Hosted PBX The New Digital Transformation Strategy

As a business owner in today’s uber tech-savvy and connected world, how are you keeping up with the technology that enables you to create an impressive first impression when communicating with voice?  

Does your company communicate to customers and stakeholders through using a telephone?   

If yes, does your company have hosted PBX services?  

If not, then take the next few minutes to learn about the innovative solution that will bring a plethora of benefits to your daily operations and save you a lot of money that you could invest in other things. 

Either way, thank you for investing the time to learn how hosted PBX solutions can help your business.

According to American Express, “75% of consumers believe that phone calls will help them get a quicker response from businesses.” In addition, IBM estimated that “85% of business relationships can be handled without human interaction using an automated phone system”.

To streamline your business in an uber-competitive world, you need to start thinking about your digital transformation strategy that includes your voice communications.

Today in this article, we will discuss the benefits of hosted PBX for small to medium-sized businesses.

What is a hosted PBX?

A private branch exchange (PBX) system has been around for almost fifty years.  Before the PBX, an operator would have physically connected lines from one room to another.  

A hosted PBX phone call connects using the internet. It is also called a cloud-based telephone switching system that eliminates the need for physical equipment used by traditional phones on the office premise, removing hardware and software costs.  

Booming Market:

As per the ‘Global Market Insight,’ it is said that “Hosted PBX Market size exceeded USD 5 billion in 2020 and is poised to grow at over 12% CAGR between 2021 and 2027.” 

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Hosted PBX Key Benefits

1. Lowering business costs

Meagre up-front cost: 

In comparison with traditional phones, hosted PBX has No-upfront cost.  A survey conducted by RingCentral in August 2020 states that a small company with approximately 20 employees can save about 625% of the price. 

Up-front cost for traditional phones includes costs like – ($6,500) hardware, ($1,000) setting-up and implementation cost, ($4,000) software licenses cost, phone costs ($3,000). 

For the same solution, a Hosted PBX has a one-time phone cost of $2000. 

That equates to a  direct saving of $12,500.   

No recurring costs: 

Hosted PBX businesses will neither have any maintenance cost nor long-distance charges. Not only that but “There is a 30% reduction in expenses related to conferencing tools.” (Ziff Davis, 2014)

Small and medium businesses will benefit from a hosted PBX that offers many features at a lower cost than traditional phones. Features like transferring calls from desk phones to mobile phones mean that your employee can answer the phone from anywhere in the world. 

More features include music while the phone is on hold, call queues using an automatic call distribution (ACD), and interactive voice response systems. 

Most importantly, hosted PBX can connect with key business processes, like your customer relationship management (CRM) system, which will streamline your processes and simplify the method to resolve queries. 

Allows to cut-down labour cost: 

With the trend towards a flexibly working environment, hosted PBX enables your business to increase diversity in your team by hiring the best talent wherever in the world they live.  

For example, hiring someone from a developing company will be more cost-effective than hiring someone from a developed country. 

A team member from a different country can work efficiently with their skills due to an integrated communication system. The Hosted PBX provides them with the freedom to work with any device they choose and not be limited to their desk phone. 

2. Flexible work environment:

Hosted PBX enables a flexible communication system that empowers the ever-changing communication needs as businesses grow and evolve. The flexibility is a unique feature like integrating with other cloud applications, and PBX also has flexible and remote working solutions. The functioning of PBX phones won’t be affected because of any downsizing, moving premises, or expansion. 

Increase employee availability – everyone carries a smartphone with them at all times. Having a hosted PBX enables employees to communicate from any part of the world to answer their phones. 

Increases team connectivity and communication and no need to carry more devices along- If a situation arises for an employee to go on a site visit, then, in that case, s/he can stay in touch with the team members.

There is no correlation with power outages – as hosted PBX will be cloud-based, it will not be affected if there is any power outage.

Cloud infrastructure gives the business complete control. It will allow the organization to immediately add or remove users and telephone extensions as per the requirement, resulting in savings in hardware costs and unnecessary investments. 

Post-COVID Pandemic scenarios have changed business operation styles; in 2021, in one of the surveys done by Microsoft, it was said that “66% of leaders say their company is considering redesigning office space for hybrid workflow.”  In such a scenario, adapting PBX and phones is an intelligent decision to cater to your hybrid workers and customer needs. 

3. Hybrid Workforce

Increasing productivity and empowering employees: 

A recent survey of over 100 North American businesses shows that 90% of the companies positively impacted working from home (WFH), resulting in more employee engagement and happiness. 

In other words, a happy employee is a more productive employee.

Moreover, a global study conducted by McKinsey reports that  “over 50% of the employees would like to work from home for three or more days every week.” 

Imagine if the entire world starts approaching a hybrid business model and, for instance, if there comes a situation where your employee is working remotely two days out of five.

In a typical workday, a prospective client calls to inquire about the business’s services, but your team member misses it.

Depending on the system, the client will say on hold and be transferred to the next available representative, or leaves a voicemail that sent to the person’s email inbox,

When the employee sees the notification in their inbox on their smartphone, they simply read the transcribed voice message. If they choose to, presses play to listen to the voice message, keeping the entire process within the normal work process, email inbox. 

The process will improve the bottom line while keeping your team members productive, efficient and happy.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Some interesting BYOD stats.”

  • 85% of companies use the bring your own device policy in the North-America. – Microsoft
  • 49% of employees say that they are more productive using their own devices. – Forbes
  • ‘60% of the employees use a smartphone for work purposes while 31% desire one.’ – Dell

According to the given statistics, hosted PBX will empower your employees and increase work productivity while allowing them to use their own devices, resulting in an employee feeling trusted and valued.

In addition, allowing employees to use their own devices will not only save money on phone purchase and maintenance, but it also gives the employees the freedom to choose the type of smartphone they want to have.

The best part about a hosted PBX is that it will enable employees to get a different number and not reveal their own personal phone numbers. 

Conclusion

In this modern era of working remotely, accepting a hosted PBX system will be wise as it will increase employee productivity and flexibility. At the same time, it will lower business costs exponentially and help increase employee empowerment. There is an abundance of benefits of switching to a hosted PBX platform, and the time is now to connect today, build out a project plan, and make the switch. 

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Schedule a call with our business success advisors who have experience building and growing a business.  We understand that choosing a phone system is more than the technology, but also means choosing an extended team.

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