You’re aware of the pros & cons of cloud PBXs vs on-premise PBXs and have decided that cloud is the way forward. Now you need to look into the plethora of cloud PBX options available to you and decide which one to invest in. Now that is a cumbersome task! Good news is that we’re here to help you by providing you with a checklist with what you should be looking for in your Cloud PBX.
- Start-up costs: apart from the obvious of having to purchase a license, find out what the costs are to get started. Do you need to invest in networking, upgrading your internet service, training, down-time and so on.
- Security: Does your Cloud PBX pay attention to security. Are conversations end-to-end encrypted using the latest technologies. Do they have the option to blacklist/whitelist IPs that can access your PBX?
- Scalability: make sure you choose a vendor that allows you to upgrade or downgrade your license according to your business growth and needs.
- Flexibility: you don’t want to feel tied-down in any way. Your current needs might change at any minute hence you may need to switch to an on-premise solution or vice versa. Additionally, you should be able to choose the IP phones, SIP Trunk and deployment method as you see fit.
- No hidden costs: ensure that all costs are accounted for up-front. You don’t want to be half way through the deployment and realise that a much-needed feature you were promised to start with comes with an additional cost.
- Features: there are certain features you can’t live without. Such as, smartphone apps, call reports, live chat, CRM & social media integration, web conferencing, click2call, queue and group management and more. Double check that these are offered and are included in your initial quote (see point 4).
- Easy management & managed services: do they offer managed services? At what cost and what does this include? Even if they do, you should test run the cloud PBX to see how easily you can, for example, add/remove extensions and other daily tasks. You don’t want to call someone each time for a 2-minute job.
- Number Ownership: Find out if your provider offers number ownership for both local and toll-free numbers. Owning your number enables you to carry it over to other providers if in the future you need to switch.
There are obviously more points that you need to look into such as DIDs, toll-free numbers etc. but the above are a good starting point before you proceed to choose any Cloud PBX solution.
For help in choosing the right option get in touch with our team.
We’d be happy to offer our advice free of charge.
