There is no doubt that Cloud phone systems are taking the business world by storm. Every new business nowadays has some form of Cloud technology with more business making the switch every day. In fact, market research shows cloud seats are growing like fury. By 2020 research predicts that cloud will be one in two sales in the UK. The question is will it continue to rise or will businesses still choose the PBX?
The ‘traditional’ way of doing things is to have a phone system on your premises. This equipment connects all your phone extensions, and links them to the public phone network, often using PSTN or ISDN telephone lines. These systems stay in service for 8 or more years. And whilst for most part they are solid and reliable, when things do go wrong (as they inevitably do) and the system needs repairing or updating, it can become very costly.
As PBX equipment ages, operational costs rise and failures become prohibitively disruptive, particularly as vendor service agreements come to end, and spare parts and expertise become scarce. Another pressure facing many PBX owners in the next few years will be the phasing out of BT’s ISDN service, and equipment that is reliant on this will have to be retired from service.
The Cloud Phone
A Cloud-based telephone system, often called a hosted phone system, uses Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to connect all your extensions to each other over the internet and the public phone network. With a cloud-based telephone system you would still buy the telephone, setup and training, but instead of purchasing the telephone system processor, you simply pay a monthly rental for ports on the offsite telephone system. Your office telephones would then connect via the Internet using VoIP to the telephone system that is offsite.
The benefits of a Cloud Phone System
- The up-front costs for small businesses offer vast savings over traditional PBX systems.
- Easy set up – Just plug your VoIP phones into the Internet and you are up and running straight away.
You can log into a VoIP network from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. - Integrate IT with your email clients and CRM.
- Lines can be added or removed easily giving you infinite flexibility.
- Auto attendant – Allows callers to interact with a menu to choose an appropriate extension. Your business will suddenly seem more professional and impressive. It’s like having an electronic receptionist!
- Keep the same phone number. We can port your number to VoIP services,and get your calls routed to anywhere you have an Internet connection.
To discover how Cloud phone could help you save money and improve customer communication, call us on 0800 505 3350. Alternatively visit our Cloud Phone Systems page where you can read all about our Hosted Cloud Phone systems that provide an extensive range of fixed and mobile telephony capabilities to suit your business.
