Advantages of a Cloud Hosted Phone System
5 Benefits of A Cloud Hosted Phone System
As technology evolves, more and more companies are starting to move their phone systems to a cloud-based solution. There are countless benefits of a cloud-hosted PBX phone system, but first, before we discuss this, let’s understand the terminology.
A PBX stands for private branch exchange. You can think of this as an internal switchboard that connects your phone to the rest of the company’s phones and to external phones (outside of your company).
Traditionally, this meant that your phone had to be physically connected (through a wire) to this switchboard (PBX) and then physically connected to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) which would route your call to the intended person.
With a hosted solution, wired connections are no longer needed to connect your phone to the PBX. The elimination of this needed physical connection is what makes the cloud hosted PBX a clear winner over wired connections. Here are just a few of the countless benefits it offers:
1) Cloud Hosted Phone Systems are Cost Efficient
Because of the elimination of the need for phones to be physically wired to the PBX, this reduces expenses dramatically. As long as your building is wired up with Cat 5e, there is no need for complex (and expensive) infrastructure updates to change phone systems.
Cloud hosted PBX’s are serviceable off-site, so you will not need to wait for a technician to come on-site to repair your system which will reduce downtime & repair expenses.
2) Cloud Hosted PBX’s are Scalable
Cloud hosted PBX’s are perfect for growing businesses. Adding extensions, phone lines and connecting to mobile devices take significantly less time than the “old style” phone systems. On a hosted solution, your phone system provider can easily add these without needing to be on site.
Adding on another location? You can host all your locations from one PBX! This allows you to be able to transfer calls from location to location seamlessly and easily.
Moved locations? Phones can be moved with minimal configuration, reducing your moving costs and making relocation a little less stressful.
3) Minimal Downtime & Outsourced Maintenance
Unlike the older phone systems, your phone system provider can perform maintenance off-site and typically won’t need to take your system offline to do these maintenance tasks. This can help reduce your I.T. costs and minimize the downtime you will experience during routine maintenance.
4) Hosted PBX’s are Loaded with Features
Features that seemed unattainable with traditional PBX systems are easily added with hosted PBX systems. Auto-attendant, call groups, call screening, voicemail to email, busy lamp fields and more are easily configurable and easy to change with a hosted solution.
With hosted PBX systems, an admin can also log into the system using their internet browser and view call history, listen into conversations and even “whisper” to someone in a conversation to help coach them during a call.
5) Hosted PBX’s are Reliable
We have heard nightmare situations with traditional PBX systems where the system is down for days while the company is waiting for their phone system company to fix the issue. With hosted PBX, in the rare case that you do have an issue, fixes can be implemented very quickly by your off-site phone provider.
Cloud-based PBX phone systems also offer geographic redundancy – if something should happen to the server your phone system is on, the system is automatically connected to another server – reducing downtime tremendously.
In the case of a natural disaster or internet outage, a cloud-based PBX system can route phone calls to someone’s cell phone which will reduce the amount of missed calls compared to a traditional system. If your traditional system is down due to a natural disaster, calls will not be able to go through until an on-site technician fixes the issue. This could take days to get your phone system back up and can affect your bottom line.
