Fonality Blog | VoIP, Unified Communications, and Business Tips

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Cloud-based VoIP has gained popularity over recent years due to its many advantages.

At this point, it seems like every company, ice cream vendor and even your kid's soccer team is on the cloud.

While it's true that moving workloads to virtual servers can benefit an organisation in a number of ways, many decision makers haven't yet figured out they can leverage the same service for other mission critical aspects of operation. Cloud-based VoIP has increasingly gained attention over the years due to the advantages it can bring.

What's wrong with the current model?

The very next call your sales team receives could be for a deal that doubles revenue this year, or a highly valuable customer that needs immediate help. After answering, there are a series of delays in quality, static at both ends and finally a click to end the call.

Traditional business phone systems lack in call quality.

Unfortunately, this can be the routine for many small- and medium-sized businesses with traditional business phone systems. It's an ironic parallel - sales team success is pivotal to company growth, yet the investments being made in legacy infrastructure to improve phone quality don't always reflect that.

Not only does a physical server often lack in call quality - unless major investments are made to upgrade it - phone numbers aren't uniform across multiple locations. This can be a serious issue if a power outage occurs at another branch.

Advantages of the cloud

It's best to think of cloud-based VoIP - or hosted PBX - as a stepping stone when talking about its benefits. Companies move the softswitch and control panel to a third-party host and only need to retain an internet modem, router and phones. From the start, organisations are optimising the amount of assets on site, reducing the cost of operating a business phone system.

Since everything is on the cloud, it's easier to expand or shrink the system as needed to accommodate hyper-growth or setbacks. Essentially, you're only paying for what you need.

With cloud-based VoIP, companies also have access to features that were previously only available to large enterprises that could pay a considerable investment into infrastructure. Unified communications provides a number of applications that aim to improve productivity by connecting email with calling, texting, video conferencing and other aspects of day-to-day work. This improves collaboration and productivity across the board.

Although many businesses may think they're up to par by moving a couple of solutions to the cloud for computing purposes, they may not realise there's another way to use the revolutionary technology. Contact a Fonality representative today to learn more about cloud-based VoIP.