Installation Guide
Small Business Guide to Installing a Hosted PBX Phone System
Article by: The Business VoIP Specialists
Sections in this article
- Summary
- Professional Phone Systems are a Competitive Advantage
- The Benefit of VoIP
- AVAD Technologies Delivers Sophisticated Features
- AVAD Technologies is Easy to Deploy
- Conclusion
Summary
Hosted PBX phone solutions are revolutionizing how small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) serve their customers, grow their business, and support their employees. A Hosted VoIP PBX’s delivers enterprise-level phone system functionality, at a affordable price. A hosted PBX phone system will allow your company to save money while improving customer service and employee efficiencies.
Large enterprises have already begun taking advantage of the cost advantages and expanded capabilities of enterprise IP (Internet Protocol) telephony. However, on-site IP PBX (Private Branch eXchange) systems require significant initial investment and ongoing operational costs that put them out of reach of many companies.
Until now, many companies have been limited in choice when it comes to phone systems. Beefed up residential phone systems claiming to use Voice over IP started to show up about 5-years ago. These systems lacked the functionality, expandability and had generally less than business-grade performance.
Now there’s a cost-effective, feature-rich alternative to on-premises IP PBXs and traditional analog phone systems expressly designed for the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
AVAD Technologies, a hosted IP PBX solution, offers state-of-the-art PBX features, seamless scalability, and unparalleled ease-of-use all in a low-risk, low total cost of ownership package.
This article provides insight into whether a hosted PBX solution from AVAD Technologies is right for your company, the types of benefits you can experience with a Hosted PBX, and an overview of how easy it is to deploy AVAD Technologies versus other phone systems.
The right phone system is a competitive advantage, the wrong one could be a disaster.
The choice of a phone system can make or break a company’s efforts to provide a professional image and a efficient experience to its customers. All of the work your company does building its products, investing in expensive technology and people can literally be destroyed by an ineffective phone system. It can mean the difference between appearing to be a large professionally managed company or one of 1000’s of companies that use phones the way they did 5, 10 or even 25-years ago.
Cost Should not be the only Reason to Switch to VoIP
A company’s choice of a phone system can have lasting effects. The choice an office phone system should be based on many factors including cost. How many major business plans with great promise have been delayed, modified or even scrapped because a company’s existing phone system could not accommodate the necessary change without a significant and costly upgrade. Think about how many times your staff has passed over a promising plan because of the road block of your legacy phone system. The expected monthly savings pales in significance to the lost revenue opportunity of not executing a business plan or strategy.
A Hosted VoIP phone system frees you from having to figure out, in advance, how to incorporate your existing telephone system into your new plan. How much will the changes to the phone system add to the cost of the plan, and how long will it take to implement. A Hosted VoIP solution eliminates most of those concerns. You can literally place an individual, with a phone, or even an entire department anywhere on the globe and they will still be part of your phone system. You can have one receptionist for your entire company working from a home office if that is what your plan calls for. If that person is sick one day, the receptionist could be transferred, in a matter of seconds to any other person in your organization.
IP telephony – voice communications over an Internet connection – is becoming the standard for business communications. VoIP enables a broader array of features than traditional analog phone systems to improve productivity, enhance customer satisfaction, and deliver exceptional business intelligence. Taken together, the lower cost and robust features offered by VoIP is making a positive impact to the bottom line of SMBs.
The Benefit of VoIP to the SMB
It is no possible to get professional phone system features such as those used by many of the larges companies on the planted at a price that even the smallest companies can afford. Thanks to a new type of service from AVAD Technologies.
In contrast to a premises-based PBX phone system, AVAD Technologies is a hosted PBX, meaning that state-of-the-art equipment and technology is located and managed off-premises by AVAD Technologies. Your company gets all the benefits with the expense of purchasing and managing the equipment. A traditional PBX phone system for a 25-person company working out of a single location can cost upwards of $40,000 to implement.
AVAD Technologies is based on VoIP and delivers a combination of cost-effective scalability and robust features that make it ideal for SMBs. With a hosted PBX from AVAD Technologies, companies can streamline communications, improve customer responsiveness, and increase employee productivity all while reducing overall telephony costs. Whether an SMB has one employee or a hundred, AVAD Technologies delivers the same major business advantages of IP telephony that major enterprises depend upon at a price affordable to much smaller businesses.
Improved Productivity and Optimized Customer Service
AVAD Technologies delivers a vast array of innovative features and capabilities to enable companies to improve employee productivity while delivering better customer service. For instance, users can customize auto attendants to intelligently route calls to the proper extension, get their voicemail forwarded to their e-mail, download call logs for reporting purposes, and much more. Customers can be routed to the correct person without being told to hang-up and dial a different number.
Easily Customize and Expand
With AVAD Technologies, companies can start with a small number of extensions and grow to any size in any location. Adding or removing extensions is easy and takes only a few minutes. Now you only need to focus on your core business plans and not worry that your existing phone system is up to the challenge. Managing growth in a hosted environment is drastically easier than with an on-premises system.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
The start-up costs for AVAD Technologies are significantly lower than purchasing a traditional or IP PBX. A hosted PBX smoothes out cash flow requirements and frees up cash in the first year for other needs. AVAD Technologies provides ongoing savings with unlimited local and long distance calling or flat rate pricing. We can even provide equipment financing through one of our banking partners.
Virtual Companies/Geographical Freedom
AVAD Technologies can route calls to any employee, but unlike a hardware PBX system, employees don’t have to be at an office phone to receive calls. Employees or sub-contractors can telecommute, taking calls on cell phones or home lines. The Simultaneous Ring feature allows calls to be easily forwarded to cell phones or other alternate locations, enabling a completely virtual company and reducing office overhead expenses.
On-Going Maintenance/Moves/Add’s & Changes
With a hosted PBX from AVAD Technologies, there’s no hardware or technology to maintain on premises: all day-to-day operations and maintenance of the PBX is performed by AVAD Technologies. Should you need to move a phone from one person to the other or even across the county, just tell us you are doing it and who will be using that phone and AVAD will handle the rest. You also gain access to the latest technology automatically; all upgrades are handled by AVAD Technologies at our location and tested before they are released. AVAD Technologies offers 24×7management and monitoring at no extra charge.
Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery
Business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities are a key benefit of AVAD Technologies. Unlike on-premises solutions, a hosted PBX solution from AVAD Technologies ensures that phone service is available by rerouting to alternate locations to provide business continuity in the event of a disaster.
AVAD Technologies Delivers Sophisticated Features
For a low monthly rate, AVAD Technologies offers the professional, enterprise-level features and functionality instantly, you can be more efficient and productive, improve customer responsiveness, and enable flexible business models and growth. Some of the features we offer include:
| PBX Features | Advance Features | Premium Features |
| Auto-Attendant (Day/Night Mode)Multiple Auto-AttendantsDial by Name
Company Calling ID Blocking Configurable Extension Dialing Group Administration Web Portal Over Head Paging Virtual Departments
|
Extension DialingAuto Callback (intra-group)Anonymous Call Rejection
|
Anonymous Call RejectionCancel Call Waiting Per CallCall Forwarding
Call Notify, Transfer, Waiting Call Return, Trace Directed Call Pickup w/ Barge-in Cell Phone Integration Softphone Support |
AVAD Technologies IP PBX is Easy to Deploy
Compared to an on-premises IP PBX or analog customer premises equipment (CPE) system, a hosted PBX solution requires significantly less planning and implementation effort and a very low initial investment.
Equipment
Most businesses will already have the majority of what is needed to use AVAD Technologies hosted PBX service: a high-speed Internet connection such as DSL, cable/broadband, or T1; and a router capable of prioritizing voice on a network that shares voice and data on the same circuit. The only additional equipment required are compatible phones that support industry standard SIP a communications protocol especially helpful for IP-based communications.
Set-Up
Once you have the equipment, setting up your phone system with AVAD Technologies takes as little as 15 minutes. When you initially receive your equipment from AVAD, it has already been tested and pre-programmed. All you will need to do is to plug it in. AVAD Technologies specialist will walk you through the set-up process, ensuring that the appropriate settings and features are implemented.
Start with One Department or Location at a Time
AVAD Technologies can be implemented in an evolutionary fashion – for instance, one department at a time. Because the AVAD Technologies solution can co-exist with traditional phone systems, it eliminates the need to cutover completely to the new system before your company is ready.
Conclusion
Until now, small and medium-sized businesses have been limited in choice to inflexible and expensive traditional phone systems or premises-based IP PBX with high start-up and ongoing operational costs. With AVAD Technologies, SMBs now have an affordable solution which offers advanced technology and features, business-grade quality, ease-of-use, and low maintenance. For more information about how AVAD Technologies can provide your company with high-quality, low cost professional phone service, contact us at (800) 733-4136 or go to www.AvadTechnologies.com.
