but if there is added cost for something as trivial as a phone for a tiny 1 or 2 person business, why bother?
But the cost is trivial, but the need is not. It is very rare that publishing a personal cell phone is not a big deal, and rarer still that a company will go sans phone contact all together.
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But there is cost involved. A business owner having their cell phone tied to the business and for personal if there is any chance of growing now runs the issue of having to either re-brand their business for phone etc (this is actually a big mistake small businesses make) or give up their personal cell number and have it ported over for a PBX system and then have to deal with the cell phone company to get a new number etc.
The cost is so tiny now for a PBX or google voice number that a business just shows how little they know about running a business and their longevity when they don't take the time to be a fully operational business with real phone lines etc.
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I spend a lot of time helping small businesses undo all their bad decisions from when they started. Phones are just one of many.
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That's a big piece. Get this wrong and it haunts you for a long time.
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@minion-queen said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
business
If I want to buy a business and it emails all to someone's personal email that's going to be a pain in the ass.
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2-3 seems large when I'm setting one up just for myself, now that I know my cell phone randomly refuses to go to voice mail
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@travisdh1 said in At What Size Should a Business Have a PBX:
2-3 seems large when I'm setting one up just for myself, now that I know my cell phone randomly refuses to go to voice mail
WTF?
