Why 90% of New Offices Opening in Canada are Cutting the Cord with Traditional Phone Lines

Office phone systems have been done the same way for the last few decades. A physical PBX hardware system is installed somewhere in the office and 3, 4 or more lines are connected from the local telco.

It’s the PBX hardware that creates the different extensions as well as traditional office phone features such as voicemail and call transfers between extensions.

This system has worked all well and fine for the past 5-10 years. Lower cost and feature-rich alternatives using voice over IP technology (VOIP) and high-speed internet connections are now becoming the norm in new offices set up across Canada.

Why a Change?

The drawback to these traditional PBX phone systems is they require a 3rd party company to service and upgrade them. This can be an expense of a few hundred to over a thousand dollars per year, depending on what’s needed.

Two biggest reasons businesses switch phone systems:

  1. Monthly cost for phone lines
  2. Cost of equipment updates and service

Also, the cost of the phone lines and any long-distance calling from your telco isn’t cheap.

This has new offices cutting the cord from telcos and traditional PBX phone systems and swapping them for VOIP Hosted PBX phone systems.

In fact, as high as 90% of all new small to medium-sized offices in Canada are opting for a VoIP PBX phone system rather than a traditional landline system for their business.

Virtual PBX Phone Systems

The new technology is often referred to as a Hosted or Virtual PBX phone system.

The word hosted is used because the required hardware is managed (hosted) somewhere else (generally your service provider). There’s no hardware to service locally on your end and no landlines coming into the office from your telco.

As for the phones, everything works the exact same way.

Every employee has a desk phone.

KEY TAKEAWAY

You won’t notice a difference in day-to-day operation between a virtual phone system versus a landline pbx phone system. Call quality and features will be the same. The cost savings are the #1 reason new offices and many established offices are switching to hosted PBX.

Standard office features such as voicemail, call transfer, and auto attendant are built right into the software that runs these virtual phone systems. Because everything is software base, it’s easy to make changes without the need for a service call to a local company to update your PBX hardware on site.

Best of all, the cost is 40-50% less than what you would have been paying for the old system

Where do the savings come from?

Here’s an example of a small business with 4 lines coming into their office and 15 employees (desk phones).

In a traditional landline phone system, you’re paying a per phone line fee each month to the telco plus any additional services or long distance your office may incur.

  • Traditional PBX Phone System
  • $60 per line = $240.00
  • Hosted VoIP PBX System
  • $14.95 per line = $59.60 $5.00 per extension = $75.00 Total = $134.60 per month

$100 or more saved per month adds up pretty quickly.

Plus, when you add in some of the great features built into Hosted PBX phone systems the switch becomes really attractive.

What’s involved with Switching Your Office?

Switching your office phone system to a virtual PBX doesn’t take long. A phone conversion consult is required first to determine what desk phones you currently have and if they’re compatible with newer VoIP technology.

There’s also some basic planning of how many lines and extensions are required, but there is no complex hardware to install.

CONVERTING ISN’T HARD

Converting from a traditional landline phone system to a virtual internet phone system isn’t difficult. You need to determine if your current desk phones will work and determine the number of extensions your office needs. Generally, a conversion can happen quite quickly.

Some small businesses will have their network administrator involved during the initial installation, but once the system is working, everything is managed by the company you choose for your hosted PBX service.

Want to learn more? Download our Cloud Business Phone System Report. In it we cover the 5 Key Factors choosing the right office phone system for your business.

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New Features You’ll LOVE with a Virtual PBX Phone System

Traditions in business are changing with technology.

Social media has opened up a range of marketing opportunities. The internet has brought an age of websites, online shopping, and faster communication. It’s about time for a business phone system to catch up. Virtual PBX phone systems replace the outdated multi-line phone systems offices traditionally use.

A Hosted PBX doesn’t require the clunky physical hardware of the previous business phone systems. Your monthly fees will also cost about half as much! For some, even more exciting than the savings are the new features available with VOIP business phone systems.

Here are a few of the new features.

Find Me/Follow Me

One of the issues of traditional office phone systems was if you weren’t in the office you missed the call. There are times, albeit occasionally when no one is in the office or has time to answer the phone. This creates missed opportunities. A popular feature of new cloud PBX phone systems is called Find Me Follow Me.

This technology allows you to customize what numbers you want to be called when someone dials an extension. So for example, it might mean ringing on the desk phone as well as someone’s cell phone. Or, you can set an order where the desk phone rings first then the cell phone, then maybe another employees phone if no one answers.

There are lots to the find me follow me technology, and it can be set up by schedule (ring certain numbers at certain times) or sequence (ring one person then another then another if no one answers).

Voicemail to Email

In the old office phone systems, voicemails could only be accessed through the desk phone or by dialing in and getting your voice messages that way.

With a cloud-based phone system, voicemail can be sent directly to your email. This allows for easy access to stay up-to-date, even on your busiest days or when you have several errands to run. You can check your email whenever and wherever you need to make sure you don’t miss out on important information or opportunities.

Customized Call Routing

If you have grown tired of the difficulty traditional office phone systems have to transfer and route calls, then you’ll be happy to hear about the different ways you can customize call routing with a new virtual system. R

Route phone calls to a desk phone, a cell phone, software, or a virtual auto attendant.

Auto attendants allow you to give callers the option of who they want to speak with so you don’t have to spend time manually transferring calls. The ability to route calls to a mobile phone allows your office to have mobility and can let you spread your workforce to nonlocal areas or to work-from-home.

A Virtual PBX system is a great step up from the outdated traditional ones. It allows businesses to be more versatile with their communication and have better communication with their customers. You can customize and tweak to get exactly what you need without expensive equipment or added software. Technology is changing business. Let it change how you use your business phone too.

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How Much Can You Save Switching to a Hosted Cloud PBX Phone Service?

Savings are the #1 reason small businesses looking to switch from their traditional phone service to a Hosted VoIP PBX service.

In most cases, the monthly fee of a hosted PBX service is at least 40% less than what you currently pay to your local telco, but the benefits extend beyond just savings on your monthly bill.

Flexibility and scalability are two more big reasons why Canadian businesses are making the switch to cloud-based office phone systems.

Here is an example of cost savings for an office with 4 landlines and 15 extensions.

  • Traditional PBX Phone System
  • $60 per line = $240.00
  • Hosted VoIP PBX System
  • $14.95 per line = $59.60 $5.00 per extension = $75.00 Total = $134.60 per month

Total savings in this scenario is at least $105.40 before factoring in long-distance calling and additional features available with a hosted VoIP solution.

Flexibility & Scalability

It’s easy to add another user, change an extension or route calls differently when you have a hosted VoIP business phone system. It’s as easy as sending an email to your provider to make the change.

Beyond simply adding or changing lines and extensions a cloud-based phone system for your business makes you and your staff more flexible.

Features like Find Me Follow Me, which allows your mobile and desk phone to ring at the same time, or voicemail to email makes your workforce more mobile and more productive.

Fewer Service Calls

Most small businesses do require assistance from a network specialist with the initial setup of their hosted VoIP PBX service. Once the system is up and running it works quite flawlessly. If there’s an issue you can always call your VoIP provider directly for technical support, so long as it’s a hosted service (Clearly Core’s ClearNote™ service is hosted).

The first step to savings and increased flexibility from your business phone system is to schedule a phone conversion call with the experts at Clearly Core.

We have happy customers from coast-to-coast in Canada reporting average savings as high as 50% per month after switching to our hosted Cloud PBX solution. Schedule a call today.

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