When considering phone systems, you want to make sure that your business gets wired up with the right one. When you're selecting among phone systems, you don't want to be too casual about the matter. Your business is going to rely heavily on your telephone system; the last thing you want to do is install and then rely upon an inferior telephone system.

You will want to know the best features available and in demand for small business phone systems today. Let's look at some of them.

1) Voicemail. Without voicemail, where would we be? We love voicemail in our personal lives, and we should definitely be making use of it in our small businesses. Yet it's amazing how many people who run small businesses still like to rely on hand-written sticky notes and the like. Don't neglect the voicemail feature for your business telephone system. Just because voicemail is ubiquitous today doesn't mean taking it for granted.

2) Off-hours greetings. When your office is closed, people are still going to call. Do you really want to lose out on opportunity, or fail to service a customer entirely? When you include off-hours greetings in your telephone system features, you give personable service to people even when you aren't there. This leaves a positive impression in callers' minds--and thus leaves a positive impression about your business.

3) VoIP. You can save a ton of money with this Internet-driven telephone system feature. You can also have multiple locations linked, no matter where they are.

4) Customized on-hold messages. Did you know that 70% of people who are put on hold have to stay on hold for an average of 43 seconds? That's longer than the length of the usual television commercial. That means on-hold messages about your business are very inexpensive means of advertising--and allow you to take advantage of countless numbers of captive audience members.

5) Warranties and Guarantees. This may seem obvious, but you want to make sure you have the best of these that you can find. Today's telephone system is delicate and sophisticated. You want your investment protected by a great service warranty.

These are just a few of the phone system features that you should consider for your busieness' telephone system.

By John Kirzno