Traditional PBX, as we know it, is becoming a thing of the past. The legacy phone system has seen a decline and will become obsolete soon in the coming years. All this happened after the advent of Voice over Internet Protocol communication technology. This revolutionary technology brought about cost efficiency, flexibility, mobility, ease of use, and a lot of features and has made the traditional PBX systems less popular. Now a lot of telecom providers are also switching to VoIP. It can be hard to understand the migration to Voice over IP telephony. Hence, we are going to enlist different reasons for you to consider Voice over IP as well.
10 Reasons to Switch to a VoIP Phone System
1. No Burden of Physical Hardware
The new phone servers have a lot of processing power, so IP PBX can run on an existing server. This way, you save hardware costs, administration costs, and energy consumption. You don’t need dedicated equipment or a low-performance machine. With the new updated software-based solutions, the old telephone systems have become unsupported and obsolete since the VoIP phone system is hosted and maintained by the service provider.
2. Cost Savings
The ultimate goal of every business is to cut back on costs as much as possible. With an expanding business come increased telecommunication costs. But, with the latest software-based telephony, the prices are lower. Other than less set up cost, businesses can also save up to 80% in the long run. Through Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) with Voice over Internet Protocol, you can connect to a low-cost VoIP service provider. SIP, unlike the PSTN, is provided over the internet. These phone lines are bought at more affordable call rates compared to the traditional PSTN lines. The best part is that calls on the same network are free and long-distance call rates are cheap. With Direct Inbound Dialling (DID), you can make international calls at low prices or even for free.
3. Choose Between On-Site or Cloud-Based
With IP PBX, you have the choice of where to install based on the solution that best fits your business needs. You can install the PBX system on-site or deploy it in the cloud. However, the choice mainly depends on your IT infrastructure and your administrator’s experience. You don’t need a PBX that requires additional skills from your team or other hardware or support agreements with the service provider. If your IT department depends on Windows, then go with the window-based solution. If you use Linux, then go with the Linux solution. Your PBX system is just another server app that can be run on the same server and network that you currently use. If you don’t want any hassle of maintaining your PBX, then go for hosted services. With monthly charges, the provider will host the IP PBX and maintain the software/hardware.
4. Easy Setup and Management
With VoIP set up and configuration is a piece of cake compared to the legacy phone systems that were a nightmare. With a hosted PBX, anyone with a basic idea of networking can navigate through the web-based interface easily. Through the user interface, you can manage everything from adding users, multiple extensions, and managing other features. Everything can be done remotely by the admin. Whereas, with the traditional PBX system, you need a technician to arrive at the premises to resolve any technical issues that you may have.
5. Integration With Other Apps
Another great thing about VoIP is that you can easily integrate it with your other business apps. You can easily use other systems like CRM, mail, or database server. This can help improve customer service and productivity. You can match the caller ID to a customer and know who is calling. Log calls automatically with customers for customer service and reporting purposes.
6. Easy Scalability
With voice over IP technology, you can add more extensions/users whenever you need while also customizing the features that suit each department. Since hosted PBX runs on a new server, you can quickly scale compared to a legacy PBX. Scale your business based on growth without any hassle of spending extra cash.
7. Better Productivity With Unified Communications
In Unified Communications, a software-based telephone system is integrated and enables different communication methods within the business. Phone calls, SMS, conferencing, Live chat and email can be connected for users to access and share data all from a centralized location in real-time. This can improve collaboration, mobility, customer experience, and productivity.
8. Better Security
With the software-based phone, you can backup your whole PBX easily. In case there is hardware failure, you can just restore your phone system on another machine in just a few minutes through the built-in backup function. With IP phones, the conversations are encrypted, which deters hackers from listening in on VoIP calls.
9. Remote Working
Along with communication solutions, the workforce as we knew it had changed as well. Now a lot of employees work remotely. With more and more people working remotely, businesses are now using hot desking. Through hot-desking, employees can answer their desk phone from anywhere they are and from any device. An employee can plug in an IP phone at home and make calls through their office extension. Or they can also download a Smartphone app to make and receive calls on their phone. Additionally, most IP PBX solutions offer web apps so that their users can make calls using their extension with a browser and headset. Now your employees won’t have to give out their mobile numbers because they can take their VoIP number with them.
10. VoIP Solution for Call Centers
Call center functionality within legacy PBX was either too expensive or difficult to install. However, with IP PBX, you get built-in features like ring groups, call queue, call forwarding, and much more. You can also monitor calls in real-time and get reports to review answered calls, missed calls, longest waiting calls, and so on. There are other great features with unified communication, including live chat, which can be implemented easily. With VoIP PBX, you have complete control of your call center, ensuring no call is left unattended.
Conclusion
Choosing the right service provider for your business can be a difficult decision. Failure to have an excellent software-based phone can leave your business lagging. Hence you need to try VoIP services. In this competitive business world, customer satisfaction is everything. Therefore, Business VoIP services provide a complete hosted communication system that can help you achieve a high level of success while also saving cash.
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