There are multiple factors to consider when moving away from your existing phone system to a new IP telephony system. One of the most important decisions to make is choosing the right PBX system, and taking into consideration the company’s IT and business practices.
The implementation and future growth of the business or organization depends on an important decision you need to make at the start: you need to choose between hosted PBX and a premise-based system. The latter means you will have the company’s PBX system physically located at arm’s length, which also means full control, while the former means your PBX is hosted by an external service provider.
While there are a couple of factors that come into play, we will focus on costs and unique features that will help you choose the right PBX system.
In the long run, cost is one of the most important factors to consider. While it’s obvious that the initial setup costs of a hosted solution will not be as high as an on-site solution, there are factors that will influence the bill in the future, such as maintenance costs.
A hosted PBX offers lower setup costs and no maintenance costs, as these costs are shouldered by the service provider. Premise-based PBX systems have higher setup costs, but potentially lower ongoing costs (the maintenance costs); however, it’s risky, because you never know how technological change will affect your existing equipment.
Besides saving you money and offering scalability, hosted PBX services come with different features and packages, such as voice recording, click-to-call widgets, voicemail to email, and performance tracking, just to name a few.
Call recording increases company productivity and helps the company to better evaluate sales people's performance. The recorded conversation can be easily downloaded with the help of an active Internet connection.
With a click-to-call widget, companies can take advantage of another way to get in touch with their customers, as a call can be initiated simply by clicking a widget that appears on the screen.
With growth being the keyword for every business, performance is an essential factor that needs to be measured, and a hosted PBX allows exactly that via reports that track calls, their length, and other important details.
After taking into consideration all the advantages of hosted PBX systems, one difficult question still remains: since more and more companies are providing such services, which one should you choose?
In order to make the best decision, here some of the most important things to consider: integration, reliability, support, and finally, the features included in the service package.
What separates Digitcom from others is the company’s 20 years of experience in the business. Digitcom has grown to become the leading provider of hosted PBX, and has won numerous awards over the years, including the prestigious CDN Top 100 Solution Providers of 2011, 2012 and 2013 three years in a row.
For more information on hosted PBX systems and to learn more about Digitcom, please visit www.digitcom.ca.