What exactly are cloud-based phone systems?
Cloud, or hosted, services are not new. Businesses have been using cloud-based solutions like Salesforce® CRM or Webex®virtual conferencing for years.
Cloud-based phone systems leverage the power of cloud hosting and technology innovation to bring businesses of any size a complete enterprise phone system—with all the bells and whistles—at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone systems.
How is it different from my existing service?
If your customer's like the majority of businesses out there, they have a basic phone service through their local carrier with a traditional hardware-based PBX, along with a tiny room somewhere in the back of their office filled with wires that some IT expert needs to manipulate every time they hire a new employee or make a change.
With the cloud, all of this hassle goes away. No more PBX hardware or dark, scary, wire-filled phone rooms. With a cloud solution, they can configure their phone system–add new lines, change answering services, or record a message played for callers—all from an easy-to-use web interface or smartphone.
Every change made, from setup to adding new offices, is instant and as simple as clicking a mouse.
What are the benefits of a cloud-based system?
Cloud phone systems provide four primary benefits to businesses:
1.Rich functionality: Cloud phone systems bring all the functionality of traditional enterprise phone systems, including fax in your inbox, advanced call routing, ability to make all changes instantly, and much more.
2.Cost savings: With no hardware to buy up front, no maintenance costs, and all-inclusive monthly charges, cloud-based systems are less expensive than traditional solutions. For a 20-person business, you save approximately $10,000 up front on the cost of a traditional PBX , and thousands more annually because of no maintenance and lower monthly bills.
3. Ease of setup and use: A cloud phone system takes just minutes to set up and all changes go live instantly.
4.Scalability and flexibility: Cloud phone systems are extremely flexible and customizable to meet the needs of your customer's business, so they can configure their phone system exactly the way that they need it. And as their business scales, adding or deleting new users and locations is as easy as clicking a button.
How reliable is the cloud?
Cloud solutions are extremely reliable and offer redundancy that is not available with non-cloud solutions.
For example, if they experience a snow storm, a hurricane, or an earthquake, and their office is damaged because of flooding or just shut down due to snow, their cloud–based phone system will not be impacted since it is not located in their physical office location.
They can simply log in from anywhere and reroute their customers' calls to employees working anywhere
Who is using cloud-based phone systems to support their business?
Short answer: any size. Whether your customer is a 4-person business or a 400-person business spread across many offices, cloud phone systems are right for them.
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