What Is a PBX Cloud Phone System, and How Does It Work?

Modern businesses thrive when they master communications. To do this, they need the right technology. Traditional legacy phone systems are restrictive and limited, but moving phone communications to the cloud enables mobility and flexibility. If you’re considering upgrading your phone system, you’ll want to know about a PBX cloud phone system.

In this post, we’ll define what it is, how it works, and the benefits such a solution can bring.

What Is a PBX Cloud Phone System?

PBX stands for a Private Branch Exchange. PBX phones have been around for some time and create a private telephone network within one organization. In a standard PBX, the ability to use the system is only on-premises. Such a setup requires expensive servers on-site.

What’s different about PBX cloud phones is that they use VoIP (voice over internet protocol), which means they don’t need phone lines, only an internet connection. A cloud PBX lives in the cloud, sitting in a secure and remote data center. You still have all the same features for routing and management, just without the costly equipment.

How Do PBX Phones Work?

As noted, the internet is the basis of cloud PBX platforms, not phone lines. With a connection, users can make and receive calls in many ways. You can use a desk phone that plugs into a router, similar to conventional PBX phones. Additionally, you can use an application on your desktop or mobile phone. Using cloud-based phones offers true versatility to take and place calls from wherever, which means they are ideal for remote work.

The application itself and the data acquired from usage (i.e., voicemails) reside in the cloud. To leverage such a solution, you’ll engage with a provider that delivers the software and hardware. It simplifies phone system billing and management.

Why Move Phone Functionality to the Cloud

In the past year, businesses experienced tremendous change due to the pandemic. Remote work became the norm; however, this was a trend already in the making. COVID-19 accelerated it. This shift caused many companies to rethink their internal and external communications and migrate everything to the cloud.

Converting to the cloud for applications across the enterprise offers freedom from a centralized work location. While the return to the office is already occurring, that doesn’t mean you still don’t need to provide flexibility to your team regarding communications.

When you move to the cloud, you can have confidence that it’s secure, cost-effective, and scalable. Those assurances aren’t feasible under old phone systems. While flexibility is a leading reason to consider the switch, it’s not the only benefit.

Benefits of PBX Cloud Phone Systems

The primary reason most organizations adopt cloud technology is for greater accessibility. There are many more reasons your business can benefit from cloud-based phones.

Cost Savings

The price tag of a legacy phone system is a motivating factor to move on from it. You can save with the cloud because you don’t need any physical equipment to make it work. No servers mean no server updates and maintenance. Further, you won’t incur more costs every time you need to add a user, which might require an on-site technician.

With a cloud system, it’s plug-and-play. If you need to add or remove a feature, you can do it in minutes from an administrative interface.

Additionally, you’ll save on the service itself. It’s one bill from one provider that doesn’t fluctuate or inflate depending on usage. All the maintenance and updates to the software are in that monthly cost, as well.

More Features

Beyond using the system from wherever, you can also enjoy features not available on a standard PBX. With these features, your team can operate more proficiently.

• Virtual voicemail: You can access voicemails in multiple ways, which don’t require calling into a system and using a pin. Transcripts of voicemails are retrievable via email or in a mobile app. You can also forward a voicemail if another party needs to respond.
• Call analytics: Understand the performance of customer-facing roles like sales and support with data. Call analytics can deliver insights to optimize efficiencies and improve customer engagement.
• Spam caller protection: Cloud phone systems can identify telemarketing calls. You can then decide how to route them, either directly to voicemail or block them altogether.
• Integrations: A cloud-based phone platform can also integrate with other software, including applications like Microsoft Office 365 and CRM (customer relationship management) solutions.

Reliability and Business Continuity

Having a reliable phone system that ensures business continuity is essential for any organization. Your phone system is your lifeline. PBX cloud systems offer outstanding reliability, many with near-perfect uptime. When sourcing a solution, ask about their uptime percentage and how they monitor their network.

If an incident occurs that causes a downtime situation, you can still forward calls to mobile devices. These capabilities keep you connected to colleagues and customers.

The Future of Phones Is in the Cloud

The phone has been a staple of modern life for over 100 years, but that doesn’t mean you have to be stuck with old technology. Moving to the cloud simplifies the infrastructure, saves you money, delivers more features, and provides greater reliability.

Ready to upgrade your phone system? Contact us today to discuss how the cloud can support your growing business.