VoIP phone system for small business

What a small team needs from VoIP

Small businesses rarely need a full contact centre. What they do need is to sound professional, catch every customer call and keep things simple to run. The features that matter most are:

• Business numbers on mobiles and laptops, so staff answer from anywhere without giving out personal numbers
• A greeting and simple menu, with different messages for opening hours, lunch and holidays
• Hunt groups, so a sales or office number rings several people at once or in turn
• Voicemail to email, so messages reach an inbox rather than a phone in an empty office
• Simple, predictable billing that scales as you hire
• Easy changes you can make yourself in a portal or app

Our VoIP phone system features page explains these and the features that come in higher tiers.

Three good starting points

We supply several platforms that work well for small teams. This is how they usually match up:

BT Cloud Voice is also available from our sister company Forever Communications through cloudvoice.cloud. For the hosted angle, our sister site has a guide to choosing a hosted phone system for small business.

Forever UC for app-first teams

Forever UC is Forever Group's own phone system, built on Cisco BroadSoft technology. It is designed to be used through apps on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac, with desk phones as an option rather than a requirement, and Forever Group supports deployments from four users.

The Standard tier covers what most small teams need: calls over the internet, switchboard-style transfers, calls on several devices, menus and department groups, a call queue, video calling between colleagues and voicemail to email. If you need to record calls or see where calls are being missed, Forever UC Plus adds call recording kept for 180 days and Executive Reporting, and Forever UC Contact adds live contact centre reports for sales or service teams. Calls can be billed itemised or with a minutes bundle.

Teams Phone or Forever Teams for Microsoft 365 users

If your team already uses Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium, Microsoft Teams Phone adds business calling to the Teams app people have open all day. It needs a Teams Phone licence and a way to reach the phone network: a Microsoft Calling Plan, Operator Connect or Direct Routing. Microsoft also lets Teams Phone be added to Teams Essentials (with Microsoft Entra ID), which suits very small businesses that do not use the wider Microsoft 365 suite.

Forever Teams is Forever Group's Teams calling service, built on Direct Routing. You keep your existing numbers, make and take calls in the Teams app on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac, and need no new hardware; Teams-compatible desk phones are optional. Forever Group supplies the Microsoft licensing, call recording is available as an option and calls are billed itemised. Teams VoIP explains the licences and routes.

3CX SMB Free or Basic for very small teams

3CX's licensing page lists four editions: SMB Free, Basic, PRO and AI (3CX also offers a 4SC Free Basic edition for self-hosted micro set-ups). SMB Free is for small offices of up to 10 users, hosted by 3CX, with apps, call handling, call queues and recording, live chat, SMS, inbound WhatsApp and video calls. Basic covers core telephony, routing, apps and basic reporting, without call queues, recording, CRM integration or bridges between offices. If you expect to add queues, recording or CRM screen pops as you grow, PRO adds them.

Commercial 3CX editions are licensed per system each year by simultaneous calls rather than per user, which can suit a team with many light users. You also choose a SIP trunk for your numbers and calls. See 3CX VoIP for the deployment options.

Is VoIP good for small business?

For most small businesses, yes. A VoIP phone system lets a small team cover each other's calls from wherever they are working, look professional with a greeting and menu, and add users as they hire, without buying a phone system. It also takes you off the analogue and ISDN lines that Openreach is retiring; Openreach says that on 31 January 2027 all traditional phone lines will be going digital.

The main thing to check is your connection. A busy small office on a basic broadband line may need more upload capacity or a backup connection to keep calls clear; our VoIP requirements checklist explains what to look for, and VoIP vs landline for business sets out the pros and cons.

Handsets and headsets for a small team

Most small teams do not need a desk phone on every desk. Softphone apps on laptops and mobiles, with a comfortable headset, cover people who move around or work from home. Desk phones earn their place on a reception desk, in a shop or workshop, or for anyone who spends the day on the phone, and a cordless handset suits people who walk around a site.

VoIP desk and cordless handsets can be bought outright or, in some cases, included in your monthly rental, with the options confirmed at quote. Our guides to VoIP desk phones for business, VoIP headsets and softphone vs desk phone help you decide who needs what.

Moving a small business off its landline

Many small businesses still have one or two analogue lines, sometimes with a broadband service on the same line, and perhaps a card terminal or alarm connected to them. Moving to VoIP means listing every line and what uses it, keeping the numbers your customers know, and deciding what happens to the devices that relied on the old lines.

Our guide to switching from landline to VoIP takes you through it step by step, and what is a VoIP landline? explains the simplest digital replacement for a single line.

Questions to ask before you choose

• How many people need a business number, and how many need a desk phone rather than an app?
• Who should ring when a customer calls the main number, and what happens out of hours?
• Do we use Microsoft 365 and Teams every day?
• Do we need to record calls or link calls to a CRM, now or within a year or two?
• Which numbers do we want to keep, and are any lines used by alarms or card terminals?
• Is our broadband good enough for our busiest hour of calls?

How to get started

1. Tell us how many users and sites you have, and what you use today.
2. We check your connection and recommend the platform and tier that fit.
3. We plan your numbers, including porting your landline number to VoIP.
4. We set up users, greetings and groups, and help people install the apps; see VoIP phone system installation.
5. Your numbers move over on the agreed porting date and the team is ready to go.

Contact us for a recommendation for your team.