In the days of yore, business telephones were about as flexible as a brick, and had about as many features, too. The good news is that the days of telephone systems being bolted down, unchangeable and tied solely to landlines is, of course, largely over. This is particularly good news for smaller companies that cannot afford the type of implementations that large enterprise customers enjoy.
For many smaller organizations, their first taste of a voice over IP (VoIP) telephone systems happens when their old system goes kaput and they need a quick replacement. (“Quick” and “business telephone system” were not phrases that went together in previous decades.) For All Show Services, a company that sponsors public events such as Super Pet Expo, the switch came after a poorly timed PBX (News - Alert) system breakdown. In a pinch, and which an event just weeks away, All Show Services turned to VoIP phone systems provider 8X8, Inc.
Prior to the implementation, All Show Services had been using a 12-year-old PBX system that had cost the company $7,000. It was paying out approximately $400 per month for local phone service. In 2005, the voice mail card in the PBX system died, costing the company another $1,800. According to All Show Service’s Eric Udler, rather than continuing with the same service, the company sought the VoIP model. The implementation showed the systems to be night and day.
“Instead of spending $1,800 to repair our system, I spent $800 on new equipment, and my monthly phone bill decreased to $120,” Udler said.
8X8 Inc.’s Debbie Jo Severin (News - Alert) recently blogged that many customers come to 8x8 (News - Alert) in the throes of a “PBX emergency.” Others are persuaded to move to VoIP because they are simply tired of their old phone systems’ inflexibility, low reliability and costly upkeep.
For smaller businesses that are highly mobile or distributed over multiple locations, the old-fashioned PBX system simply doesn’t work, particularly if the company has any desire to move forward with unified communications. For companies that may need to operate in alternate offices – imagine an outage from a storm – the flexibility of the VoIP model means that businesses need not come to a halt even if a facility does.
VoIP systems such as 8x8 Virtual Office are complete business phone systems that are designed to be affordable, advanced and flexible, all over an organization’s Internet connection. Features include auto attendant, corporate directory, voice mail, music-on-hold, conference bridges, ring groups, mobile apps, call forwarding and transfers and more, without the costs and the equipment required with a traditional PBX set-up.
More importantly, companies will no longer need to risk inconvenient “PBX emergencies.”
Edited by Alisen Downey