The Benefits of PRI for Your Business

There are many reasons why a mid-sized company with a relatively small but talented IT department chooses PRI or Primary Rate Interface for their voice services. Primary Rate Interface (PRI) is a T1 voice only, digital circuit that uses ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) technology. With PRI, a company can have up to 23 calls going simultaneously and also provide caller ID and DNIS (Dialed Number Information Services).

Who Benefits from PRI

There are several reasons why an organization would be interested in a PRI system, and there are various benefits from choosing it. The ideal kind of company to benefit the most from a PRI would be those that have active call centers, companies whose phone system require feature maximization, as well as companies that prefer direct phone numbers (DIDs).

ISDN systems can have one of two types of rate interfaces. There is the BRI (Basic Rate Interface) used mostly for homes and small businesses, and the PRI for larger businesses, usually from medium-sized to large-sized companies, with PBX digital systems. The PRI technology makes for a much more flexible system that can be redirected to meet the special needs of companies of this size. For example, PRI can more easily accommodate video conferences or virtual desktop type applications.

Benefits of the PRI System

Benefits of the PRI rate system for a medium-sized business or organization can include a lower cost for payroll, lower cost for voice calls, and improved efficiency of the voice systems. PRI systems can cut payroll costs because DIDs (Direct Inward Dialing) can eliminate the staff that manually answer and rout calls. These staff members can now be reduced or reassigned to more productive and profitable tasks, generating greater revenue potential.

In addition, the PRI system results in lower costs for voice calls. With fewer lines and unlimited direct phone numbers, medium- and large-sized business will see cost savings on their overall voice and phone expenses.

Finally the PRI system will improve the overall efficiency of medium – to large-sized businesses. When using direct phone numbers, businesses are able to track specific costs, such as customer service and marketing, as well as better track effectiveness of specific marketing and advertising campaigns through dedicated numbers for these outreach efforts.

Also, PRI offers other features that can benefit mid- and large-sized businesses, such as automatic failover for incoming calls, TUR or Trunk Utilization Reporting that indicates whether trunks are overburdened and if any are underused, and Caller ID pass-through for outbound calls.