What is Hosted PBX?

One of the latest spin offs of business telecom technology is the Cloud VoIP or Hosted PBX. This technology allows small and medium-sized businesses to have a sophisticated telephone system without a large investment in telephone equipment. Unlike a traditional phone systems, which requires a large investment and ongoing maintenance, a hosted PBX is a cloud-based phone system accessible via the Internet. Rather than being responsible for hardware, software, training, maintenance, and more, your hosted PBX provider takes care of it all. In addition a hosted PBX is managed completely off-site. You are able to manage your phone system via a user-friendly internet based control panel. A Hosted PBX lets employees work from their home, a hotel or on their cell phone while still being connected to the same office telephone system.  Just like a Fortune 500 telephone system, you can transfer callers, put them on hold with music, set up conference calls or have the phone answered by an automated attendant who can direct callers to different people or departments. From a single user at a home office to a multi-user, commercial-grade call center, a hosted PBX system can provide a complete solution customized for your individual business needs. For these reasons and more, hosted PBX systems are becoming increasingly popular solution for today’s growing small to medium-sized businesses.

Benefits of Hosted PBX

There are many benefits to using Hosted PBX rather than a traditional premise based phone system. The main benefit is cost. A Hosted PBX solution costs much less to set-up and operate than an on premise PBX. With hosted PBX service, you pay a monthly fee, which is often less then you currently pay for you line charges, and the hosted PBX service provider takes care of all the rest.

Here is a list of some major benefits of Hosted PBX systems

Initial Cost Savings – You do not need to make a large upfront investment by purchasing an office telephone system and there is no need to maintain it. With a Hosted PBX solution the office telephone system is operated and maintained by your Hosted PBX provider.

Ongoing Cost Savings – Typically, a Hosted PBX implementation is significantly more cost-effective than a traditional PBX. There are ongoing savings in addition to the initial savings on capital outlay.

Geographical Flexibility – Employees can work from anywhere when your office phone system is in the Cloud. You can have employees working from home, other offices, mobile phones, in other states and even overseas.

Local Presence – Hosted PBX systems allow you to get local numbers in cities where you are not physically located which allows you to create a virtual presence or open a virtual office in new markets.

Credibility – For new and small businesses, a Cloud based phone system can give you instant credibility by presenting your customers with a professional sounding telephone interface for a very affordable price.

Scalability – Traditional phone systems are limited by how many users they can handle as well as how many lines you have purchased from your local telephone provider. Hosted PBX can expand and grow with your business as your needs change.

Quick Setup – a Hosted PBX solution can have you up and running very quickly compared to a traditional telephone system.

Ease of Use– End-user management of a Hosted PBX is far more user-friendly than is the case with traditional solutions. Intuitive web interfaces mean that anyone can manage, monitor and make changes to the service at any time, without needing any specialized skills or experience.