Sifting Through Cobwebs & Dust: Time for a Phone System Spring Cleaning

It’s hard to find the motivation to exert physical activity during the winter—especially when it comes to routine cleaning. But with the sunlight streaming and the birds chirping, now’s the time to ask that critical question: when was the last time you did a little spring cleaning surrounding your office phone system?

Just like a busted mop or clogged vacuum, your legacy phone system could be hampering your productivity and ability to compete aggressively in the business world. Despite this, a many consumers and entrepreneurs still routinely pass on innovative technologies.

“It can take a surprisingly long time for technologies to really fall by the wayside,” Steve Koenig, head of Industry Analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association, said in a recent article. In fact, according to a CEA study, only 13 to 15 percent of consumers are considered early adopters when it comes to bleeding-edge technologies and more than 60 percent are fine waiting a considerable amount of time before upgrading to newer and better technologies.

But do you really want to be one of them?

With spring upon us, now is the time to dig out the cleaning supplies and “look under the bed” at your antiquated phone system. Here are three signs you may want to forgo the traditional landline for a cloud-based phone service:

• Cost Has You Down: Are your international and long-distance fees eating you alive? Are you knee-deep in maintenance and system upgrade expenses? Then it’s time to cast an eye toward a cloud-based phone service. The technology removes the onus of upgrades, repairs and maintenance from your shoulders onto the shoulders of your provider. Moreover, you can say “hello” to a world of economical calling rates.

• The ‘Old Broom’ isn’t Cutting it: There’s a reason the Swiffer was invented; it introduced a more efficient way to clean. Your legacy phone system is much like that old broom. Perhaps it is plagued with shoddy call quality. Or maybe latency and jitter are your biggest hurdles. Either way, the right cloud-based phone service provider will tackle all of these obstacles, allowing you to compete more aggressively with the big boys in the market, improve upon your professionalism and augment efficiency and productivity.

• You are out of Tricks: As a fledgling business owner, innovation is imperative. After all, you don’t need your customers distracted by your amateur technology; rather, you need them focused on your industry-leading offerings and indisputable advantages. By teaming with the right cloud-based phone service provider, you can enjoy a plethora of phone value add-ons such as auto attendants, conferencing calling, voicemail-to-email notification and unified communications, among a others.

So we want to know… are you catching the spring cleaning fever right about now? Is your office phone system the first part of your office you will tackle?