An essential feature of any business is its telecommunications system. Using the right telecommunications system suited to your business enhances your ability to effectively communicate internally with your employees and externally with your clients. As such, careful thought must be given into the telecommunications system that you choose for your business as this can have a significant impact on your business.
Regardless of the nature of your business or its size, the best type of telecommunications system you should use is hosted Private Branch Exchange (PBX). Similar to traditional or on-premise PBX systems, hosted PBX serves as a sort of switchboard system that ensures calls are routed correctly whether internally among your employees or externally with clients and customers. In contrast to traditional PBX systems, however, hosted PBX is a cloud-based service; all voice calls and other communication occur across the internet using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The setup, management, and maintenance of hosted PBX are carried out in the cloud by third-party experts known as Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSP). When you sign up with an ITSP such as Aspen Leaf Networks, the provider assumes full responsibility for your telecommunications system.
Benefits of Hosted PBX Systems
There are several reasons why choosing a hosted PBX for your business telecommunications is preferable to other alternatives such as local or on-premise PBX systems. Some of these benefits include, but are not limited to the following:
1) COST EFFICIENCY
Setting up a traditional telecommunications system is typically a capital-intensive venture, requiring a significant investment of money for set up and maintenance. The larger the size of your business, the more expensive it is to set up an effective traditional telecommunications system. Some expenses involved with a traditional telecommunications system include facility costs, equipment costs, setup and installation costs, and costs of skilled personnel, among others. All these costs can result in a high Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for traditional telecommunications systems.
Hosted PBX systems, in contrast, are significantly cheaper than local or on-premise PBX systems; the TCO is much lower. Since hosted PBX systems are cloud-based, there are no facility costs to consider and hardware costs are reduced. In addition, since hosted PBX systems are outsourced to ITSPs, they assume all the costs involved in their set up and maintenance. All you have to do is pay a regular fee to the ITSP for these services.
2) SCALABILITY
As your business grows in size, it is essential that your telecommunications system expands accordingly to keep up with your business growth. With a traditional PBX system, scaling up is often a challenging as well as a costly endeavor. The size of the on-ground site of a traditional PBX system places limits on how much expansion is possible; more space may need to be acquired to allow for further expansion. In addition, when scaling up traditional PBX systems, it is necessary to purchase additional hardware or software; this also places financial constraints on how much expansion is possible.
With hosted PBX systems, however, scaling up is a much simpler endeavor compared to traditional PBX systems. Since hosted PBX systems are cloud-based, there are no physical constraints to deal with; the systems can be expanded as often as needed and to whatever capacity that is necessary to accommodate your business growth. In addition, there is very little need to purchase more hardware infrastructure when scaling up hosted PBX systems since it is cloud-based.
3) DISASTER RECOVERY
In the event of a natural disaster such as a tornado, fire, or power outage, one of the systems that are immediately impacted is telecommunications. Losing your telecommunications system in the aftermath of a disaster can severely disrupt your business operations as well as hinder the opportunity for a quick recovery. Traditional on-site PBX systems are especially at risk of damage or destruction during natural disasters.
With hosted PBX systems, there is very minimal risk of losing or having your telecommunications systems disrupted after a disaster. Since the hosted PBX architecture is in the cloud, there is no damage to its infrastructure. As a result, essential communication internally with your employees or externally with your clients can persist even in the midst of a disaster. Additionally, in the event of any damage to your business as a result of a disaster, telecommunication services can be easily restored.
4) RELIABILITY
One of the key ingredients of any effective telecommunications system is that it must be reliable. Your telecommunication service should be available for use by your clients as well as employees daily, at any time of the day or night. Interruptions to your telecommunications should be non-existent or, at best, very minimal.
One of the most significant advantages of hosted PBX systems compared to its traditional counterparts is its reliability. Being cloud-based, hosted PBX systems have several redundancies built in their architecture. What this means is that there is no single point of failure within a hosted PBX system that could lead to its disruption; there are several backups that can pick the slack in the event of any failure of any component within its architecture. This contrasts with traditional PBX systems that do not have built-in redundancies; failure at any point within its architecture could potentially disrupt the entire telecommunication network.
5) MOBILITY
An effective telecommunications system should provide the ability to communicate flexibly. If you have remote employees, they should be able to easily communicate with each other as well as your clients regardless of their geographical locations. With traditional PBX systems, telecommunication is typically rigid; these systems are limited to specific geographical or physical locations. As such, traditional PBX systems limit the ability of your employees to effectively communicate with each other, especially if your business has multiple locations.
Hosted PBX systems allow for a significant deal of mobility and flexibility with its use. Due to its cloud-based architecture, it can be utilized at any time from any geographical location. If you have multiple business locations, hosted PBX systems make it easy for them to communicate with each other. Additionally, there are no restrictions as to where your employees can work from so long as they have internet access.
Why Aspen Leaf Networks is Right for You
At Aspen Leaf Networks, we know all about hosted PBX systems. In business since 1988, we are a hosted PBX provider skilled in setting up and maintaining cloud-based telecommunication services for clients. We save you money when you sign up to use our services. Depending on your needs we can provide additional voice functionality, scale your existing systems, or create new systems, among other things. For more information about our services, and to get started, contact us today.