Business mobile phones: 6 things to consider when choosing

Business mobile phones are becoming the primary platform for business communication. A good business phone can improve internal collaboration, help your customers easily reach you and unlock productivity in distributed teams. But how do you choose the right one from all the best business phones out there?

What you don’t want is to make a decision in a rush and end up with a business phone that has a long contract and offers only limited features. In this article, we look at the factors you should consider when looking at business mobile phone deals to choose the one that will suit your unique needs.

6 things to consider when choosing a business mobile phone

These factors will ensure that the business phone system you choose will lower your bills, increase productivity, and drive business growth.

1. How does your business use phones

The most important factor is how your business would use your business mobile phones. You can look at your existing communication and predict your usage pattern. You need features that will amplify your efforts and give you greater returns.

How frequently do you make calls? Do you have to be in the office or are you expected to be at your clients’ locations? Do you make a lot of long-distance or international calls? How regularly do your employees use the internet on their mobile phones? Do you give your number to customers? These questions will help you figure out your business mobile phone usage.

2. Organisation

Modern business mobile phones give you several features including reminders, calendars etc. to help you organise your work life. This makes it easy not just for you but also for your employees to communicate with each other.

Your business mobile phone should help you integrate all the organising apps that you regularly use. Other than email, you should be able to sync your calendar with your business schedule. This will save everyone time and effort and improve coordination.

3. Security

Hackers are getting bolder with each passing year. If not handled well, your messages, phone conversations, personal and financial information and customer data could be at risk. These problems arise due to shared WiFi connections, weak passwords and insecure system access.

That’s why you should look for a business mobile phone that has encrypting apps and comes with remote erasing if the device is lost or stolen.

4. Battery life

The last thing you want is for your phone to die when a customer tries to reach you. They may not understand why they can’t reach you and could be justifiably aggrieved. So, when searching for the best business phones, look for battery life.

This is especially true if you attend several meetings in a week or travel frequently. While doing your research, look for the phone’s battery life after a year of usage. That will give you a more realistic picture.

5. Coverage

A business mobile phone should make it easy for your customers to reach you. That would be a problem if you’re in a low-coverage area. Remember that missed calls mean missed opportunities.

Your mobile phone carrier should provide you with a map of their service areas. Look for one that comprehensively covers your office, residence, clients’ locations etc. Remember that low-cost plans might save you money but if they don’t offer you strong coverage, there will be missed calls.

6. Environment

Offices that have remote teams will need different business mobile phones as opposed to businesses that operate out of a fixed location with fully on-site employees. Similarly, if your employees are used to a particular device or software, you’ll have to keep those in mind.

The way to address the issue is by asking your employees their preferences for devices and operating systems. Secondly, if you use project management or communication apps, they should easily sync with the business mobile phones you select.

Chalkboard – Making your business phone choice easier

Need a business mobile phone that’s cost-effective, dynamic, flexible and rich with features? Here’s Chalkboard, a virtual number app that was designed for small businesses, startups and independent creatives.

By downloading the app, you immediately get a second line for work. No need to sign-up for lengthy contracts or negotiate fees and features. Now you can share your new number without worrying about privacy. This is how you get a better work-life balance.

Chalkboard lets you organise your contacts and send group broadcasts to your customers. You also get advanced messaging features for conversational marketing. These put your marketing into high gear at absolutely no extra cost.

Your team members can share their numbers. If someone’s too busy to answer a call, another team member can take it for them. With auto-reply, you can send pre-written texts to missed calls.

Download Chalkboard today and try it. It’s the business mobile phone that small businesses and startups need.