Cloud PBX Checklist for Large Companies: User Types

As your large company is making a shopping checklist for cloud PBX, make sure you tally your different user types.

In the video below, Mike details the different user types that will make a difference, when selecting a vendor to quote, and getting the best pricing possible.

Want Mike’s recommendations on the best cloud PBX vendors that your large company should be quoting? Click the button below and ask him today.

About Mike

Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. You can also hear him as the host of the popular Information Technology podcast, ITsmiths with Mike Smith. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

Your company is fairly large, meaning you have more than a hundred employees and you’re looking for a new phone system. Well, I’m making a video series called, The Checklist for Cloud PBX for Large Companies, because every time I’m working with a larger company, they contact me for my recommendations. And I go through a discovery list of all these different questions. The reason I go through all these questions is their answers to my questions really determine which service providers I recommend. So I wanted to make a video series kind of detailing all the different questions that I ask so that you guys can have that information and use it to your advantage when you go to shop service providers. Sure, I hope you come to me for that stuff. But nevertheless, I wanted to provide you some value of, Hey, what questions should we be asking internally to determine what our needs are for our Cloud PBX?

Recommendations for your company

But before I get too far into video, this video in particular is about user types. And before I get too far down that road, really quick, again, if you want to know which Cloud PBX service providers your company should be quoting and you don’t want to watch every single one of my videos and make a list for yourself and go through all that work, no problem. Just reach out, contact me via email or by phone (714.593.0011). I’m happy to help you. And I will give you some great recommendations and pair you up with the right companies to quote, help oversee the quoting process, all that good stuff, and it doesn’t cost you anything. More information on that at the end of the video.

Why do we need to dissect users and extensions?

All right. So your company’s shopping for this Cloud PBX. One of the questions that you need to be asking is what types of users do we have? What are the different user types or phone system extension types do we have within our organization? The reason why you want to ask that is certain service providers have different pricing plans for different types of extensions. Not all Cloud PBX service providers have the same pricing structure, the way they price extensions. And if your organization has a ton of one particular extension type, there’s going to be certain service providers who have better pricing that fits your organization specifically.

Common-Area Phones

So what are those different categories? Well, the first one is how many common area phones does your company have out there? Meaning do you have a lot of phones sitting out there that aren’t associated with a specific user, like a warehouse phone or a conference room phone, or a kitchen phone, phones out on the manufacturing floor, things like that, lobby phones, those are common area extensions. Those are common areas where people come in and they’re not really associated with any particular user, but they need a live extension and they need to be accessible to the outside world. They need to be able to make outside calls. They need to be able to receive outside calls. So, that’s the first extension type.

Internal-Only Extensions

The second extension type is what I call internal extensions. So these might be common area phones that do not need access to the outside world. It’s only for contacting people internal to the company. I’d say these are more rare. A lot of times companies, if they have a phone line around because of 9-1-1 access, they want to make sure they can make outgoing calls outside of the organization. But some companies, for whatever reason, have extensions like that only make internal calls. So that’s a different type of extension you want to think about? Do you have any of those lying around?

Hot Desking

All right. Another type of extension that you want to think of is kind of like nomadic extensions. Do you have desks setup where you have phones and users come in and maybe want to log into that phone periodically. A lot of companies call this hoteling. Do you have a lot of phones that need hot desking or hoteling? Meaning that you have sales people that come in and jump into a cubicle and just start using a phone in there by logging in, things like that. Do you have a lot of those types of phones around on your offices?

Users

And then one of the obvious ones is how many users, what’d I say? I call them users. How many users do you have out there who need their own voicemail and extension? So a person in the office that needs their own phone system extension, they also need voicemail. That’s your typical phone system extension.

Super Users?

And then as you dig down into those users a little bit, how many of those users just need basic calling features versus how many of them might need some more advanced calling features like maybe call center?

Maybe they substitute in for the front desk sometimes and take calls for the front desk, so maybe be they need a reception console to be added? Or maybe they just take calls for the call center or they need to be able to log in and log out. Or maybe they manage some of the contact center people and so they need administrative rights to be able to go in and listen to call recordings from some of the call center agents? Or maybe they need to be able to administer the phone system to be able to add or remove users or look at call reporting for your sales managers? Do they need to pull reports on how many outbound dials are being made? So from the user list, how many of those need advanced features and what features do they need as opposed to people who just need to make outbound calls, get voicemails, transfer calls, some of the basics there. So you want to think about your number of users and kind of divide them up a little bit into what feature groups that they need.

Mix-n-Match

And then finally, you also want to know like, Hey, do you have a lot of these different types of users? You might want to find a provider that can mix and match user types. Maybe all of your users are really different in terms of the spectrum. Maybe you have some really advanced users who use a lot of features and some really basic users. Well, that type of company really needs to find an organization or a Cloud PBX service provider that can really mix and match, that not every user has to be the same exact type. Maybe some users need software integration and others don’t. So things like that.

Usage Patterns

Also think about the usage types that you have. Do you use the phone a lot? And if that’s the case, your user type needs to include maybe unlimited calling. But maybe you don’t use the phone hardly at all. So if you find a company that includes unlimited calling but you have a thousand users, maybe you need users priced out a little bit differently for your organization. Maybe you need to find service providers that price based on simultaneous call path, instead of unlimited calling for every single user, which will get expensive if you have hundreds or thousands of users who aren’t really using the phone a whole lot. As opposed to companies that might price you out based on a higher price for simultaneous call paths, but they don’t price you out a lot on a per user basis.

So just some things to think about in terms of really categorizing your phone system extension types and user types within your organization. And by doing so, and knowing that information in advance, you can approach service providers from an educated basis and really filter out the service providers right away that you don’t want based on a bad fit in terms of phone system extension types.

Shortcut

I hope that was helpful. Again, if you want to know my recommendations for you for the best Cloud PBX service providers to quote for your large company, don’t search the internet for it. You’ll be searching for hours, and you’ll probably end up with a company that might have a bad reputation. So don’t do that. Instead, just contact me, via email or by phone (714.593.0011). Within a few questions, I can tell you which service providers you should be quoting and I’ll introduce you to the right people within those organizations, some good people to work with, and I’ll oversee the quoting process to make sure you get the lowest pricing possible. And the nice thing is those service providers pay me my broker fee. So you don’t have to pay me at all for my recommendations. So no excuse whatsoever not to least reach out and see what I have to say.

All right. Well, if you like to video, don’t forget as always to hit the like button and please subscribe to the channel. It helps us grow, also gets rid of the advertisements. And I will see you on the next video.