For those companies that rely on the holiday season to round out their revenue goals, the busiest days of the year are just around the corner. Others are likely scrambling to finalize year-end financials and build out 2014 budgets. Whichever path is your reality, the odds are you have your staff fully engaged and the tasks may be outweighing the available staff to tackle them. In such a situation, hosted PBX could just be the extra resource you need to fill the gap.
A recent 8x8 blog offers some insight into the benefits afforded with hosted PBX (News - Alert). This cloud-based business phone system can simply serve as the low-priced gateway to important connections with your customers or a multi-featured virtual contact center that allows you to bring on extra help in the holidays, serving customers at any time and on any preferred channel.
Call Routing Changes on the Fly
As demand changes this time of year, you need a phone system that can easily change with it. A flexible, online interface that allows you to set up and change the routing of your calls at will is important. You can see what’s happening with your phones at all times, making changes on the fly so as not to lose that next sale or degrade the customer experience simply because they can’t get through to the right person.
Cost Benefits
Implementing hosted PBX can also completely change your cost strategy when it comes to communications. You can switch to a per user model, eliminating the large upfront cost required in on-site PBX. But that’s really only one way this communications strategy benefits the bottom line. Traditional systems could be costing you lost sales and extra labor costs. Set the phones according to your business hours and take advantage of ring groups so you can reduce the number of people needed to man the phones.
Take Needed Time Away from the Office
The auto attendant and voicemail features standard with hosted PBX means that all calls are handled whether you’re in the office or not. If something changes in your schedule before you return, you can make updates to both from anywhere. If the boss announces a paid holiday at the last minute, no one has to drive to the office to change the phone system so customers know employees are unavailable.
Ready for Expansion
It’s not uncommon for a retailer to need additional phone extensions when the rush becomes too much to handle with the current deployment. The old PBX would require a decision made well ahead of time so additional lines could be added when needed. Now, hosted PBX allows for expansion on the fly. When the rush is over, extensions are subtracted back out of the configuration, costing you only what you needed when you needed it.
Hopefully this holiday season does put more demands on your business that lead to success. When that happens, look to hosted PBX to help you handle the wave.
Edited by Alisen Downey