A CALL TO ARMS - National Association of Professional Allstate ...

technology tipsIs VoIP Right for Me?How to Find the Best Fit for your agencyBY JACKIE FUNKSmall business owners are facingdaunting challenges across theboard. No one knows where the economywill be a year from now. That unpredictability,combined with a credit crunchthat is hitting small businesses particularlyhard, has small companies minimizingcapital expenditures and hunkeringdown to “just make it through.”Many Allstate agents, who are facingthese same challenges, are investing everyavailable resource into their businesses toensure survival. With competition forcustomers becoming stiffer by the day,it’s more important than ever to buildup your agency to look and sound like a“bigger” business. To facilitate these newstrategies, many agency owners are takinga fresh look at the way their businesshandles day-to-day communications.In a robust economic environment, traditionalphone services are rarely the bestfit for a small business. In tighter times,the consequences of this poor fit becomeeven easier to see. Traditional phone servicecan hurt a small business’s prospectsfor growth or survival by draining moneyand hampering productivity. Small businessowners who are looking to squeezeevery last measure of savings, efficiencyand productivity from all of their officesystems can ill-afford the drawbacks oftraditional phone service:• Cost. The high cost of a full-blownpremise-based PBX network with powerfulbusiness communication featuresputs it out of reach for most small companies.That fact alone forces small businessowners to choose between affordabilityand functionality. The choicemany end up making is to start theircompanies with a few basic lines fromthe local phone company, which typicallycost more and offer only limitedfunctionality.• Complexity. Traditional, premisebasedPBXs require a business to purchase,install, and maintain equipmenton-site, adding a layer of complexity thatsmaller companies can’t always manage.• Inflexibility. As a company grows, itcan be hard to make a traditional phonesystem grow along with it. Adding a newoffice means adding a new phone system.If the new office is geographically distant,that new phone system could comefrom an entirely different provider withan entirely different feature set.• Limited functionality. The more acompany grows, the more critical advancedcommunication and productivity toolsbecome to its success. With traditionalphone service, many of these tools remainunavailable to small companies unless theyupgrade to a costlier full PBX.VoIP: Changing the Way SmallBusinesses Do Business.Small businesses no longer have to“make do” with phone systems that were38 — Exclusivefocus Fall 2009