1) Will I need more than one extension?

Offering toll free numbers for sales and local numbers for support are small, but critically important aspects of your brand marketing that should not be ignored. In fact, because the rise of Google Local Business listings and other local business directories have grown in everyday use by customers, it's critical to choose your business numbers in the initial phases of starting your business or new division.

Even if you're a micro business, you will need to wear many hats taking on sales and support roles. Having more than one phone number offers a professional appearance to your prospective customers and you can place them on your business card as well as your website. It provides a sense of security to your customer base that there is depth to your organization. As your business grows, having unique numbers for sales and support means that you can easily forward the toll free number to your new employee. Best of all, online phone services like RingCentral allow you to track the phone activity of that number, so you can keep track of your contractors and employees productivity as well as get clear metrics.

Even a very small business should be asking:

• How many different phone numbers would one expect at a larger company if they were selling a product similar to me?
  
  I know many entrepreneurs would say, "I don't have any competitors." but for the sake of this exercise, let's pretend :)


• Could the 3 to 5 extensions I think I need grow to 5 to 10 extensions in 6 months?
  
  A good gauge is to have 1.5 extensions per employee. This takes into account the different fax numbers, roll-over extensions, and different numbers one would use for various marketing campaigns.

RingCentral offers a ground-floor start-up business a service called RingCentral Online. There are several packages that are well suited for those companies that may grow from 1 to 5 employees within 12 months and quickly need extensions for various departments.

If you anticipate that your growth will go from 5 to 10 employees in 12 months, I would suggest a higher-platform service such as RingCentral's 4-Line Office Phone System.

2) How heavily am I going to fax?

Believe it or not, faxing costs for ink & paper as well as the human labor costs of organizing faxed sales contracts can be one of the most costly line items for a small business!

Also, as a rule of thumb, integrating your fax + toll free number + support number is not just ideal, but smart. It will give you an edge over your competitors who do not follow this ideology. The following are verticals or organization types that we've seen gain significant time savings and better sales-flow with electronic fax services that are tied to their business phone systems:

• Legal (Attorneys save time and money by having all faxes automatically saved as electronic records that can be easily forwarded, sent in emails, or printed).


• Sales (Faxed contracts and repeats of "did you get my fax?" are things of the past).


• Support Services (Being able to send forms and letters with a mouse-click instead of a physical fax not only saves time & money, it's better for the environment :) ).


• Start-Ups (You are going to sign a lot of contracts whether they be NDAs, Sales Agreements, financial statements, fund-raising documents, or general marketing documents. Keeping track of all of them not only makes organizational sense for a business striving for ultimate efficiency - if the company undergoes due diligence for venture capital dollars or a potential acquisition, having everything recorded electronically makes life way, way easier in what is usually a time of stress & anxiety for founders).

Check out RingCentral's easy integration to a small business phone system plan.

3) How many minutes am I going to need?

There is a phenomenon for people on vacation which gives credence to the old adage: "plan to spend more than you plan to spend."

It's tempting to sign in for a plan that doesn't give you enough options but offers cheap, flat rate long distance. Or sign up for a feature-rich plan that locks you into a paradigm where upgrades and add-ons are cumbersome and expensive.

If you anticipate more than 300 minutes of phone time per employee (that's only 1.25 hour per week) than a RingCentral Online plan is OK for up to 10 extensions. But if your organization does a considerable amount of time on sales & support, you'll want a service like RingCentral Office. The flat rates savings are heard to beat, and there won't be any nasty long distance bills on your monthly statements.

Photos by cirofono and ToniVC