While the use of email, video calling, teamwork tools and social networks is steadily increasing, good old telephone calls are still an absolutely vital part of business communication.
But as staff become more mobile and working practices become more flexible, the need to make and receive calls reliably and cheaply from diverse locations is gaining more importance.
With significant numbers of employees currently working from home, many businesses are finding their current phone systems just aren’t up to scratch.
Plus with traditional ISDN phone systems coming to the end of their working life in the UK, is now the time for your business to move to cloud telephony?
What is cloud telephony?
Cloud-based telephony uses the internet to make and receive calls, instead of the more traditional copper phone lines used by an on-premise or ISDN office phone system.
Also known as a hosted PBX, cloud telephony is well established, reliable, often cheaper and now also offers better support options than ISDN and on-premise phone systems.
Traditional ISDN business phone systems are now coming to the end of their useful lives, with BT due to turn off all of its ISDN lines in 2025.
But customers will not be able to order some new services from this year onwards – and those who leave their migration from ISDN to the cloud until the last minute could find themselves stranded.
Cloud phone systems really have gone mainstream, with thousands of UK organisations recognising cloud VOIP’s flexibility, scalability and cost implications to enable them to remain agile and grow easily.
How much does it cost?
Your business phone costs could potentially be reduced by more than 50 per cent by switching to a hosted PBX cloud phone system.
Cloud telephony allows you to use the same phone number no matter where you are located in the world – this means there are no issues if you are relocating your office either temporarily or permanently, or have staff members working from home.
If a client dials your number, it will go through to the correct person whether they’re at their desk in Yorkshire, or working from home in Yarmouth.
This flexibility is key, plus cloud telephony systems are feature-rich and have almost unlimited potential to add extra users at little or no cost.
Many providers offer cloud phone system plans that include either unlimited cloud VOIP calls, or bundles of minutes that can be shared across a whole business.
This means that most companies have no extra call charges and the cloud phone system simply becomes a fixed monthly charge, with no surprises on the bill.
Cloud telephony is now a mainstream business service that offers benefits to firms of all sizes, including negligible capital outlay, incredibly flexible features and easy set-up and training.
Many businesses already use other cloud-based software services such as Microsoft Office365 or Google Cloud, so perhaps now’s the time to switch to cloud telephony to maximise your organisation’s efficiency and potential using a hosted PBX.
If you would like to learn more about cloud telephony, cloud VOIP and hosted PBX, Time Communications would be happy to talk you through the migration process and the options available to you.
Contact Time Communications’ expert team on 0113 2059640, you can request a callback on our home page, email at [email protected] or message us here.