Why Switch Phone Providers? 3 Small Business Case Studies

Business owners ask us daily whether VoIP genuinely changes anything, or whether it is just a cheaper way to do what they already do. The honest answer is that it depends on how the system is set up, which is why we ask a lot of questions about your operations, your sales process and your call patterns before we recommend anything.

Here are three Vancouver businesses where the setup mattered more than the technology.

A multi-location printer, and a $35,000 hire that was not needed

John runs a printing business started two decades ago on Vancouver Island. He expanded and acquired a second location in downtown Vancouver, but the two phone systems were completely separate and both were ageing. The Vancouver location started losing business because customers could not reach anyone.

His plan was to hire a full-time staff member for the Vancouver office to answer the phone, at roughly $35,000 a year. Before doing that, he called us.

We set up unified communications across both sites, so unanswered calls in Vancouver route automatically to available staff at the other location. Customers reach a person either way and do not know which office answered. Sales went up, service improved, and the $35,000 hire was never needed.

A law firm that hit a seat limit

This is not the leather-chairs-and-dark-wood kind of firm. Fourteen people in Gastown, exposed brick, bicycles inside, a communal table and a keg in the kitchen. Their phones did not match: clunky handsets with no transfer and no dial by name directory. Staff and clients had both given up and defaulted to mobiles, which meant the firm had lost track of its own client communication.

During expansion they discovered their PBX had a seat limitation and simply could not accept more phones. That left two options: roughly $12,000 for a new on-site PBX, or move to a hosted PBX with no upfront hardware cost.

They chose hosted, on Polycom VVX300 handsets. We kept their existing extension numbers so nobody had to reprint business cards or update collateral, and added a greeting with extension and dial by name options. They can now add staff without hitting a wall or writing a cheque.

A creative agency with a mostly remote team

The agency has a studio in Coal Harbour, but most of the team works from home. That suits everyone until you look at how clients were reaching them: by calling individual mobile numbers. The agency had lost control of its own communications. Clients called at night and on weekends, and when staff left, clients kept calling their personal phones.

We sent a handset to each home office. Plug it into the internet and it has a dial tone, an extension, and one central business number behind it. Clients cannot tell whether someone is at the studio or at home. We also set unanswered office calls to redirect to mobiles, so people stay reachable without handing out a second number.

When someone leaves now, the extension moves. The client relationship stays with the agency.

What a typical setup looks like

These are the interesting cases. Most of our customers have something far simpler: five to fifteen phones on our hosted PBX, a greeting, and voicemail to email. The point of the three stories above is not that VoIP is complicated. It is that the setup should be designed around how your business actually takes calls.

If you want to talk through yours, our plans are public and our Vancouver team is happy to look at your call flow first.