As your consumer goods and services SMB rapidly grows, your phone system needs to match the pace and help you scale seamlessly. If it doesn’t provide the likes of CRM integration, AI-driven analytics, intelligent call routing, and compliance features, it can’t offer the support your business demands to help you better connect with leads.
As SMBs expand, they need an all-in-one phone system to handle changing demands in lead management and workflow coordination. In this blog, we’ll explore how all the aforementioned features—plus others like power dialing and call tagging and dispositions—should be non-negotiables in your search for the ideal phone system.
Table of Contents
Understanding your phone system needs
Before diving into recommended phone system features, it’s important to assess your business’ specific communication requirements. You’ll want to consider the following:
- Call volume: What is the scope of outbound and inbound calls that you anticipate daily?
- Conversation types: Are you primarily communicating with leads, current customers, partners, or all of these?
- Conversation channels: Does your business rely on voice calling, text (SMS) broadcasting, or both? Do you plan to emphasize one channel over the other, or will you use them together to drive growth?
- Geographic reach: Are you serving local customers, or do you have a global footprint? If it’s the latter case, you’ll need to ensure your platform supports international calling and helps you navigate associated costs and regulations.
By understanding these aspects, you can make the best decision to support your unique operational needs. Now let’s examine some important attributes that your new phone system should include.
Scalability
As a consumer goods or services company, your growth trajectory may fluctuate. A phone system should be scalable to accommodate your business evolution in the following ways:
- Easy expansion: Look for platforms that allow you to add or remove lines effortlessly as your team grows or contracts.
- Cloud-based solutions: Prioritize cloud contact centers that provide flexibility, enabling your team to work from anywhere without sacrificing synchronicity.
- AI-driven analytics: SMB growth is hard to achieve when you don’t have accessible data on call center operations. While many platforms provide performance analytics, they’re often cumbersome to retrieve and require sifting through spreadsheets. Look for a platform with AI voice analytics that consolidate activity reports, making it simple to digest your sales team progress at a glance.
Aloware’s secure cloud contact center is designed to support scaling SMBs, ensuring that you can easily adapt to changing business conditions and view the data you need to make smart business decisions.
Tech stack integration
Your phone system shouldn’t operate in a silo. It should integrate with your existing tools and workflows to enhance productivity in these ways:
- CRM Integration: A phone system that integrates deeply with your CRM empowers your team to automatically log all phone interactions there so you can quickly review account communication history. This improves service since reps can access any customer’s previous concerns and identifying information on demand.
- Call disposition and outcome tagging: Busy SMB managers need to instantly understand the status of all pipeline deals without searching for clues or depending on reps to provide updates. By requiring your team to log the disposition and outcome of every call, you can quickly review lead viability in your CRM and determine next steps.
Aloware excels in CRM integration, syncing with all major CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, Zoho, Pipedrive and others. This functionality helps your team access customer information in real-time and facilitate more personalized interactions.
Sales power dialer
Maximizing sales means acquiring and retaining more customers, and phone systems should empower consumer goods and services companies to achieve this. Since your success hinges on connecting with leads and providing them a quality customer experience, you need a phone system that improves pickup rates and consumer trust in cold calling.
Opting for a power dialer that prioritizes personal connections and verifies consumer contact details helps your reps maximize their time and avoid wasting it on poor quality leads. Unlike predictive dialers which raise carriers’ spam antennae and create a subpar customer experience, power dialers ensure rep availability for every call. They also help your reps achieve:
- More talking, less dialing: With features like branded caller ID and local presence to boost pickup rates, your team won’t be stuck spinning their wheels trying to make promising cold call connections.
- Time-saving shortcuts: The right phone system won’t slow your reps down with manual note taking and other mundane tasks like waiting to record voicemails. Ensure your power dialer has a built-in warm up period, instant voicemail drop, and easy call back buttons for double dialing.
AI-driven workflow automations
Scaling SMBs often see their processes lag behind rapid growth, costing them potential missed revenue while their team catches up. If you choose a phone system that optimizes workflow efficiency on your behalf, you won’t be left scrambling to adjust with every fluctuation in volume. The best solutions for consumer goods and services companies leverage AI to relieve you of this challenge, helping you:
- Optimize speed to lead: Don’t waste precious time following up with new leads after they engage with your marketing content. With Aloware’s AI SMS chatbot, you can text leads immediately after they indicate an openness to connecting—and qualify them before bringing in a human rep.
- Route calls intelligently: Instead of relying on inefficient manual lead assignments, let your CRM use AI logic to create the best matches. Aloware analyzes your CRM records to determine the proper reps to handle sales and support calls, so your customers always get the best service your team can provide.
Reliability and support
A phone system is only as good as its reliability. Downtime can lead to lost sales and frustrated customers, so you’ll want to look for:
- Uptime guarantees: Prioritize providers that offer high uptime guarantees (at least 99.9%.) Otherwise, your team will be frustrated with poor access and stalled business operations.
- White-glove customer support: Evaluate the availability and quality of customer support—when you’re in a bind, you don’t want to be stuck on hold or left waiting days for an email response. Choosing a provider that offers dedicated account management support ensures you’ll always have a consultant and partner in your corner.
Security and compliance
For consumer goods and services companies, choosing a compliant phone system is vital for maintaining customer trust and avoiding legal pitfalls. Here are essential compliance features to consider:
- Easy carrier registration: Select a system that simplifies the carrier registration process and expedites approvals.
- Branded caller ID: Look for platforms that allow you to display your company name and branding during calls, enhancing your professional image and improving answer rates.
- CNAM support: Easily link your business identity with your phone number for carriers, helping to establish trust and legitimacy with prospects.
- A2P 10DLC support: A compliant system should facilitate A2P 10DLC registration, allowing for effective text outreach using ten-digit long codes tailored to local markets.
- STIR/SHAKEN compliance: Ensure your system adheres to STIR/SHAKEN regulations to distinguish your calls from robocalls, boosting credibility and answer rates.
Aloware’s cloud contact center incorporates these compliance features and more, enabling your business to connect effectively while minimizing risk.
Cost considerations
Finally, while it’s essential to invest in a reliable phone system, you also need to keep an eye on total costs—which can quickly add up. Make sure your ultimate choice provides:
- Transparent pricing: Choose a provider that offers clear, upfront pricing without hidden fees.
- Return on investment: Consider how your platform will help you measure increased call center efficiency, improved customer service, and higher quality business relationships.
Conclusion
Selecting the right phone system for your consumer goods or services company is a big decision with immense potential to enhance your communication, improve your customer experience, and drive overall business growth.
Aloware stands out by addressing these key considerations effectively. With our best-in-class features and workflow automations, we’re poised to help you boost team productivity and drive your business forward.
Improve sales connectionsGrow your consumer goods or services SMB with our all-in-one phone system. Sign up for a free 14-day trial or book a demo today.
