MANAGED VOICE BUSINESS SERVICES

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

The technology isn’t new but the scope of options, functions and ways to buy have radically changed.

What is the best business phone system? There are so many great systems out there the only way to really go wrong is choose one that is mis-aligned with your budget or needs.

What kind of phone system do I need? First Call is providing an overview of four options.

UPGRADE YOUR PHONE SYSTEM

ON-PREMISE PHONE SYSTEMS

PBX PHONE SYSTEM

A PBX (private branch exchange) system is basically a box that sits at one or more of your physical locations where all the brains of the phone system exist. Commonly referred to as an on-premise phone system. There are many manufacturers of PBX systems and they have been around a long time. Don’t let their longevity dissuade you. PBX systems are reliable, feature-rich, mobile-friendly, remote workforce capable, scalable, cost-effective, easily managed, and constantly evolving to meet the demands of organizations and their workforce.

FLEXIBLE BUSINESS PHONE SYSTEM

EASILY MOVE, ADD OR CHANGE HEADSETS

Organizations need to modify the phone system and handsets on an ongoing basis as new people are hired, roles change, or facilities are modified. Modern PBX’s make these changes easy.

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CHANGING EMPLOYEES?

If an employee leaves and a new employee replaces them you simply log in via a web browser to the PBX and retire the old employee and create the new one. Few clicks and you or your service provider are done.

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ADD A HANDSET

Need an additional handset your service provider will ship you one, all they need is for you to plug it in they can address getting it joined/set up for a user in less than 15 minutes.

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Employee is moving desks

They can literally pick up the handset and take it to their new desk and plug it back in.

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Employee is going to work from home?

They can take their handset home or set up their computer with a softphone and connect that way.

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Adding a branch office?

If there are less than 5 phones just buy the phones and have the users plug them in, modify a quick setting and that will direct them to the main PBX at your primary location and calls will begin to flow.

For more complex changes to call handling, auto attendants and the like your vendor can perform all those changes remotely including handling changes with your carrier for additional phone lines or Direct Numbers etc. All the changes can be made via the cloud from anywhere even though the PBX phone system is physically on-premise.

PBX PHONE SYSTEMS

FEATURES AND
FUNCTIONS

PBX systems are very mature at all the central services you’d expect like auto attendants, call routing, paging, park to extension, presence management, music on hold, etc. Most systems also allow organizations to license advanced features for multi-site integration for organizations with growing footprints and branch offices, call analytics and reporting, call center functionality automatic call distribution, multiple language support, etc. Where PBX’s begin to fall short is in Interactive Voice Response (IVR) where technology is using speech recognition to handle and direct callers needs. IVR is common with banking, utilities etc and usually requires 3rd party solutions. Another gap PBX’s face is integrating with cloud-based software applications like SalesForce, Microsoft 365/Teams, or ServiceNow. Finally, PBX’s are not good at one major and growing need: video conferencing. The majority of the PBX technologies from the PBX server to the handsets are built for voice, not video communications.

PBX PHONES

CALL QUALITY &
MAINTENANCE

PBX phone systems offer high call quality and work with your IP networks to deliver consistent quality of service.

A PBX can connect to traditional phone lines or IP services commonly referred to as SIP or VOIP. Either way your users and callers will experience one good call after another whether making calls between phones in the office or a world away. The only real risk to call quality is bad cabling in a facility or a poor internet connection. Bad cabling can and should be fixed. If you have a poor internet connection then simply connecting the PBX to traditional copper phone lines is going to be the correct approach and really is going to steer you towards a PBX as the other options available are highly dependent on quality internet broadband.

Modern PBX’s are very low maintenance. The hardware is simple with no moving parts and typically have a mean time between failure of over 12 years. Said differently the hardware is tough stuff that keeps on ticking.

The software is updated with feature releases and patches remotely via a cloud service. Not a lot for a local administrator to due assuming the organization maintains their rights to software updates with their vendor of choice. Maintaining these rights and services is usually low cost and is oftentimes built into the overall fees versus a separate charge.

PBX USERS

FEATURES &
FUNCTIONS

PBX phone systems have rich set of features and functions that deliver the core of what users want with sound quality and ease of use but also full capabilities with:

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Mobile Phone/Smart Phones/Soft Phones

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PC’s and Mac’s for Call Management

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3 Party Conferencing

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Voicemail to Email

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Caller ID

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Do Not Disturb

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Paging

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Call Transferring, Parking, and Pickup

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Call Forwarding

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User Directory

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Call Recording

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Call History

In short, there is very little for a user that a PBX doesn’t deliver as a standard feature anymore. The reason for this is the systems are largely software and the world of phone systems are so competitive that PBX’s have feature parity with one another.

PBX PHONE OPTIONS

COST OF
OWNERSHIP

PBX’s have kind of gotten a bad rap on this front but its really not deserved. Here is why. Most PBX’s organizations purchase or lease with a buyout at the end. Its become a little out of fashion to buy a phone system because buyers are concerned the technology they are buying will become out of date in 3-5 years and they’ll have to start all over again. That may be true but its unlikely. Most organizations with less than 150 employees aren’t changing radically over a 5-10 year period. Their growth is 8-10% per year and PBX’s are actually staying quite current with technology trends (other than video) without having to go through replacements. So, when you pencil out a PBX over a 5-7 year period (which is still conservative) they actually end up costing you less than other options.

Generally an organization should budget $400-$700 per handset for a turnkey solution with maintenance for 5 years when considering a PBX. The more handsets involved the lower the per handset cost will be as labor and centralized hardware is spread out.

First Call sells and delivers PBX’s as well as other options. We are always happy to “do the math” for our clients across our solutions to insure they are not only getting the right technology but also that the dollars are optimized for their needs.

A new class of mobile-first business phones

PBX DELIVERY METHOD

PBX’s have to be installed onsite by a qualified technician, handsets are rolled out at the same time by the vendor and training is usually a combination of hands-on/face-to-face sessions and follow-up questions handled remotely. As a customer, all you have to do is open up your offices to let the vendor do the rollout and the rollup of your legacy system to get that out of the way.