If you’re looking to upgrade your business telephone system to the cloud, then it’s important to make the right decision. With so many options on the market, telecoms can be a difficult field to navigate.
You need to make the right decision and the one that will benefit your business, both short and long term. This article should help you to understand VoIP, and decide if a cloud based phone system is right for your business.
Before you get started
Before you start to look at different cloud-based telephone systems, consider your current set up and system. Here’s a few questions to ask yourself before you start researching:
Do you already have a cloud telephone system?
A great place to start is looking at your existing telephone system. Most commonly, telephone systems are all on-premise PBX systems. This means that you’ll have a box in your office that controls all of your calls.
Moving a cloud based solution would remove this piece of hardware, and replace it with cloud connectivity. So there is likely to be some cost savings made there.
What is your internet speed?
One other thing to consider is your broadband speed. Because a cloud based telephone system uses VoIP, it requires an internet connection reliable enough to make and receive calls as well as browsing the web.
As a guideline, we’d recommend a minimum of 18Mbps download. This ensures that you’re getting the best quality service when you move to a cloud based phone system.
Your telephone system
Once you’ve looked at your current system and internet speed, it’s time to decide what features are best suited to your business. Maybe you need mobile apps for sales staff that are out on the road; or perhaps you have a technical call centre that needs full call centre applications.
Every company is different, and your businesses requirements will be totally unique to you. That’s why a good way to decide which system is right for you is to look at your current system, which bits do you like, what is your system missing? Where are your frustrations?
When you’re highlighted the best and worst parts of your telephone system, get in touch and one of our team can discuss your requirements with you.
Phone system after care
As with any technology, after care and support is important with a cloud based telephone system. Because communications are vital to a business, you should consider after care and support when you’re looking to upgrade your telephone system.
Disaster recovery
What happens if your business loses it’s broadband connection? Or if there is an issue with connectivity due to maintenance work near your premises? While they’re rare, these issues can occur.
You should look into adding a disaster recovery solution to your cloud based phone system, just to ensure total peace of mind.
In summary
If you’re looking to upgrade your business to a cloud-based phone system, then hopefully we’ve provided a good guideline to help you decide what is right for your business.
