When choosing a new phone system nowadays, more and more businesses are turning to hosted phone systems as they offer many advantages over traditional hardware. Installation is quick, easy and inexpensive and provides many great features which help increase productivity and efficiency in your business.
With hosted telephony your telephone system resides in the cloud rather than in your office. Users access the system through a standard IP handset or a softphone – a screen-based virtual phone with headset. Calls are made and received over a broadband connection. This means, you can call people from anywhere in the world if you have an internet connection.
The benefits of (Cloud) hosted phone systems
- The cost
The greatest benefit of hosted phone systems is the cost. They are considerably cheaper to run than tradition phone systems and these cost savings are largely due to a lack of physical infrastructure. Just as sending an email eliminates postage fees, so hosted systems do away with trunking and exchanges, as well as expensive maintenance contracts.
- Security
It’s often cited as one of the disadvantages of hosted phone systems, but when it comes to security there’s really no need to fear the cloud. Maintenance and security responsibilities are put into the hands of trained, dedicated professionals who are dedicated to running a secure service, so you don’t have to. And should the worst happen, and something was to fail, then data will be rerouted to another part of the system, so you won’t even notice any downtime.
You can integrate your business mobiles with your fixed lines and your callers will only need to dial one number to reach your desk phone and mobile phone simultaneously, with a shared voicemail box for both. Cloud technology can be used on any device, be it a smartphone, laptop, or desktop, making it much more flexible than a traditional landline. You can easily direct and redirect calls using your work telephone number. This means that if you are out of the office or working from home your customers will never know. Cloud is the perfect technology if you have remote workers or employees who travel frequently
- Reliability
Rather than relying on a dedicated copper wire to relay phone conversations, hosted systems digitise voice data before sending it down the same cables used for broadband. By relocating phone calls online, supremely reliable systems can be established, which are impervious to bad weather or broken phone lines
- Extra features and increased productivity
VoIP provides many features that can change the way that your business communicates both on or off-site. While some of these features bring small efficiencies to how your business uses its phones, others bring systemic improvements to how phone systems are managed and secured. You will also never pay for features that you don’t want or need, unlike telephone providers who often bundle services together.
A Hosted phone system such as a Cloud phone typically offer advanced security and telephony features such as:
- Extension dialling
- Auto attendants
- Video Conferencing
- Call recording
- Call routing
- Voicemail
- Music-on-hold
- Built in Disaster Recovery.
Features like call forwarding, adding or transferring numbers from one location to another are stress free and simple.
A cloud hosted telephone system can not only meet your changing business needs for speed, flexibility and scalability but can often deliver a more cost-effective communications solution than its predecessor. A hosted solution removes the hassle of managing your own PBX, while leaving you in control of your business telecoms.
We hope this information has been useful. If you are considering purchasing or renting a new telephone system for your organisation and would like some free expert advice on the different types of telephone systems available and which may be most suited to your business, then please contact us on 0800 505 3350. Alternatively, you can visit our Cloud Phone systems page for more information or even run a quick quote to get an idea about the cost for your business.
