Hosting takes place in ‘the cloud’ and consumers / businesses lease a service which is accessed via the Internet instead of purchasing and maintaining a system. Usually, a resilient data centre acts as the host for the telephone system. The client renting these services will benefit because:
- They only lease a service, avoiding often large capital purchase fees
- We run the service including maintenance, trouble-shooting and system upgrades
- Even more modestly sized businesses benefit from the enterprise-grade feature set
- The service makes use of Internet as a communications path and therefore both fixed costs for lines / ISDN channels – and also call charges – and invariably cheaper
- The service is extremely flexible and it’s straightforward to add, remove and change services
- The service is ideally suited to multiple site working and therefore businesses can have home workers, mobile workers, remote workers all working as a single business entity from a central number / range of numbers
However beware . . .
Not all hosted services are the same, not all providers are the same and not all the advice you get is focused on your business results but on making the dealer a quicker and higher profit! You are well advised to seek advice from a reputable source before you buy.
Here at 500 Limited we pride ourselves on providing simple expert advice. Here are some of the questions to ask your potential provider:
- What is the hosted telephone system / platform and do you use it yourself?
- How is the system implemented? Is there multiple site resilience? Is the system protected by session border controllers? Can you describe its resilient features?
- How long has the system been in operation and how many users / seats are running off it?
- How do you ensure a business-grade (mission-critical) speech quality?
- What service level is provided?
- What is the minimum length of contract I have to sign up to?
- Do you have a try before buy policy?
- What services do you provide to both minimise problems and to support me?
- What’s my expected total cost of ownership for my system over 3 years?
- How will you cater for my required flexible needs, including home workers?
We then strongly recommend you ask us at 500 Limited as to how we would answer these questions. We guarantee you will be delighted with the answers. Simply contact us for a free discussion on your options.
