5 ways to reduce your telephony costs this year

By John Woollam, CEO, Euphoria Telecom

South African businesses are facing further economic hardship in the face of political uncertainty, ongoing load shedding, a rumoured VAT hike to 16% and generally slow economic conditions.

Businesses looking to survive the downturn need to look to cost-containment while taking a strategic view on driving operational efficiencies and reducing capex.

Your telephone system is a good place to start. Here we outline 5 tips which can help you to reduce your telephony costs this year.

1. Analogue is out, digital is in – it really is time to move from analogue to digital telephony. This brings a multitude of savings – starting with less management and administration hassle, no hardware PBX and a host of features that help you manage your costs more effectively.
2. Cloud is in – moving to a cloud-based IP PBX means no more PBX hardware hassles (who even knew hardware PBXs where still a thing in 2020?!), no more regular upgrades, software issues or random errors that only your supplier can understand. Also – cloud is an opex cost, versus the capex outlay required for a physical PBX. Win!
3. Get a handle on it – Get a view on your daily call costs, with a scalable solution that facilitates remote extensions across multiple sites. Plus – it can be managed by you, in real-time, without needing a PHD to work out how the system functions.
4. Control and conquer – IP telephony solutions come with management software which gives you a real time view on your calls in, calls out, call time and other critical metrics that show you how your call centre is performing. If having control of your telephony solution is important to you, you need to move to a cloud-based IP call centre solution. You’d be amazed at the savings it can deliver – between 30 – 40% of call costs and more than 50% on your monthly PBX spend (and we can prove it).
5. Get flexible – a digital telephony solution can grow as your business does. You can also assign phone settings and extension assignments remotely. This means things can be changed without needing to send a technician out to site every time. Oh, and did I mention free inter-branch calls too?

Whether it’s a business phone system or a call-centre solution you’re after, moving to digital, cloud-based telephony offers multiple benefits and can help businesses drive operational efficiencies and cut costs at a time when this is truly critical.