In this article we examine the top 5 challenges of switching from an on-premise phone system to the cloud. From cost to reliability to usability, we address these common concerns and offer insight into how a hosted PBX differs from an on-premise PBX.
Top 5 challenges that keep companies from moving away from their legacy phone system:
- We’ve invested millions of dollars in our phone system and now the only fee is the annual maintenance contract.
- Our phone system is mission critical, and we need the phones to be up and running even when the internet is not.
- Training employees to use a new phone system is going to be challenging.
- We have hundreds of DIDs and don’t want to lose them.
- We don’t want to replace all of our desk phones.
REASON 1: We’ve invested millions of dollars in our phone system and now the only fee is the annual maintenance contract.
It's going to cost more to continue hanging onto that investment. On top of the maintenance and licensing fees, you still have to pay for minutes with an on-premise system. And when your system needs an upgrade, that’s going to be another significant cost that you wouldn’t encounter with a hosted phone system.
Hosting telephony infrastructure in-house is hugely prohibiting to businesses today given the maintenance costs, labor, and lack of flexibility. This is the disadvantage with hardware. You can choose to maintain it yourself, or you can outsource it to a specialized and trusted vendor. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
With a cloud PBX system from Telzio there are no maintenance or licensing fees. Telzio takes care of all the infrastructure including the PBX system and SIP trunking. Our global team is dedicated to continuously improving the platform with new UC features and performance enhancements. All you pay is a monthly fee for the minutes you need, and all the features and upgrades are included.
When considering the long term, every feature, user, or change made to the system is a cost. With a hosted system, management is streamlined through an online portal, making it possible for IT administrators to manage systems for enterprise and small businesses from any location.
REASON 2: Our phone system is mission critical, and we need the phones to be up and running even when the internet is not.
Keeping your business phone system running when the internet connection is down is an easy fix with a backup battery source, a 4GLTE modem, PoE phones, and the Telzio Mobile App.
Related: How to Prevent Downtime on Your Phone System During a Power Outage
Telzio is no stranger to critical operations. Our customers include police departments, ambulances, emergency hotlines, and doctors that rely on Telzio's service for life and death situations. Companies spend millions of advertising dollars centered around a Telzio phone number such as Stranger Things’ billboard campaign and Kraft's 1-83FOODPORN Superbowl Ad.
With landlines and premises based systems, downtime can mean several hours without phone service because of the time and physical requirements it takes for a technician to get on site. Troubleshooting hosted PBX solutions can be done remotely so issues are resolved quickly.
As far as reliability goes, Telzio has a record 100% uptime for several years and counting, which is unprecedented when compared to on-premise phone systems and even other hosted VoIP phone systems. Our strict security standards, 24/7 monitoring, globally redundant data centers, and highly focused team ensures reliability, and our system status reports are made publicly available.
Read about Telzio’s Commitment to Reliability.
REASON 3: Training employees to use a new phone system is going to be challenging.
There’s no difference between a VoIP phone and a traditional phone from a user’s perspective, and the Telzio interface is intuitive. You’ll find yourself dialing from the Telzio App as naturally as your own cell phone. Administrators can jump into Telzio services with no training. Onboarding new users is as simple as sending an email. As a result, IT managers save hours every week on managing telephony.
When it comes to hosted vs on premises, a hosted system offers online management capabilities, whereas on premises does not. Not only is this a game changer for IT admins, but it also gives daily users an intuitive, modern portal to work from. Missed calls, voicemails, texts, and faxes are easily accessible through an online dashboard. Users have access to more tools that enable collaboration and faster, more effective responses to customers. For example, a user can leave an internal comment on a new text message from a customer, and reassign it to a colleague through the dashboard. The colleague can then respond directly to the customer from the original text message. These tools require no training as they are intuitive, and easy to use.
“An interface is like a joke, if you have to explain it, it’s not that good.”
REASON 4: We have hundreds of DIDs and don’t want to lose them.
You can keep your DIDs with Telzio but you won’t need them if they are simply serving as rollover lines. With Telzio there’s no limit to the number of simultaneous calls you can have going on a single number, and extensions / users are free. Essentially, “lines” are uncapped. With Queues, you can have an indefinite number of callers waiting on hold until the next agent becomes available.
Premise PBX systems on the other hand, are limited to the number of phone lines purchased. When you need to expand, you need to buy more lines and pay for more licensing fees. Telzio saves you on DID costs and simplifies your setup.
On the other hand, if you have employees using DIDs as direct numbers that are already printed on their business cards, you can easily port them to Telzio with no downtime.
REASON 5: We don’t want to replace all of our desk phones.
Depending on the type of phones you have, you may still be able to use them with Telzio. Any phone that is SIP compatible can be used with Telzio. Even Cisco Unified IP Phones using SCCP can be used with SIP by flashing the firmware. At Telzio we have created a special device that can be placed on your network to assist with flashing the firmware of your IP phones. As for analog phones, you can use an ATA adaptor that will enable traditional phones to work with VoIP.
The cost of replacing all or a good portion of your desk phones does not need to be incurred from day one. With Telzio’s Webphone and Mobile App capabilities, many small businesses ditch desk phones altogether.