Given the context that businesses operate in today—one that deeply involves the virtual world and cross-border communication and data exchange—there are plenty of benefits that will come with upgrading your traditional business phone line to a virtual or cloud private branch exchange (PBX). Cloud PBX, as this solution is more commonly referred to, is entirely managed online by a third-party services provider. Consequently, this setup offers businesses a more reliable and flexible means of communication without the need to acquire or maintain on-premise hardware. This is an effective way of upgrading the technology your business counts on while cutting on costs.
After your organisation has made the switch to cloud PBX, you can add or remove users from your unified network without disrupting your operations. Plus, your staff members will be able to access a wider variety of communication tools and capabilities—more than what’s available on traditional business phone lines. These features can encourage them to collaborate more effectively with each other and contribute towards improving your company’s overall productivity.
If you’re considering upgrading to cloud PBX, here’s a guide to the features available on this type of solution that can facilitate collaboration and help enhance teamwork and flexibility within an organisation:
What happens when the person you’re supposed to get in touch with is unavailable? If they’re on the field, for example, how can you reach them or who should you call? Cloud PBX solves this issue through smart call forwarding and routing, a feature that lets callers reach the right people without going through unnecessary and time-consuming call transfers.
Call forwarding and rerouting enables employees to arrange for calls to be forwarded to their mobile phones, another colleague, or voicemail. This action can be set depending on the time of day or the availability of the recipient. If A is out for a meeting, for example, then B can take care of the calls until A returns. This cloud PBX functionality reduces delays in communication and ensures that customers or other team members can always connect with the right people.
Voicemails are a convenient way to send a message, but listening to and keeping track of them can be another story. This is especially true if you’re trying to reach someone who does not always have access to their phone or is inundated with other voice messages. There’s a good chance that the recipient will miss the gist of the voice message if they’re not able to listen to it well the first time.
Cloud PBX can help you get around such a problem by converting audio into a digital format and sending it as an email attachment. There are also advanced systems that offer speech-to-text transcription, which then allows users to read messages instead of listening to them. This feature makes it easy for team members to quickly scan voicemail messages and prioritise their responses. Storing messages in the inbox in this way is also a practical method for keeping track of them and determining which ones need immediate attention or action.
Conference calls are part and parcel of running a modern business. Having the ability to discuss in real time, regardless of the participants’ locations, speeds up decision-making and keeps everyone on the same page.
It’s a must, then, for communication systems to be able to support conference calls. The good news is that cloud PBX can facilitate seamless multi-party voice and video calls without needing separate conference call services or hardware. There are even services that support on-demand conference calls, letting you confer with participants from different locations without needing to schedule the meeting ahead of time. Plus, the integration of video conferencing tools lets users to easily switch between voice and video meetings.
In many cases, subscribing to a cloud PBX service means also getting the services of an auto-attendant. This is a virtual receptionist that directs callers to the appropriate department or person without human intervention.
Once a call comes in, the system provides the caller with a menu so that they can select where the call will be routed. For example, if the caller needs to call customer support, they can press the number that will route their call to that department. This reduces the workload of human operators and receptions while ensuring faster, more efficient call handling. It can also help improve customer experience, especially if the feature is used to field incoming calls from customers.
If you need to record calls for future reference, compliance, or training purposes, then you should definitely subscribe to a cloud PBX service. The calls facilitated by this service are recorded automatically or on-demand and stored in the cloud. This resource will help trainees identify opportunities that will, in turn, allow them to improve their interactions with others.
At the same time, call recording capabilities let teams review important information without having to rely on memory. There are also cloud PBX services with transcription features, and these can convert voice to text to make the review even faster.
More than just facilitating calls, cloud PBX is a comprehensive communication solution that can enhance collaboration, flexibility, and efficiency across the company’s operations. Take advantage of features like the ones listed above to connect your remote teams, streamline your organisation’s workflows, and improve customer interactions without the limitations of traditional phone systems.
Are you ready to make the switch to cloud PBX? Get in touch with Network Edge to get started.
