Many businesses are now choosing to go for a hosted telephone system, rather than an on-premises option. This fits in with the growth in adoption of cloud services, which tend to be regarded as both more cost-effective and more beneficial than their in-house counterparts. If you’re looking for a new phone system for your business, it’s worth considering hosted telephony as an option. In this post, we explain why we think businesses should choose a hosted telephone system.
Minimal equipment required
When you choose a hosted telephone system, you won’t have to buy lots of expensive equipment. You may need handsets, but that’s pretty much it. Your hosted telephony provider will have all of the other equipment housed in their data centre. This will make it much cheaper than having to buy an entire phone system for your office. The initial capital expenditure could even be as little as zero. If you have a very small budget or limited space to house equipment, this could be a major plus point.
Inclusive support & maintenance services
Companies that have an in-house phone system either have to pay for a phone system maintenance and support contract or go without one and risk hefty bills and extended downtime when a fault occurs. Those with hosted telephone systems don’t have these concerns. Hosted telephony services are fully managed and, therefore, include ongoing maintenance and support services. This is one of the reasons why hosted phone systems are such great value for money.
Budget friendly
We mentioned earlier that hosted telephone systems don’t require a huge initial capital outlay, which is great for those on a tight budget. On top of this, the ongoing costs remain low and are manageable even for small businesses. You will pay a monthly charge for the service, which will depend entirely on how many users you have. There will be a monthly rate for each individual user on the system and this is fixed, which ensures that budget planning is simple.
Increased flexibility
In a modern business, flexibility is important. When you have a hosted telephone system, your employees can work from pretty much anywhere and still make and receive business phone calls. If your company works across multiple sites, you can make internal calls between these at no extra cost. And if you move premises, your service can easily be moved with you and you can even keep the same phone number when you move to a new area.
If your business grows and you need to add more users, this can be done instantly without any hassle. If you downsize, you can simply remove users at any point. No other type of phone system offers such easy scalability.
Advanced features
Advanced features are usually only available with high-end, costly telephone systems. But with a hosted telephone system, you can get loads of these for no extra cost (i.e. call transfer, voicemail, call queueing, call recording, auto attendant, conference calling and much more). With a feature-rich phone system, your whole business will be transformed via increased efficiency and productivity. Advanced features also help to present a professional image of your organisation to everyone that calls your business; they help to improve the service you offer customers as well. All of this translates into increased sales, improved customer retention and ultimately greater revenues. Not to be underestimated.
So, if you need a new phone system for your business, there are so many reasons to choose a hosted telephone system. You will probably not find better value for money with any other type of system.