Why You Might Want to Consider a Cloud-Based Phone Solution

By Paula Bernier
Executive Editor, TMC

Cloud-based phone systems are more cost-efficient, flexible, and scalable than traditional on-premises telephony solutions, and offer a range of other benefits of features, as noted by Paul Chaney in a recent Small Business Trends article.

He lays out 10 benefits of cloud-based telephony solutions in this piece. First on Chaney’s list is that cloud-based phone systems can integrate with a business’s other systems (like its conferencing, CRM, email, and IM solutions) and processes. Chaney also talks about how cloud solutions make it easier for business users to access them via the devices of their choice, and to select and employ only the features they require.

As noted at the top of this story, cloud solutions also allow businesses to scale capacity and features up and down as needed – whether that’s as their businesses’ grow or contract in the long term, or as they expand or shrink due to seasonality or specific promotions or other events. Businesses can frequently tweak the capacity and features of their cloud-based phone systems via web-based customer portals, as Chaney notes.

Small businesses can also benefit from cloud-based phone systems because they can give them access to the features once available only to the largest organizations with the fattest wallets. In fact, I recently wrote a piece about how VoIP services can make an organization appear larger than it is. Speaking of that, Chaney mentions that cloud phone systems can offer auto attendant features with specialized greetings and the ability to direct calls to the most appropriate parties. All these ideas follow a similar theme.

Business continuity is another important feature of cloud-based phone systems, according to Chaney. Services that live in the cloud won’t be impacted by factors like weather that can impact employees’ ability to make it into the office, and because these services can be accessed remotely, staff can work from a location of their choosing.