Cloud Phone System vs Mobile Phones: Which Is Better for a Small Business?
For many small businesses, mobile phones are the obvious place to start.
Everyone already has one. There is no new handset to buy, staff can answer calls from almost anywhere, and getting a new mobile plan is straightforward.
But as the business grows, relying only on staff mobile phones can create problems. Customers may be calling personal numbers, important calls can disappear when someone is unavailable, and there may be no clear way for the team to share responsibility for incoming calls.
That is where a cloud phone system comes in.
A cloud phone system gives your business a central phone service that works through the internet. Your team can use desk phones, laptops or a smartphone app, depending on where they are working.
So which is better: mobile phones or a cloud phone system?
The answer depends on how your business works today, what you need from your calls and how important it is to keep the business reachable when people are away from the office.
Mobile phones: what they do well
There is a reason small businesses often begin with mobile phones.
Everyone already has one
Your team already knows how to use a mobile phone. There is no complicated training, desk phone installation or office cabling required.
If a new employee starts, you can provide a phone or add a mobile plan and they can start making calls quickly.
There may be no extra hardware cost
If staff use their existing phones, you may not need to buy handsets. This can make mobile phones appear to be the cheapest option, particularly for a new business with only one or two people.
Staff can be reached anywhere
A mobile phone is not tied to the office. Employees can answer calls from home, a worksite, a customer’s premises or while travelling.
For businesses that are rarely in one place, this flexibility is useful. Mobile phones also continue to work over mobile data when the office internet connection is unavailable.
Where mobile-only phone systems start to break down
The problem is not that mobile phones are bad. The problem is that individual mobile phones are not a shared business phone system.
There is no shared business number
Customers may have to choose between calling the owner, a salesperson or a particular employee.
That makes it harder to present one consistent business identity. It also means customers may continue calling a person directly, even when someone else is better placed to help.
A main business number gives customers one reliable point of contact. The business can then decide where calls should go.
Customers may end up calling personal numbers
If staff use their own phones for work, customers may see or save their personal numbers. That can blur the line between work and private life.
It can also create a problem when someone leaves. Customers may continue calling the former employee’s number, while the business has limited control over what happens to those calls.
There is no proper call routing or after-hours handling
A mobile phone normally rings one person.
If that person is busy, driving, in a meeting or away from the phone, the call may go unanswered. There is usually no simple way to route the call to another team member, play a different greeting after hours or send callers to a shared queue.
A business phone system can be set up with:
- Ring groups
- Call queues
- Business-hours routing
- After-hours greetings
- Voicemail
- Call forwarding
- Auto attendants
These features help the business handle calls as a team instead of leaving everything with one individual.
You have little visibility of missed calls
With separate mobile phones, it can be difficult to see how many calls were missed across the business.
You may know that your phone rang, but not whether another team member answered a customer’s call. You may also have no central record of which calls need to be returned.
That makes follow-up harder and can result in enquiries being forgotten.
There may be no call recording or useful reporting
Mobile call history is usually limited to the individual device. The business may not have access to central reporting, call recordings or a clear overview of call activity.
Depending on your industry and processes, call recording can help with training, quality control, accurate note-taking and resolving disputes. Reporting can also show when your team is busiest and whether calls are being answered.
Calls cannot be handed to colleagues easily
A mobile user can call a colleague separately, explain the situation and ask the customer to call again. That is not the same as transferring a live business call.
With a proper business phone system, one team member can transfer a caller to another person or department. The customer does not need to hang up and start again.
Staff leave, but the number stays with them
This is one of the biggest long-term risks of using personal mobile numbers for business.
When an employee leaves, the number may leave with them. Customers may still call it, business contacts may be lost and the company may have no central history of conversations.
A cloud phone system keeps the business number, call history and call-handling rules with the business.
How a cloud phone system with a mobile app closes the gaps
A cloud phone system gives you the mobility of a mobile phone without relying on disconnected personal numbers.
One business number can ring on:
- A desk phone
- A laptop
- A smartphone app
- Multiple team members at the same time
- Different people in sequence, depending on your rules
This means your team is not dependent on being in the office.
One number, wherever the team works
Your business number stays the same whether a team member is at their desk, working from home or travelling between customer sites.
Staff can use the smartphone app to make and receive business calls without giving customers their personal mobile number. The app can present the business number for outgoing calls, depending on the system setup.
This gives customers a more consistent experience and gives the business more control.
Calls can move between team members
If one person answers a call that belongs with someone else, they can transfer it directly.
If a team member is unavailable, calls can be routed to another person, a ring group or a queue. This makes it easier to share the workload and reduce the number of customers who reach voicemail unnecessarily.
Voicemail can come to your inbox
With voicemail-to-email, messages can be sent to the relevant person or team inbox. Some systems also provide voicemail transcription.
That means a voicemail does not sit unnoticed on one employee’s phone. The business can create a more consistent process for returning calls.
Business texting can use the same business identity
A cloud phone system can also bring business SMS and MMS into the same communications platform.
Instead of texting customers from a personal mobile number, your team can use the business number for messages such as:
- Appointment reminders
- Delivery updates
- Follow-ups
- Service notifications
- Simple customer questions
Cloud Phone Company’s GoTo Connect features include business calling, business SMS and MMS, call routing, voicemail-to-email, call recording and reporting.
Your business can keep its history
The phone system belongs to the business, not to one employee’s handset.
When staff change, you can remove their access, add a replacement user and keep the business number and relevant call information in the same system. That is much easier to manage than trying to recover business contacts and call records from a departing employee’s phone.
Business continuity when the NBN has issues
A cloud phone system does use an internet connection, so it is important to plan for outages.
The advantage is that your calls do not have to stop simply because the office connection is unavailable.
If the NBN connection at the office has an issue, staff using the mobile app can connect through mobile data or another available internet connection. Calls can continue on smartphones away from the office, provided there is suitable mobile coverage and data access.
This is an important distinction:
- A mobile-only setup is flexible, but each person has an isolated phone.
- A cloud phone system keeps the business number and call rules centralised, while allowing the team to use mobile devices when needed.
Your provider should help you plan the failover process and explain what happens during an internet or power outage. You should also consider mobile coverage, battery life and how staff will access the app if the office network is unavailable.
When mobiles alone are genuinely enough
A mobile-only setup may be perfectly reasonable if:
- You are a sole trader
- Customers mainly contact you directly
- You have one or two people
- You do not need a shared business number
- You do not need call transfers or queues
- You are comfortable using a personal or individual mobile number
- You do not need central call history or reporting
If that describes your business, a full phone system may be more than you need right now.
The change usually becomes worthwhile when missed calls, staff growth, customer expectations or employee turnover start creating problems.
How to decide which option is right for your business
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do customers have one reliable business number to call?
- Can another team member answer if the usual contact is unavailable?
- Can staff work from home or on the road without using personal numbers?
- Can you see which calls were missed?
- Can calls be transferred between team members?
- Does the business keep its number when an employee leaves?
- Can customers text the business using the same business identity?
- What happens if the office NBN connection goes down?
If you answered “no” to several of these questions, a cloud phone system is likely to give your business more control and continuity.
You can review the available GoTo Connect plans or read more answers in our small business phone system FAQ.
The practical answer
Mobile phones are useful devices. They are familiar, portable and often inexpensive to get started with.
But they are not designed to manage a growing business phone operation.
A cloud phone system with a mobile app gives you the best of both options: staff can work from almost anywhere, while the business keeps one professional number, shared call handling, voicemail, messaging and call history.
The team is not tied to the office. If the NBN has an issue, calls can move to mobile data. If a staff member is away, calls can be routed to someone else. If an employee leaves, the business keeps control of its number and communication history.
For small businesses that want the flexibility of mobile phones without the gaps of a mobile-only setup, cloud-based small business VoIP is usually the more sustainable choice.
Talk to Cloud Phone Company about setting up a cloud phone system around the way your team works.