Signs You Should Be Changing Your Legacy Phone System

Every business needs a phone system. You need to contact your clients and vendors, and they need to be able to reach you. But at some point, your old system may no longer be enough. The following are some warning signs that you should strongly consider changing your legacy phone system.

High Fees

One of the most obvious signs that you should change your legacy phone system is if you are paying too much. Legacy systems can be more expensive, especially if they don’t take advantage of modern technology. Factors like maintenance and licensing can quickly add up. Or maybe your system comes with high fees for international calls, and your business makes a lot of those.

Lack of Features

Take a look at the features that your current system offers and the capabilities you need. If you can’t do the tasks you need to with your existing phones, you need to think about changing your legacy phone system.

For example, you likely have voicemail, but do you have an after-hours feature that redirects calls after business hours? Do you have a paging feature? What about call recording? Can it support your employees that work remotely? These are factors to consider.

It Can’t Integrate With Features

On a related note, consider whether your phone system can integrate with new features and systems you want to incorporate into your office. For example, maybe you get a new CRM that can integrate with hundreds of systems but not yours – and there is no way to bridge the gap. Even worse, maybe there aren’t any CRMs with the features you need that can integrate with your legacy system.

Security Concerns

You should consider the security of every aspect of your business, including your phone system. Traditional phone systems rely on audio signals that are easily intercepted. But modern systems that use the internet can be more secure, assuming you choose a company with the right security measures in place. This means that you should get the appropriate mobile threat defense system for all your company devices. Yes, the internet is more secure, but there are still threats that your phones need protection from.

Outage Risks

Legacy systems can frequently come with the risk of outages. This is especially true if you rely on traditional landlines. VoIP systems are better equipped to overcome outages. To begin with, they use the internet, so a storm will not knock them out of service – unless all of your power goes out.

In the rare case that happens, these systems are typically set up to automatically forward calls to another number you choose. You can have the system automatically forward your calls to your business cell phone if there is an outage.

It Can’t Be Repaired

Think about the system itself and what happened the last time you needed to replace a part. If that was hard to do, that’s a clear sign that your system is aging beyond the current technology. It simply doesn’t make sense to keep using a system that companies aren’t producing parts for anymore.

Conclusion

Businesses should strongly consider changing their legacy phone system if the fees are too high or it doesn’t offer the features you need. You should also consider an upgrade if there are security concerns or a high risk of an outage, or if your system simply can’t be repaired anymore.