PBX systems have been the recipient of mass attention lately. This hardly comes as a surprise as these systems provide businesses of all types with the means to have professional communication systems which were exclusively accessible by the big organizations. The hosted PBX system enables organizations to stay connected with each other and the customers irrespective of their location.
But there are things to consider before taking the cloud service, as each service provider has a different definition of the particular hosted VOIP PBX.
Here are discussed the most significant details to consider when choosing a hosted PBX system.
1. Coverage Area
If a service provider cannot port the telephone number of your organizations, then they are of no help to the said organization. The provider must be capable enough to serve your specific area, and this is something to be checked out when short listing hosted PBX system service providers. The other thing to check is if the provider also has coverage over cities as many providers cover only a limited area, thus damaging your chances to expand this communication system with other locations of the organizations business.
2. Features
It is vital that the service provides you the services that will cater to all your needs, and not the ones that are of no use to you, thus it is extremely important to check the services offered and if they meet the requirements of your organization.
The said features can be categorized into two: the business and the call control features.
The organizations needs to decide what business and call control features they would like, for example in the control features, the organization would like to have multiple phone numbers, multi-party conferencing, and the business features could include caller ID, call forwarding and hold and transfer capabilities.
3. Payment Options
Some service providers still practice obsolete charging methods like the pay per line method, when physical line don't even exist anymore. Thus is important for the organization to know the payment details for the said cloud services. Such payment methods are outdated when compared to the VOIP technology, but are still in practice as they are revenue generating systems for the service providers.
4. Lock-In Possibilities
When subscribing to the cloud services, the contract terms should be checked thoroughly without fail as some provider still operate like traditional telecom organizations and require a long term contract. Such long term contracts prove to be inefficient with rigid businesses that change frequently. The organizations must ensure if the provider will want to re-negotiate every time the business expands or what happens if the business changes?
Such issues if cleared at the inception of the service will help you avoid hassles in the long run.
5. Support
It has been seem that the slightest of changes to the customer’s network can have unseemly effects, and to prevent such circumstances the service providers need to have a topnotch support team which can identify, react and respond quickly to such incidents. It is the performance and the time taken by the provider to fix a situation like this becomes a significant criterion that can make or break customer-service provider relationships.
Conclusion
Selecting a service provider that is right for the organization is an important decision and must be not taken in haste, but wisely. For maximum benefits, there should be an exchange of ideas between the customer and the provider and the financial limit it can be achieved.
About the Author:
Josephine Clark, Editor at MyRealTime Cloud spends considerable part of her time in writing about technology including quickbooks cloud hosting and Hosted PBX. When not writing, she loves to dig deeper into knowing the best and the latest technology in industry.
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