How to set up a small business phone system in 9 easy steps

We’re long past the days of calling technicians to set up every landline phone. You also shouldn’t have to spend hours charging and activating cell phones for entire teams. Instead, setting up a small business phone system that uses Voice over Internet Protocol, also known as VoIP, is easier than ever. 

VoIP phone services let you use your business phone number over the internet. This means no physical phone lines or complex setups. They’re also far more cost-effective than traditional phone lines, making them convenient for small teams.

Ready to make the switch? Use this step-by-step guide to get your small business phone system up and running.

How to set up a small business phone system

You don’t need much on-premise hardware to set up a small business phone system. Once you choose a VoIP app, all you need is an internet connection and a compatible device.

Here’s how to set up a small business phone system using Quo, formerly OpenPhone.

1. Activate your account

Completing your service provider’s signup process is the first step in setting up your business phone service. You’ll typically need to provide your contact information and payment information. During this process — or immediately after — you’ll be able to choose your business phone number.

When you sign up for Quo, you can select any available US, Canadian, or toll-free number. Local numbers can help you establish a local presence in the markets you serve. While toll-free numbers ensure that international customers don’t have to pay to call you.

You can even set up a memorable vanity number like 1-800-FLOWERS when you opt for a toll-free number. With Quo, you won’t have to pay for a separate toll-free plan — you can access 1-800 numbers on any of our small business phone plans.

You also have the option to port an existing number to your VoIP phone service. With Quo, number porting is free. All you need to do is submit your port request in the Quo app. Then, we’ll do the rest in five to seven business days — or up to two weeks in some cases.

Once you’ve set up a new phone number with Quo, added a business line to your cell phone, or ported your existing number, you’re ready to go. You can make unlimited calls and text messages in the US and Canada and get affordable rates for international calls and texts.

2. Set your business hours

Provide clear expectations about when your company is open by setting up business hours on your office phone system. Make sure you have the right time zone selected when you do so.

Once you set your business hours on Quo, you’ll have the option to create an away voicemail greeting in the call flow builder. This message automatically plays when someone calls outside business hours. It helps set expectations by letting callers know when you’ll be back to return their call.

Want to reach customers via SMS? You can turn on auto-replies. These automatically go out to people who call or text after hours. It’s another easy way to let them know when they can expect to hear back from you. You can also provide emergency contact details if necessary.

What if you’re on vacation, in a meeting, or otherwise unavailable? Share access to your number so your team members can handle incoming calls on your behalf. Shared numbers with Quo are accessible from any device, which lets your team communicate from anywhere with a WiFi connection.

3. Add a phone menu or other call routing options

No customer wants to deal with endless call transfers and repetitive hold music. And no team member wants to spend valuable time on calls meant for someone else. Fortunately, many cloud phone systems offer call routing, so you can easily improve your call management process.

Once you’ve set your business hours in Quo, you can configure an auto-attendant, also known as an IVR system. A phone menu greets callers and lets them choose what they need help with. For example, they could dial ‘1’ to reach customer support or ‘2’ for your sales department.

Your virtual receptionist can route calls in six different ways:

• Let the call through to the originally dialed phone number, where it will ring to everyone who has access to the phone number
• Forward the call to a Quo number in your organization
• Forward the call to another US or Canadian number
• Send the call to a specific team member who shares the phone number
• Send the call to voicemail
• Play an audio message or greeting

When you’re unavailable, you can use Sona, Quo’s AI agent, to handle calls for you. Sona can answer common questions and capture customer details 24/7 using your business information. This helps filter out spam and ensures potential customers don’t slip through the cracks. 

4. Create a voicemail greeting

Professional voicemail greetings come in handy when you aren’t available to answer business calls. Instead of a generic recording, your customers receive a friendly message. It can confirm what you need callers to know, like they’ve reached your business and you’ll call them back soon.

Create custom voicemail greetings in seconds

Quo’s business voicemail greeting generator helps you get high-quality professional voicemail recordings in seconds, for free. Create as many voicemails as you need — no Quo account required.

 

Do you have multiple business phone numbers? Custom greetings can also help callers distinguish between different teams and team members. With Quo, you can even set voicemail greetings in different languages. That way, you can better serve customers in international markets.

Quo offers three options for setting up voicemail greetings on our web and mobile apps:

• Record your own audio
• Upload an existing voicemail file in MP3 or WAV formats
• Use our text-to-speech tool to convert a voicemail script into a professional voiceover

5. Enable integrations

A cloud-based small business phone system can save a lot of time for your team. It can integrate your business phone number with many of your favorite business tools. By connecting your software, you can streamline your workflows instead of constantly jumping from app to app.

Caption: Automatically log call summaries into your CRM using the Quo API or Make

Quo lets you integrate with more than 7,000 third-party tools, including:

• Gong — transcribe your call recordings if you want to house all your video and phone call transcriptions in one place
• Slack — forward text messages, voicemail messages, and voicemail transcriptions to any Slack channel
• Email — forward voicemails to email
• HubSpot — sync contacts with your CRM in real time and keep a record of customer interactions, including Sona call summaries
• Salesforce — automatically log voicemails, texts, and more
• Zapier — automate texts and connect Quo to even more apps, like Google Sheets, Typeform, and Calendly
• Make — build custom automations to connect Quo with thousands of other tools, no coding required
• Jobber — integrate Quo with your scheduling, invoicing, and CRM tools

6. Import contacts

Want to make calls with a quick tap? Just import your business contacts to your VoIP phone solution.

Many VoIP phone providers let you import all your contacts at once by preparing and uploading a CSV file. All you need to do is add their names, contact information, and other key details — no need to add contacts one by one.

With Quo (formerly OpenPhone), you can also add custom contact fields so you can track more data about your customers. Fields for dates, websites, and URLs make it easier for team members to filter and find the contacts they’re searching for.

Want to go a step further? You can toggle on AI contact suggestions in Quo. This will automatically surface relevant contacts based on call summaries and transcripts. Plus, it also keeps your contact list up to date and makes follow-ups faster.

7. Invite your team

Learning how to set up a small business phone system with more than one user is simple with the right phone service. For example, with Quo, you can turn your business VoIP app into a multi-line phone system by sending email invites to your team members. All they have to do is accept your invite and download the Quo app on their mobile phone, tablet, or computer. 

Each time you invite a team member to Quo, you can assign them a local phone number or let them pick their preferred number — one comes free with every user. You can also assign them to a shared number. As mentioned earlier, shared numbers allow your team members to collaborate on calls and texts. This helps you can reduce response times and improve the customer experience. Business owners and admins can also enable international calling for specific phone numbers.

Once you invite someone to a specific phone number, you can determine how involved you want to be in their daily conversations. Need to only  monitor conversations? You can mute call and text notifications so you don’t get bombarded with messages throughout the day.

There’s no limit to the number of users you can have on Quo. And if you want to purchase additional phone numbers, local and toll-free numbers start at $5 per number per month.

8. Add more ways to streamline your communication workflows

As you can likely guess, the process of setting up a small business phone system looks different for every VoIP platform. Once you’ve decided on which phone platform to use, take some time to explore its other tools that can help you improve your business communications.

Here are a few phone system features on Quo that can benefit any small business or startup:

• Snippets: Save text message templates so you can fill in the blanks instead of typing out the same message multiple times per day.
• Scheduled text messages: Schedule SMS or MMS messages for the right times in the right time zones. You can always add the condition “Unless they message first,” which cancels your scheduled message and saves it as a draft.
• Click-to-call: Select Quo as your default calling app to set up click-to-call on your desktop app, which will save you time on outbound calls.
• AI-generated call summaries: Use the magic of AI to quickly summarize past conversations and get a list of key information. This can include the speakers on each call, a time-stamped transcript, and call duration.
• AI call tags:  Label calls by topic. For example, common issues or escalations to track trends and prioritize follow-ups. With Quo, AI call tagging automates this process to save time and keep insights consistent.

Keep in mind that due to emerging regulations pushed for by the large US cell carriers, you’ll need to complete US carrier registration. Only then will you be able to text to any US number from a local phone number. If you have a toll-free number with Quo, you must verify your toll-free number.

9. Specify your outgoing caller ID

The majority of Americans don’t pick up phone calls from unknown numbers. Setting up your caller ID can help you reach more clients with outgoing calls instead of being sent straight to voicemail.

Your outgoing caller ID, also known as CNAM, can be up to 15 characters long and only include letters, numbers, periods, commas, and spaces. It can’t have special characters like “+” or “!”. Your CNAM must be related to your business name or the name of the business contact on your US carrier registration. Otherwise, it may get rejected.

With Quo, you can update your caller ID settings on the web and desktop app as long as you’re an owner or admin of the workspace. Changes are generally approved within 48 hours, so you can quickly establish your identity with customers.

Keep in mind that caller IDs aren’t available for toll-free numbers. Plus, they don’t always work for Canadian numbers, depending on your call recipient’s carrier.

4 of the best small business phone systems

1. Quo: Best for growing teams

Pricing: Starts at $15 per user per month

Quo is a business phone system that helps you build customer relationships at scale. You can make calls and send texts from your laptop, phone, or browser — all you need is an internet connection. That way, you’re never tied to one device or location.

Every missed call can mean a missed opportunity. That’s why Quo offers Sona, its AI voice agent, to automatically answer calls, take messages, and respond to FAQs. You also get unlimited calling and texting in the US and Canada. Need to look more professional? You’ll be able to buy toll-free numbers that aren’t tied to a single area code, helping your business appeal to customers across the country.

You can also use shared phone numbers. They let multiple people call and text from the same phone number. This means your team will also be able to see the full conversation history and easily work together to solve customer issues. That way, customers get help faster and nothing slips through the cracks. Plus,  get access to call tags that label conversations, making it easy to identify which customer calls you need to follow up with first. 

Try Quo for yourself with a seven-day free trial.

2. RingCentral: Best for desk phone rentals

Pricing: Starts at $20 per user per month 

RingCentral has been around for years, bundling calling, texting, and video meetings into one platform. On paper, that sounds like everything your business could need. However, their Core plan only includes 25 SMS per user per month, which isn’t nearly enough if texting is part of how you communicate with clients. Toll-free minutes are capped too, so if your team handles a lot of inbound calls, you can expect your costs to climb fast.

RingCentral does offer desk phone rentals for reps who still rely on physical phones. You’ll also get access to video meetings, which can be a useful feature if your team works remotely, since it gives them the opportunity to see each other. But with texting caps and toll-free minutes limited, RingCentral doesn’t give small businesses the flexibility they need to scale.

3. Ooma: Best for unlimited calling in Mexico and Puerto Rico

Pricing: Starts at $19.95 per user per month

Ooma includes more than 50 features the moment you sign up. But which ones actually make a difference for small teams? Unlimited calling in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico means you can stay in touch with clients without worrying about overages. Call transfers on the base plan also help you get callers to the right person faster, so customers aren’t left waiting.

The catch? You’ll need to upgrade if you want to access texting or call recording. That means if your business depends on written communication or keeping records for compliance reasons, your costs will go up.

4. Nextiva: Best for omnichannel communication

Pricing: Starts at $15 per user per month

Nextiva positions itself as more than a phone system, offering tools to manage calls, texts, and even social media messages in one place. On the surface, that sounds like a convenient option for small teams. But many of the features you’d expect to be included aren’t available on the base plan.

Take its shared SMS inbox, for example. It’s useful if you want your team to collaborate on texts, but you’ll need the Engage plan that costs $25 per user per month. Toll-free numbers and minutes also require an upgrade, meaning scaling nationwide gets expensive. Overall, Nextiva is often a better fit for larger organizations than small businesses.

Get started with Quo, the best small business phone system

Now that you know how to set up a small business phone system, you can get up and running in just a few minutes using Quo.

With Quo, you won’t lose out on call quality or features that save you time. You can set up integrations, automations, and caller ID much faster than an installation team can set up a traditional phone system.

You can access your business number on any device using Quo’s desktop, web, or mobile app. This lets you build better relationships with your customers from any location with an internet connection.

Sign up for a free trial of Quo and get started with the best VoIP phone system for small businesses within minutes.

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