Is PBX right for your business?

1. Availability Issues: Situations can go from predictable to unpredictable anytime. The best example of such an unprecedented situation is the current pandemic that the world is witnessing. Most businesses shifted gear to remote working during sudden lockdowns. However, they realised they could not carry their phones home. Their business phone system stuck to the premises. Not having a phone system that is reachable during business hours could mean a lot less business opportunity.
2. Poor Audio quality: If your employees and customers are experiencing chronically poor audio quality, they will be reluctant to communicate as often as needed. Disturbance in the connection means risking business-critical conversations.
3. Zero mobility: If you are a business owner who manages all aspects of business operations single-handedly, then PBX offers zero mobility. While out on errands, you have to rely on your mobile number to attend to your customers.
4. Non-scalable: A PBX system is restricted in its scope and scale. You will face considerable challenges if you wish to extend business communication across borders and locations.
5. Remote working: As mentioned earlier, remote working has become a norm globally. Your business may or may not consider a remote working team now. However, it’s always in the right spirit to have a futuristic view of the business. Remote working requires teams to collaborate overwork, hold virtual meetings, video conferences, share documents and so on. Business PBX cannot offer unified communication, which is a necessity in a remote working environment.
6. Regular update: To keep your PBX system up and running you have to continually update your server environment.
7. Expense: With server and key infrastructure costs running high, along with lengthier bills, the redundant PBX phone system is creating a dent in your business.

1. Competition – Customer experience is what every client is looking for these days. Being able to reach your business at any time and being able to get the queries sorted out without hindrances are factors that decide who gains an upper hand in the business – you or your competitor.
2. Outages – PBX phones are known for outages. Such unplanned downtime can harm your business, reputation, and profitability. Changing climates, unexpected natural disasters and other on-premises issues can mean more worry over PBX.
3. No replacement – When the dated technology reaches its end of life, you will be unable to source the right critical components and further support the technology.
4. Maintenance – Attrition of in-house expertise is required to maintain legacy infrastructure.

However, the most potentially damaging issue with your legacy PBX is that it just can’t keep pace with soaring demand for innovative communications. For every business to operate at its optimum and to do business with ease, communication is fundamental. Agile technologies reign the communication landscape today. Cloud-based and hybrid communication systems such as 3CX, offers flexibility, mobility, and scalability at a far lesser cost than PBX. For most small business owners, their inhibition to use new technology stems from the concern on the transition process. This concern is so deep-rooted that most owners prefer using PBX though it is putting the business at risk. It is to be noted that the transition to an innovative phone solution, like 3CX, is smooth, with no downtime and zero complications.

This brings us to another important aspect in choosing the right communication solution for your small business – knowing the provider and the product. There are scores of VoIP solutions in the market, but the question to ask is which is the best VoIP service for the business. To help you gauge, we have prepared 6 questions that you should be asking your communication technology provider before deciding.

1. Security and compliance: First and the foremost concern should be security and compliance. Does the phone service provider understand regional compliance requirements? Are they familiar with Australian laws on privacy and security? How do they secure communications? Small businesses in Australia are under the threat of cyber-attacks, so having a secure cloud-based platform is essential.
2. Global coverage: Where are their data centres located and do they provide geographic redundancy? In which countries do they provide international local, toll-free, and local number porting services? When employees travel internationally, how are calls routed to ensure optimum quality and the lowest lag time?
3. Reliability: What is their uptime guarantee? It is also advisable to check reviews online to see how they perform.
4. Call quality: Do they guarantee minimum call quality? Do not compromise on audio quality as it is crucial when it comes to customer experience. Do not select a provider who does not guarantee a minimum call quality over the internet.
5. Deployment: How long does it take for the provider to deploy the new system? Will there be any downtime during the transition?
6. End-to-end communications: Do they offer the full breadth of capabilities you need across phones, contact centres, unified communications, conferencing and mobility?

Driving down the fact that PBX is not the technology for the future can be hard, but that’s the reality we cannot turn away from. Cloud communication solutions, on the other hand, are futuristic and come at a low cost.

If you wish to discuss further how Hosted PBX Phones can help your small business, then get in touch.