Top 10 Reasons to switch to VoIP

With traditional on-site phone systems, you often require clunky – and costly – onsite equipment (PBX) which require complex configurations and regular maintenance, meaning an additional costly maintenance contract is required to ensure your phone system continues to run smoothly. Cloud-based business phone systems take the clunky on-site equipment (PBX) and store it in the cloud, meaning you free up office space and save money.

Cloud-phone systems for businesses route calls across a data connection, meaning internal calls – as well as calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers – are free to call, regardless of the physical location of both the caller and receiver. International and premium calls are typically cheaper too, meaning you’re likely to save money on calls as well. Our cloud-phone system for businesses includes 2000 free minutes per month to each user to 01, 02 and 03 numbers and mobiles – which equates to over 30 hours of calling per user per month!

Gone are the days of dialling your voicemail, inputting your unique PIN code and listening to each voicemail one at a time. With a cloud-based business phone system, you’re able to send all voicemails to an inbox of your choice – which is perfect for messages left to the main office number as you can select a shared inbox which all users can access.

Although you’d expect there to be a lot of costs incurred in completely changing your business telecoms, that simply isn’t true. The only expenditure your business would require is a bundle of IP phones for your workforce; however, we do offer free hardware when taking our combined broadband and telecoms package, meaning there’s little to no upfront costs involved at all!

Most business use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to keep track of customers, make notes on customer profiles, and generally monitor data and information stored about every customer. Our business cloud-based phone system integrates seamlessly with most of the major CRMs and allows you to know who’s calling and have their profile open before you even answer the call.

VoIP solutions typically support soft clients, which means you’re able to take calls to your business number from anywhere with a reliable data connection through a mobile or PC/Mac application. This means customers can get hold of you in the event that the office is shut, or a remote working policy is enforced.

With traditional phone systems, making changes to your call-flow, adding new users and general personalisation was very complex and often required a third-party specialist to implement these changes. With a cloud-based phone system, changes can be made in a matter of minutes via a user-friendly web portal: this includes accessing call history, voicemails and recording calls, as well as a whole host of personalisation options.

With traditional telephony, the geographical location associated to your office number was bound by the restrictions of your physical location. If you wanted to advertise a Darlington (01325) number but operated from your office in York (01904), then you’d have to open a new office in York. With a cloud-based business phone system, your physical location no longer limits the businesses you’re targeting. Cloud telephony utilises Virtual Numbering and allows you to present any 01, 02 and 03 number to give your business a local presence anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Cloud-based business phone systems allow you to use a variety of different hardware and platforms to make and receive phone calls; this includes IP desk phones, mobile phone applications, portable phones, and PC applications accompanied by a headset. Our cloud system – Horizon – supports a catalogue of devices from Polycom, Cisco, Yealink and Plantronics.

With traditional on-site business phone systems, you had to pre-inform your provider of how many numbers and lines you’d need in advance, so a lot of the time businesses were paying for numbers they didn’t need ready for if they took on new employees, or they overestimated how many numbers they need. With a cloud-based business phone system, a new user can be created and set-up within minutes.