Choosing a Phone System for Multiple Office Locations in 2024

Coordinating a business with many offices can sometimes be challenging. Whether it is related to stock or organizing time with the members, it is always essential to keep everyone on the same page. 

But what about communication? Having conventional telephone connections is no longer efficient, mainly when your employees work in different areas.

This is where a multi-location phone system proves to be beneficial for your business. These empowering devices extend beyond fundamental communication aspects in getting the calls done by 2024.

Likewise, centralized online management of the phone system across all locations via a single dashboard is a critical feature, with 85% of businesses ranking it as a top priority.

So, without wasting time, let’s delve into this blog and learn more about a business phone system that can help you in multiple office locations.

What is a Business Phone System?

A business phone system is highly different from a conventional landline configuration. It comes with a well-developed network to support a company’s needs. This goes beyond having multiple phone lines, and one can allocate phone extensions to personnel and departments and forward calls based on specific program configurations.

Additional functionalities such as voicemail greetings, auto answering systems, conferencing, and even call recording could make communication easier. A business phone system helps build effective internal and external communication systems that improve employees’ productivity and deliver the best customer service.

While older analog-based systems known as Private Branch Exchange (PBX) use the regular telephone network, newer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems use the Internet instead. Many VoIP businesses with branches nationwide or state and cloud-based VoIP phone systems are the most scalable and relatively cheap for large-scale usage.

What kinds of phone systems are suitable for businesses with multiple locations?

VoIP systems present a solution for interaction for industries with several offices nationwide. These systems use the internet for call connection and do not require phone lines at various locations. Here’s a breakdown of the different VoIP systems suitable for multi-location businesses:

• Cloud-Based Phone Systems: The most common type of these systems, the setups, are exclusively provided by a service provider, which makes them simple and efficient to implement, use, and integrate. The company provides call routing, voicemail, and video conferencing in all its locations.

• PBX (Private Branch Exchange) Systems: Traditional PBX systems need physical hardware installation on site but provide better management and security options. However, the prospect of cloud PBX has been emerging lately. It combines capacity and control with some cloud and on-site functions.

• Hybrid Phone Systems: These are also called hybrid services because they include some cloud and some localized solutions. Although they may use a cloud-based platform as an interface to handle calls, they may still retain on-premise telephones in some areas.

• Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS): This goes a step further than regular communication by adding other features, like voice calls, video conferences, and real-time messaging, among others, to ensure proper communication between the teams and sites.

• Virtual Phone Systems: These offer essential phone service and may comprise call forwarding and voicemail, though sufficient for extensive businesses with multiple locations but limited communication needs.

How to Choose a Phone System for a Business with Multiple Locations? 

After you’ve learned about the benefits of a multi-location phone system, here are eight key factors to consider when choosing the best one for your business:

1. Deployment Type

Depending on your company’s requirements and preferences, there are two broad categories of business phone solutions: VoIP-based systems, which are convenient to scale but may be fully managed remotely or require IT equipment, while on-premises solutions are more customizable but utilize physical hardware to operate.

2. Number of locations and users

When selecting the most appropriate Phone System for an organization with multiple establishments, you should consider the number of offices and employees. The system should be able to support the current call volume and, as the volume increases in the future, the future volume.

3. Features

VoIP telephone services companies offer customers various features. Some are call routing, auto attendant, voicemail transcription, video conferencing, and support for integrating with Customer Relationship Management or project management systems.

4. Scalability

To select your business correctly, you should also consider whether the service provider can grow with your business and meet your company’s evolving needs. Similarly, you can effortlessly search for solutions for changing your ISD code and options to add or delete phone lines and extensions.

5. Budget

Various companies offering a particular service often have different pricing options regarding the service offered so that you can consider and compare pricing structures like initial costs, monthly charges, charges per user, etc.

6. Security

As a business owner, you want to ensure that every customer information you gather and store is secure. Thus, you must select a system with encoding capabilities and ensure that the service provider company meets the best possible uptime assurance requirements.

7. Ease of use

You may want to consider the technical competencies of your in-house IT staff and personnel. Likewise, you can also select a machine with easy-to-understand control options that will make customer support easily accessible and easier to approach.

8. Provider Reputation

Since most business owners nowadays rely on numerous services from various providers, you can investigate potential vendors’ performance, clients’ feedback, and overall preparedness to assist similar businesses with analogous requirements.

Benefits of Multi-Location Phone Systems:

If you maintain the same business phone number in different places, the changes in your business become very easy to locate. Here is how companies with multiple offices or remote workers could benefit from the multi-location phone system:

• Enhanced Customer Experience: When your company’s team is located in various places, one phone number helps customers to call from any place and speak with the right team without having to re-dial or get tangled in the web of options provided.

• Improved Internal Collaboration: This is especially vital for large companies located in various locations with many employees in different departments; with extension dialing, employees can effortlessly reach out to workers in different offices, which is good for teamwork and project flow.

• Streamlined Call Management: A Multi-Location Phone System is advantageous for your business. Regardless of the location being called, calls from your customers are adequately distributed and routed, allowing calls to be fixed by the best and most qualified representatives in the shortest time possible.

• Cost Savings: Your office’s several branches may need separate phone lines with different phone numbers. However, multi-location phone systems eliminate the need for separate phone lines, reducing overall telecommunication expenses.

• Increased Flexibility:  Cloud-based multi-location systems allow your employees to work remotely or travel freely while staying connected through mobile apps and softphones. By being flexible, businesses can keep employees happy, save money, and stay ahead of the curve in a changing world.

Top 3 Phone Systems For Your Business With Multiple Locations:

Now that you know what VoIP service providers are, we can move to our next task: selecting one to use in multiple office locations. To assist you, here is a list of top VoIP service providers, sorted by customer reviews, services offered, price, and availability worldwide:

1. KrispCall:

KrispCall appears on this list, focusing on affordability and functionality and paying attention to small businesses, enterprises, and call centers. It is a well-known cloud-based VoIP service provider with near-perfect customer ratings on various review websites, and it is trusted by over 4,500 businesses in more than 100 countries.

What distinguishes it from the competition is the broad range of features, such as call transfer, number sharing, and global calling, which are suitable for any type of use, all at an affordable price and with an easy-to-use interface. It also provides toll-free, local, mobile, and business virtual numbers, which you can use to form an efficient and well-connected team.

⚡Features:

• Unified Callbox
• Call Monitoring
• DND for Agents
• Shared Number
• Call Analytics

✅Pros:

• High-quality calls.
• An easy-to-use user interface.
• Modern features and innovative design.

❌Cons:

• Apps for Windows and Mac OS are not currently available.
• Its usage requires a stable Internet connection.

💰Pricing:

• Essential: $15 monthly/user
• Standard: $40 monthly/user
• Enterprise: Designed by you

2. Nextiva:

Nextiva is a business communication company that offers cloud-based solutions to businesses. That includes VoIP phones, video and text messaging software, and other communications and collaboration tools that can aid companies in expanding their reach and becoming more efficient.

Nextiva’s focus on reliability, affordability, and innovation makes it an ideal communications tool for businesses seeking an easy-to-use solution that will not disappoint. Additionally, it allows for integration with several platforms, makes the services convenient and accessible at a reasonable price, and has variants for businesses of different sizes.

⚡Features:

• Screen sharing
• Auto Attendant (Multi-Level).
• Custom Integrations.
• Voicemail Transcriptions.
• Unlimited voice & video calling.

✅Pros:

• Canada and U.S. unlimited calling.
• Centralized communications management.
• Reliable support.

❌Cons:

• Issues with mobile apps.
• Inconvenient subscription contract.
• Not best for small businesses.

💰Pricing:

• Essential: $25.95 per user per month.
• Professional: $30.95 per user per month.
• Enterprise: $ 40.95 per user per month.

3. 8×8:

8×8 is a cloud-based telephony solution with many features to enhance customer relationships and speed up the business communication process. Making the calling process automated, 8×8’s predictive dialer applies advanced dialing algorithms to predictive dialing. 

This is possible due to its compatibility with different CRM solutions, thus promoting smooth work. Small businesses may not require all the features of 8×8, which raises their pricing model and may lead them to switch to other service providers.

⚡Features:

• Group Talk
• Video conferences
• Call handling
• Integration with third parties
• Transcription of voicemail to email

✅Pros:

• Outstanding audio quality
• Fantastic fax and voicemail function
• A delightful mobile application

❌Cons:

• Inadequate SIP connections
• There are outdated documents available.
• Poor quality of client service

💰Pricing:

• Contact Sales Teams

Conclusion

Communication has become essential in today’s ever-expanding and decentralized business environment. You can choose a multi-location phone system suitable for your business based on the number of locations, scalability requirements, and features you will need. This will help improve the company’s communication system and customer relations and equip your employees with the tools to achieve this.

As technology develops, traditional telephony systems are increasingly replaced by cloud-based VoIP solutions such as KrispCall. These solutions provide the elements that businesses today need, namely flexibility, affordability, and adaptability, making them a potential favorite for those looking for a sound investment for the future. 

Therefore, to avoid rushing into a decision and missing out on better opportunities that could suit you better, Book a free demo with KrispCall to see firsthand how their platform can revolutionize communication within your multi-location business.