Internet-based phone systems have been on the rise over the last few years, with many major businesses shifting from traditional phone lines over to VoIP phone systems.
With many advantages over traditional phone lines including great cost savings, VoIP technology, and cloud calling are massive growth areas in telephony.
As more and more businesses take towards cloud-based technology, you may wonder what a cloud phone system is.
But what exactly is cloud calling and how is it of benefit to your organization?
In this article, we’ll talk about what cloud calling is, what it is used for, and how it interacts with VoIP.
2. How Does Cloud Calling Work?
4. Why Use Cloud-Based Calling?
5. Switching Your Business Over to Cloud Calling
What is Cloud Calling?
Cloud calling is a type of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). Cloud-based calling provides voice calls through a third-party company.
With Cloud-based phone systems, there is no need for a private branch exchange, which helps reduce the equipment and expenses associated with running your own phone exchange.
Your cloud telephony system can be accessed via the internet through apps that can be built into your current systems through the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS).
Cloud-based phone systems are hosted on the cloud. The services are maintained by the third-party provider. You may choose to enter into a contract or subscription with your provider, or you may need ad-hoc access to the services.
The flexibility in cloud-based phone systems means that they can be used with artificial intelligence applications and automated assistants, offering your business the ability to enhance and streamline your customer communication.
How Does Cloud Calling Work?
In terms of how the system works for your users, a cloud phone system will work in much the same way as their current system. The difference is more noticeable when it comes to the way that the system works.
Instead of calls being routed through your onside private branch exchange, all your calls will pass through cloud-based switches.
This means that there is no need to keep the equipment that you would use for routing calls onsite. Often, this equipment can take up a lot of space, cost a lot of money to own, and need maintenance.
The types of costs associated with running a traditional phone system with a private branch exchange could be sky-high. Cloud calling does away with this and frees up all of the space which was previously used by this now redundant clutter.
Cloud Calling Vs. VoIP
You’ve probably heard more about VoIP than you might have done about cloud-based phone systems. Nearly all cloud phone systems use VoIP technology- but not all VoIP phone systems can run using cloud technology. Confusing?
VoIP is a term that refers to how the information travels. It stands for voice over internet protocol. It means that the call travels via the internet using the IP’s packet-switched connections as opposed to over fixed public switched telephone networks (PSTN)
An organization building a phone network can choose to use its own in-house VoIP system -known as a private branch exchange or they can use an outsourced third party which will be a cloud-based telephony solution.
There are many organizations that will opt for a hybrid model using cloud-based and on-site exchanges. Often, this is part of a longer-term migration strategy where they will move entirely to the cloud.
Why Use Cloud-Based Calling?
There are many benefits of switching from a traditional PTSN phone line to using cloud-based calling. The benefits include:
Cost-Efficiency
Perhaps one of the greatest reasons for any business or organization to move their phone services over to a cloud-based system is the cost savings.
Not only will you save money on your call charges, but you will remove the need for all the equipment associated with running a private branch exchange.
In addition to that, by outsourcing the responsibilities associated with managing your network over to a cloud-based communications provider, you will be able to pool resources and reduce infrastructure overheads.
Scalability
If the demand for phone lines and numbers in your business is growing, you won’t want to wait around for new numbers to be set up. With a self-service portal, you can add or remove numbers as required.
This makes it much easier to bring new workers to your team.
Flexibility
With remote working on the rise, cloud-based phone systems are the ideal choice.
You can have your calls routed to a mobile phone or through a computer. With cloud-based phones, you have lots of options meaning you can adapt your phone system to the needs of the business.
Resilience
Because there is no physical hardware stored in your business premises, there is nothing there that can break.
With the threat of a natural disaster or fire being able to cause havoc to a private branch exchange, there is no danger of this occurring with cloud-based technology
Transparency
If you want to learn about how your phone system is being used or analyze the performance of your employees, then you can easily do this using cloud calling.
Streamlining
When you factor all the time and effort associated with running your own private branch exchange, it can really mount up. All of this will be managed by a third party and will be offsite meaning you don’t have to worry about it.
Futureproofing
With a wide range of different features available it is possible that as your needs adapt you will be able to make use of features such as interactive voice response keyword analysis, call center capabilities, and artificial intelligence-based customer service.
Switching Your Business Over to Cloud Calling
With so many benefits to cloud calling, isn’t it time for you to switch your business over to a cloud-based phone system?
Want to learn more about what we have to offer? Feel free to reach out to us today and see how we can help.
