Does a small business still need desk phones?

Reception does, and shared spaces like workshops and treatment rooms do. Most desks do not. A softphone on a laptop with a decent headset, plus the mobile app, covers the way most people actually use the phone, and buying a handset for every desk is the easiest overspend in a phone project.

The default in most quotes is one handset per person, because that is how phone systems were always sold and because hardware is a comfortable line item. It is also frequently the largest single cost in the first year, which makes it the first place to look when a quote seems high. The question worth asking for each desk is not whether a phone would be nice but whether that person answers calls in a way a headset and a laptop cannot handle.

Where physical phones genuinely earn their place, they earn it decisively. Reception needs a proper handset with a console, because someone answering and transferring calls all day needs buttons rather than a mouse. Shared areas need a phone that is not tied to a person, and a cordless handset covering a workshop or warehouse solves a problem no softphone addresses. Anywhere someone must answer without a computer in front of them, buy the phone.

Everywhere else, the honest test is what people already do. Plenty of staff have not lifted their desk handset in months because they call from their mobile, and giving that person a new desk phone reproduces an unused object at a new price. Spend the saving on good headsets instead, which affect call quality far more than the handset does, and on the mobile app rollout, which is also what keeps you reachable during an outage. If you want the headcount and the handset count decided separately, call 1800 456 567.