The Best Phone Systems for Large Businesses

Is hosted PBX a good fit for a large business?

Yes, it is, but not all hosted PBX vendors are a good fit for large companies.

In this video, AeroCom President, Mike Smith, gives you three things that a good hosted PBX solution should have, in order to be a good fit for a large business.

If your company is shopping for hosted PBX, you need to talk with Mike ASAP! He’ll help you make a much more educated decision. Click below to get his recommendations:

Ask Mike

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 and in 2011, he was honored 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 LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.

Transcription

So your company’s phone system is end of life, or for whatever reason needs replacement. But you have a large company. There’s a lot of employees there, and you’re wondering, is a Hosted PBX a good option for a large business? Well, my answer to that is absolutely.

We sell Hosted VoIP, Hosted PBX solutions to large companies, all the time. In fact, I think in a lot of ways, it’s a better fit for larger companies than it is even for smaller companies. So absolutely, yes it is a good fit, but there’s a few things you want to make sure that you look at, if you have a large company.

You can’t just go out and start shopping all the big name Hosted PBX providers, because a lot of those Hosted PBX providers, all their products and pricing are really geared for tiny businesses, like companies with five employees.

So the pricing you see, the features you see, are probably not going to gel with what your company needs if you’re a large business. So I’m going to give you three quick things that you definitely want to consider with when it comes to shopping Hosted VoIP for a large business.

So first and foremost, you want to see if the service provider has the ability to separate user license fees from call path fees. So there’s a monthly fee for every single user, when you shop for Hosted VoIP, for Hosted PBX. There’s a monthly license charge that they give you for every single user.

And a lot of times the companies that cater to really tiny businesses, that monthly fee includes a call path for that user, sometimes even more than one call path. Well, that’s great if you have five employees, because the chances of all five employees being on the phone at the same time are very high.

But if you have 5,000 employees, the chances of 5,000 employees being on the phone simultaneously, unless it’s a call center, are slim to none. In fact, you’re probably going to need about, the average is you need about one call path for every four to five employees. And if you have 5,000, it’s probably way less than that even. You probably need one call path for every 20 employees or so that you have.

So, a much more cost effective solution is find a provider that will charge you a lower cost per user for the license, and pull the call path part out, and charge you for call paths separately. That’s a difference of upwards of $20.00 per user, that includes a call path, as opposed to more like $10.00 per user that does not include a call path. And then they charge for call paths separately, maybe like $20.00 to $30.00 A month or so for the call paths.

So that’ll really reduce your costs quite a bit if you’re a large company, if you find a company that can separate call paths from user licenses.

Another thing that you want to consider, number two is does that service provider offer single sign on? That is huge for a large company. So if a Hosted VoIP provider does not offer a single sign on, it’s not a big deal for a tiny company, but it is a really big deal for a large company. So that’s the second thing you want to ask about.

And the third thing you want to ask about is does the Hosted VoIP provider allow you to mix and match license types? So for example, a lot of Hosted VoIP providers have different levels of licensing. So one is very, very basic, one is very full featured.

So you have things, if you’re a big company, you have the full gamut, typically. You have phones that are sitting there that barely get used. And then, maybe in a conference room or in a kitchen or things like that. You also have users who hardly ever use the phone.

And then you have power users, who are maybe salespeople or things like that, who use all kinds of features, and want all kinds of functionality like call reporting and things like that. Call recording, you have little contact centers within your company. So if you’re a large company, it really helps if you can mix and match license types.

Some Hosted PBX providers don’t allow that. It’s one size fits all. So either you pick the basic one that has no features functionality, or you pick the high end one that has everything and costs a lot more per month. So if you’re a large company, obviously being able to mix and match, depending on your user types will really help you a lot.

So those are just three of the things to look at, if you’re a large company, looking for a Hosted PBX solution. There are a lot more, but obviously not enough time on this video to list them all.

If you have questions, please reach out. Call me (714-593-0011), or shoot me an email. I’m happy to listen to what your company needs and what your call flow, is and give you my recommendations on the best Hosted VoIP companies that your company should be quoting. Have a great day.