TES

Getting an engaged tone when you call a business is a very bad start.  If your during your ‘research mode’ part of the buying cycle it’s possible you’ll never call them again.  I found that this was happening to my business. Obviously larger business usually have very sophisticated telephone systems capable of handling multiple incoming calls, but the costs of such telephone systems can be very high.  I had a look at a few telephone systems and it seemed that the cheapest was over $1000 including an upgrade of all my telephone extensions.  In the end, I found a cheaper albeit without some of the benefits of a full telephone system by getting my telephone carrier to install a multiline package – so if one phone was engaged another would ring.  This obviously misses out on the various call handling options you have with a sophisticated telephone system but I felt it was a good start.  Furthermore, if I decide to upgrade to a full telephone system in the future I already have the extra line  and it’s simply a case of buying the box and having it installed.  If you business is predominantly transacted over the phone then I think it’s essential to have a sophisticated telephone system.  Now by sophisticated I don’t mean expensive – just one that does what you need with a bit of room for expansion – whatever you opt for, anything is better than the engaged tone.