Benefits of a Business Phone System (PBX)

The recent advancements in technology have revolutionized the telecommunications industry. They have redefined the way businesses interact with customers and how employees connect and collaborate with each other. 

That said, while technology has made omnichannel communication possible, it should be noted that most people have subscribed to a mobile-first habit. Because of this, phone calls remain one of the most preferred communication channels between a business and its customers or an employee and their coworkers. 

Today, most businesses use cloud-based business phone systems, given their flexibility and reliability. In fact, according to a Future Market Insights study, the global demand for VoIP is expected to exceed $127 billion by the end of 2022. 

In this post, we’ll cover what a cloud-based PBX is, its features, and the benefits businesses can get when they use cloud-based PBX instead of legacy PBX. 

Let’s dive in. 

What Is a Cloud-Based PBX? 

A cloud PBX is a phone system that runs over an internet connection. Essentially, these phone systems provide all the functionality needed in an office system, such as call forwarding, voice mail, and of course, calling. With a cloud PBX, you’ll use a VoIP provider for all your business’s communications. 

When your staff place or answer calls, the VoIP handset converts the sound into data packets, which then travel wirelessly over the Internet to the hosted PBX provider. The PBX provider ensures a clear communication path between both parties. 

Upon reaching their intended destination, the data packets are converted back into sound by the business phone system—it does this within a matter of milliseconds and without requiring any additional configuration. All you need is reliable broadband to use these phone systems. 

What Does a Cloud-Based PBX Offer? 

Cloud-based business phone systems offer all the functionalities of legacy phone systems in addition to other features. These include: 

• Web phones: This feature lets you make phone calls online using almost any browser. You can make the calls using a headset or a phone. 
• Conference call: With this feature, multiple parties can join in on the same call, regardless of their location. 
• Video conferencing: This video chat feature enables participants to communicate face-to-face via a video stream. 
• Call queuing: Call queuing is useful when you have multiple callers trying to reach your business at the same time. 
• Call transfers: With this feature, you don’t have to assign someone the task of transferring calls to everyone in the organization. As such, it saves significant time. 
• Business SMS: Business SMS allows recipients to get information right away via text messaging. It also allows you to store messages and reference them later. 
• Voicemail: You can set up different voicemail boxes – each meant for different team members or departments in an organization. 
• Call recording: This feature makes it possible to record and store entire conversations such that managers or team members can review the calls later for quality control. 

What Are the Benefits of Using Cloud-Based PBX? 

Here are some of the ways businesses can get more out of cloud-based PBX: 

1. Improved Collaboration Between Team Members 

Effective virtual communication is no longer a luxury—it is an essential component for success in today’s dynamic business environment. 

Considering that a business can lose more than $12,000 per employee every year due to poor workplace communication, making investments in proper communication tools crucial. PBX systems can help streamline communication between your team members. With tools such as team chat, video conferencing, and virtual phone extensions, you can be confident that team communications will be frictionless. 

2. Massive Cost Savings 

Given that cloud-based PBX solutions are hosted and managed in the cloud, you won’t have to invest money into sophisticated software – you’ll only pay for the services you need. It, therefore, releases you from the massive investment in technical know-how and capital expenditure required to set up your system. 

Additionally, since cloud PBX isn’t limited to any specific geographical location, businesses such as call centers that handle large volumes of long-distance calls can save on call costs. This means your entire organization, no matter where its branches are located, can integrate its communication tools and resources into a single system, making calls between different branches as clear as those made internally. 

3. Superior Call Quality 

An excellent cloud PBX solution comes with high-quality phone calls. The HD voice codecs in these systems offer twice as much bandwidth as a legacy, on-premise system so everyone can hear a wider range of sound in every call. Customers won’t have to repeat themselves, and you’ll create a satisfactory customer experience in each call. 

What’s more, since cloud PBX systems exist in the cloud, they leverage the proven reliability of multiple data centers. 

4. Enhanced Customer Experiences

Cloud PBX’s modern functions can help you make your customers feel like they’re heard, seen, and understood. No one fancies having to call multiple times or being kept on hold when they call. Such incidents can lead to customers moving away from your business. In fact, studies have shown that 56% of people stop doing business with a company due to a bad customer service experience.

Also, having a customer call your cell number or one of your employee’s personal cell numbers is not an option, as it is highly unprofessional and gives you no control over client communications.

With features like auto-attendant, which enable incoming callers to choose the person or department they want to reach, and call queuing, which enables you to send callers to the appropriate voicemail, cloud PBX systems can help solve customers’ issues efficiently, thereby enhancing their experience. 

5. Increased Flexibility 

Cloud-based PBX empowers you to connect from anywhere using a smartphone, IP phone or desktop PC from any manufacturer. This is especially important given the recent increase in remote work. Your employees can make or receive business calls at any time using the same office number. They can also flip calls from their desk phone to soft-phone and answer calls in transit. 

Flexibility in phone communications can also improve your reachability to customers, meaning that you can connect virtual or toll-free numbers easily to your business phone system and receive calls whether they’re on a remote site or on-premise. 

6. Easy and Quick Scalability 

A cloud-based solution makes it much easier to scale your communications based on your needs as your business expands. With these solutions, you’ll have less hassle provisioning and handling phone system activation and management tasks. This means increased agility. 

With a cloud-based PBX, your business will have the ability to add new users in a matter of minutes rather than days, and you can have entire departments in your organization up and running more quickly than with a legacy PBX solution. 

The modern, user-friendly interfaces installed in these systems allow administrators to make changes and add users from anywhere instantly, saving resources and time. 

7. Streamlining and Integrations 

These days, software integrations  have become a vital part of business processes. Most cloud-based communication systems are easily integrated with tools like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, helping team members schedule calls and manage their calendars. 

You can also connect your communications with other chosen business applications such as project management, productivity, compliance, or marketing automation tools. 

8. Top-Level Security 

Cloud PBX solutions offer better security compared to legacy PBX. Most PBX systems are susceptible to attacks since the audio signals transmitted by these systems can be easily intercepted. 

By contrast, most cloud PBX solutions are validated by third parties for compliance. This means there is the benefit of certifications such as PCI compliance, ISO/IEC 20071, and HIPAA compliance. Some of these systems also offer call encryption and 24/7 server monitoring. 

Simply put: a cloud-based PBX solution ensures that your communications are secure and can’t be intercepted by bad actors. 

Cloud-Based PBX Systems Have Your Back 

After weighing the benefits of using cloud PBX, there’s no doubt that you’re considering adopting the use of cloud-based PBX for your business. Besides providing better security, it streamlines your integrations, improves customer experiences, and is easily scalable, among other benefits. 

Next, you need to find the ideal cloud PBX solution for your business. Phone.com is easy to use, versatile, capable and allows you to seamlessly move between computer and phone. Get in touch with us to try out our solution today.