When your business relies on a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system, it's important to consider what happens if that system stops working. Unlike traditional landlines, VoIP depends on your internet connection and power supply. If either fails, your phone service can be disrupted, potentially leaving your customers unable to reach you. Having a backup phone system means you have an alternative way to communicate during outages, minimising downtime and maintaining business continuity.
Why this matters for UK SMEs
Phone communication is often critical for sales, customer support, and internal coordination. If your VoIP system goes offline, you risk losing calls, missing urgent enquiries, and damaging your reputation. For businesses handling sensitive data, such as customer details protected under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, an outage might also impact your ability to respond promptly to data subject requests or security incidents.
Downtime can also affect staff productivity and morale. Without a reliable phone system, employees may resort to personal mobiles or other less secure channels, increasing cyber risk. Moreover, if your business needs to meet compliance standards like Cyber Essentials or PCI DSS, having a documented and tested backup plan for communications can be part of demonstrating good operational resilience.
A typical scenario
Consider a UK SME with around 50 staff using a cloud-based VoIP system. One day, their internet provider experiences a regional outage. Without a backup, all incoming and outgoing calls stop, causing frustration for customers and lost sales opportunities. Their IT partner had previously set up call forwarding to employees' mobiles as a temporary measure. This quick switch allowed urgent calls to be answered, while the IT team worked with the ISP to restore service. The business avoided extended downtime and maintained customer trust.
What to discuss with your IT provider
- Ask if your current VoIP solution supports automatic failover to a secondary line or mobile numbers.
- Check whether your provider offers a backup phone system or can integrate with a traditional PSTN line.
- Request details on the expected recovery time and how failover is triggered.
- Confirm if call recordings and logs are preserved during failover for compliance and audit purposes.
- Discuss security measures for backup systems, including access controls and encryption.
- Verify if regular testing of the backup system is part of your service agreement.
Simple internal checks you can perform
- Review your current phone system's settings to identify if failover options are enabled.
- Test call forwarding to mobiles or alternative numbers periodically.
- Ensure your internet connection has redundancy, such as a secondary provider or 4G/5G failover.
- Check that staff have up-to-date contact lists and know procedures during phone outages.
- Confirm your backup power supplies (UPS or generators) support your VoIP hardware.
Having a backup phone system is a practical step to reduce the impact of VoIP outages on your business. It supports ongoing communication, protects customer relationships, and helps meet compliance expectations around operational resilience. Speak with a trusted managed IT provider or IT advisor who understands your business needs to review your current setup and develop a tailored backup strategy that fits your budget and risk profile.