Featuring:
Nick Clarke,
Founder & Business Development Director,
Evolution Business Consultancy
Transcript:
Jon Watkins Welcome to this latest edition of the FSB podcast, the go-to podcast for news, tips, and important information for small businesses and self employed. This month, we'll be exploring a major change to comms that is set to impact all small businesses, but which could actually benefit you in many ways. And that is the ISDN switch off, which is being billed as the biggest communication change in 30 years. You may or may not have heard it's coming. But regardless of whether it's on your radar, there are many benefits for small businesses that you may not currently be aware of, and also some valuable things you can do to prepare for the transition. So with that in mind, in this episode, we will explore what the ISDN switch off is, when it's happening, what you need to do to prepare how you can avoid disruption to your small business and the numerous benefits that you can gain from it. To help me do that, I'm pleased to say I'm joined by small business IT consultant and director of evolution managed IT services, Nick Clarke, who's going to give us the lowdown. Hi, Nick, how you doing?
Nick Clarke I'm good. Thank you, Jon. Good to be here.
Jon Watkins Yeah, good to see you again. Thanks for joining us once more. Okay, for those that aren't aware of this forthcoming change at the moment, what is the ISDN switch off? And why is it happening?
Nick Clarke Okay, so for the last 30 years, we've relied on traditional copper wire; telephones. So just normal phone on your desk that you use for making receiving calls. Also used for such things as your alarm system, fax machines, for anyone that still has fax machines, and anything else such as PDQ machines for taking car payment. So if you're in a shop or restaurant, anything like that, you might have one plugged in for a phone line to do card payment authorisations. So with ISDN being switched off in December 2025. The old, what I suppose could be considered in modern day terms an antiquated phone system switchoff means that all that will disappear. Businesses if they haven't already done so need to be thinking about switching fully to the new, what for some businesses might be new technology. But it has been around for a while now. That has improved year on year, we're getting better and better and faster broadband services especially useful for businesses.
Jon Watkins Brilliant. Thanks, Nick. And what exactly will it mean for small businesses? You touched on it there? But how else might it impact them? I'm thinking of things like you know, you mentioned landlines will be gone. So you know, businesses with sort of sales functions or inbound and outbound calls, card payments, you mentioned there, what might be the potential impact of, of not getting ready on time?
Nick Clarke If they don't get well, if they live it to the last minute, they might find themselves on a waiting list to get to get switched over. Installation of new internet connections don't happen overnight. So the sooner businesses prepare, the better they will find that as we get nearer to the switch off point that the quality on these traditional lines might start to deteriorate because this is not going to be, well it won't be available at the end of 2025 That's kind of the basics of it.
Jon Watkins Yeah, I know there are certain sectors that will be affected more than than others. I mean, you mentioned obviously card payments so that suggests I guess, sort of, you know retailers and so on.
Nick Clarke Yes retailers, anyone in kind of the hospitality anyone that a good example might be anyone that takes takeaway orders. So anyone working in kind of food catering industry that are like your Domino's pizzas or anything of that nature or your local takeaway restaurant that rely on orders coming in to through the phone, they will be affected if they don't switch, and it's not as expensive as it once was.
Jon Watkins Yes. And also presumably, you know, any businesses that are operating operating a sort of sales team or inbound and outbound calls, I'm thinking, you know, estate agents and consultancies and those sorts of things?
Nick Clarke Yes. Anything, anyone that is, so estate agents is is definitely a good example of that. Any business that has a any kind of size of sales team, whether it be one or two people through to a whole office full of people, call centres... anyone like that anyone that is receiving inbound inquiries, businesses that provide support services to other businesses where they have a phone line that people can call,
Jon Watkins Great stuff. And what exactly the small businesses need to do, Nick, Is it as simple as getting in touch with your existing broadband provider? Or are there other steps they need to take? And when in this process should they do that?
Nick Clarke Sooner rather than later, is the answer to the to the to the last question. It is not simply a case of contacting broadband provider, it is about speaking to an IT provider or a telecoms provider who can advise them on what is available to them. And there's lots of different solutions. The term that is commonly bandied about if you speak to anyone and telecoms in industry is VoIP, which is voice over internet protocol. And that basically, is what a lot of businesses have been switching to over the part over the past decade, now it is just going to need to gather pace.
Jon Watkins Yeah. And you sort of touched on voice over internet protocol there. There are challenges for small businesses with any change. But this offers benefits to small businesses as well, doesn't it? There's lots of ways that they can, that this change can potentially help them grow and make their organisations more efficient. Can you just talk us through some of those?
Nick Clarke Yeah, absolutely. I mean, pre if we think if we think back over the last three, four years, where we obviously we have the COVID 19 pandemic, which kind of meant that we had to stay at home, we can we can go into the office, a lot of traditional businesses would have struggled with that where they had they had select an office location that everyone travelled into. And that's where they worked from. What this now provides an opportunity for any business that hadn't already looked at it during the pandemic to actually look at a phone system that can be hosted in the cloud, which means that people can actually work anywhere. As long as they have a decent enough internet connection, WiFi access, you know, there could be sat in Costa Coffee they can have, they could use their app on their mobile phone or an app on their, on their laptop, if they are office based or they have a home office, they can still get a traditional desk phone that just uses the voice over IP technology.
Jon Watkins Yeah, and I think the knock on impact of that, obviously, is that, you know, small businesses that can empower their sales teams to work from home or in a hybrid way are going to be able to reduce office costs, potentially because they won't need...
Nick Clarke Oh, yeah, very much so.
Jon Watkins ...and as many seats and things like that. And presumably, you know, we hear a lot in this day and age about sorts of systems that enable better collaboration and teamwork. You know, I'm thinking about things like, you know, Microsoft and Google workspace opportunities and things like that, that are helping organisations. Presumably, this is all going to help a lot of businesses move to more efficient ways of working and more collaborative processes is it?
Nick Clarke Yeah, absolutely, Because one of the things with using kind of software based phone systems, you can then integrate with Microsoft Teams, you could integrate it with your CRM system. So we go back to the call centre or the businesses that have a sales team, they can have their phone systems directly integrated with their CRMs, so that as they are making or receiving calls, that activity, those that call activity can actually be logged in CRM, the the the users can put notes on when they're, when they're on the call, they can schedule follow up calls. So it opens up a whole world of possibilities.
Jon Watkins Yeah, fantastic. And presumably, the message, Nick is, while this might seem some way off, you know, as a result of the fact that there will be a huge number of businesses looking to switch over near the deadline... and I guess as a result of the fact that there will be a lack of investment in the existing infrastructure as we head towards that deadline, the instruction is to act sooner rather than later, is it?
Nick Clarke Yeah, definitely, I would definitely recommend any business that hasn't already looked at it to look at it now and get that planned in. Because it's not simply a case of take one out and put one in. There is a bit of planning involved in that. And there is you might have to look at what sort of internet connection Have you got? Does that need to be reviewed? So there are things that businesses will need to take into account and this is obviously where working with someone like ourselves or a telecoms company can help with that transition, and talk and guide businesses through that.
Jon Watkins That's fantastic. Thanks, Nick. I really appreciate you for taking us through that and helping our audience of small businesses understand how they can successfully transition and gain the benefits of this change, as well as avoiding some of the the challenges and pitfalls of a switch over. I'd also like to thank our audience for listening to this episode. And to remind you that you can subscribe to the FSB podcast to receive regular updates and guidance on the big issues affecting small businesses. And do please also remember that you can find a whole host of additional webinars, podcasts and other content at the FSB website, which is fsb.org.uk. Many thanks for joining.
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