Why We Decided To Stop Managing Our Own Phone Service
Phone systems are one of those things that seem like they should be simple. And yet, for many small businesses, they can end up taking up a huge amount of time and energy. Over the years, we’ve helped small offices implement everything from self‑hosted PBX systems to fully cloud‑based platforms. We’ve also lived through that evolution ourselves, since we have always used one of the phone systems that is on our current recommendation list.
We recently decided to stop managing our own phone service and transitioned to an option where most of the tech-heavy lifting is handled by the service provider rather than us. That may sound like an odd choice for a tech-savvy business like ours, but we finally had to swallow our pride and admit that somebody else could handle the gnarly details of the phone system better than we could.
Let’s look at some better options:
A Quick Review: Three Common Phone System Models
Most small office phone systems fall into three buckets.
- PBX‑Based Systems: This is the traditional Voice over IP model that businesses have used for years, where the core phone system runs on a device in your office or on a server in the cloud. With these systems, you set everything up and are responsible not only for managing extensions and call flows, but also for updates, outages, and troubleshooting when something breaks. We used a system called PBXact in our office for years, and we still recommend it under the right conditions.
- Vendor-Managed (UCaaS) Platforms: This phone system is delivered as a service and the vendor owns the infrastructure. The vendor owns the servers and keeps all the back-end stuff operational, so you can focus on setting up users and business rules, not servers or software maintenance. We’ve recently swapped over to a platform called Quo that follows this model for our in-house system. More on that later.
- Carrier‑Provided Business Phone Services: Think AT&T or Spectrum Business Phone, where voice is bundled with internet and treated more like a utility. These are typically the simplest to deploy, but also the least flexible and (often) the most expensive option.
Why We Moved from PBXact to Quo
For years, we ran our own phone system on PBXact. It gave us excellent control and flexibility, and it worked well provided we kept up with managing the underlying infrastructure. But, in the end, we struggled to justify the time it was taking our team to maintain the system, and decided that we wanted fewer moving parts, simpler administration, and a platform that “just worked” without ongoing care and feeding.
Admitting that it was more cost-effective to let someone else handle the back-end tech was not easy for an office full of nerds, but that’s the realization we came to.
Not A “One Size Fits All” Situation
To be clear, our decision was not about one platform being fundamentally “better” than another, it was about the tradeoff shifting. As a very small office, we came to realize that a vendor-managed platform like Quo made more sense for us. If we hit another growth spurt or suddenly need to tweak some of the back-end settings, we may find ourselves reversing our decision and moving back to a system that gives us a deeper level of control.
Other Considerations In The Mix
I expect a big push over the coming years to get all of our tools (CRMs, ERPs, productivity suites, and now AI‑driven assistants) connected in ways that don’t happen today. Data silos, partial integrations, and inconsistent presence information can make it harder for teams to see who’s available, what’s happening with a customer, or where work is getting stuck. Each business will probably have to tackle this challenge in incremental steps, but figuring out what the top priorities are for your business could narrow which phone system option makes the best sense.
A DIY Starting Point
If you’re comfortable rolling up your sleeves, small office phone systems are absolutely something you can approach as a DIY project. The key isn’t chasing features, it’s being honest about what you want to own versus what you want someone else to handle.
If you start there, you’re already ahead of the game. And if you want a second set of eyes along the way, feel free to book a consultation with me and I’ll be happy to help.