Finding the best hosted phone system provider for your business could be a challenge. After all, there are hundreds of providers out there. As the main decision maker for your company, you need to decide what features will best suit your business and what services you need from a hosted phone system provider.
What Do Hosted Phone System Providers Offer?
If you are brand new to the world of hosted phone service, you may not know that a hosted phone system goes by different names. In general, though, a hosted phone system is phone service through the internet instead of antiquated coaxial phone lines. This internet-based system goes by VoIP, hosted phone system, and hosted PBX to name a few.
These systems have a strong foundation in voice services. So, depending on the provider, you may also have access to video and messaging through your hosted phone system. If voice and messaging are necessary, as well as more communication options, you may need to investigate UCaaS, or unified communications as a service. UCaaS offers several functions and features that are great for collaboration.
Which Hosted Phone System Provider is the Right One for You?
As mentioned earlier, it’s important to work with a provider that fits your needs. One preemptive step you can take is to talk to your employees. Find out what type of communication features they use regularly and what they could use to make their jobs more effective and efficient. After all, they are the people “in the trenches” and keeping your employees happy may help foster company loyalty.
The Services You Need
One thing that your employees may not consider but is essential to your business is security. What security features are integrated into the phone system? Do they offer two-way encryption? Does their solution follow FCC rules and regulations? Not only does built-in security protect you, but it also protects your customers and employees.
Once you have a secure product, you will want to make sure the SLA (Service Level Agreement) includes guaranteed uptime. Did you know that some providers offer up to 99.999% uptime? This can mean the difference between you worrying about your solution vs. you focusing on your business full-time.
Another service offered by some hosted phone service providers has to do with migration. There are some providers that will help you with installing your hosted phone service. Some will even help with training to ensure that your employees know how to operate the solution as well as know who to reach out to for help.
The Features You Want
Now that you have an idea of some great services offered by different providers, it’s time to start thinking of the features you would like as part of your solution. Different hosted phone service providers offer different features with their solution.
In fact, you can now find a solution that offers voice, video, messaging, and integrations for CRM and Microsoft Teams. That makes a pretty comprehensive solution without the full commitment of UCaaS. Another feature you should consider is the ability to offer remote work possibilities.
Remote work is on the rise. And as a business owner, you should be prepared to offer your employees that option. Hosted phone systems now have the option to offer softphone capabilities. When you work with providers that offer this option, you can ensure that you not only offer your current employees the option to work remotely, but also open up your candidate pool to anywhere that receives internet service. You can do this with the rigth hosted phone system provider!
Hosted Phone System Providers and You
Now that you know what to look for in a hosted phone system provider, ACI can help you out! ACI offers a VoIP solution full of features that benefit businesses of all sizes. We work with our customers to ensure that they are getting the most out of their solution. Most importantly, we are available to our customers.
Our customers can rest assured that our experts are ready and waiting to assist with any solution-based questions and issues that may arise. If you have any questions or are ready to get started with ACI’s VoIP solution, contact us today!
