Will Your Phone System Save You in a Disaster?

Now is the time to make the changes that will propel you into a successful technology year in 2018.  Let’s focus on the value of a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP). The more you can do to prepare for potential disruption, the more likely you are to recover in the actual event of it. Having a concise, updated DRP will save you from lost revenue, lost information, and most importantly loss of customers. If you’re looking for the best protection to build your DRP with, you need to start by considering hosted phone.

How Does Hosted Phone Work?

Hosted phone systems can work by routing voice calls over the same data network used for other purposes such as sending email, working on documents for sharing videos. A preliminary bandwidth assessment to confirm you have the necessary and quality of bandwidth to share with your primary data network should always be done.  At times two networks can become one which is used for everything – including phone calls. When configured correctly, a single network can be optimized to carry more data which makes it more efficient and cost-effective.

How Is Recovery Simplified with Hosted Phone?

After cost reduction, the most touted feature of a cloud-based phone system is resiliency, the capacity to recover from difficulties. Backup and recovery has been revolutionized by Hosted VoIP and cloud technology. Here are some examples:

• With your backup plan pre-designed in the cloud, your call data and phone system configuration stay online and available. This ensures employee productivity will not be affected and access to tools and data they use can be gained remotely.
• In the event your primary system is impacted by disaster, plan B secondary call routing will enable your communications to operate with limited exposure on the customer experience.
• Automated attendant and call queues, s along with voicemail will continue to function, and employees can use alternate methods to access the network.
• In cases of significant natural disaster, even if the business location is rendered completely useless, relocation can be accomplished in a matter of minutes if proper planning is done on the front end. It can be as easy as having your employees just go home and work off of their cell phones or softphones from a PC or softphone. All that is required is an alternate location with Internet access.

How Does Hosted Compare to Traditional Systems?

A traditional phone system has the potential to go down and take all your data with it. Communications and information flow are halted in the event of disaster. In the event of power outages, you are at the mercy of your phone system, voice service provider, and your electric power provider. It may take a significant amount of time (days – depending on the level of the disaster) to recover functionality and there is a potential for catastrophic data loss.

The Cloud Offers Unrivaled Protection

No matter how strong your defenses, the only true protection from data loss and disaster is robust backup and recovery. Whether it’s a fire, network failure, storm, or malware attack, hosted phone can keep you operational with only minimal disruption.  Disaster Recovery Plans are vital to your business continuity. 40% of businesses that suffer data loss as a result of a disaster will not reopen. That’s a crushing number. Get your affairs in order and don’t let your company be part of that percentage.