Improved Business Communication Services During Phone Downtime

Improved Business Communication Services During Phone Downtime
A third (36%) of United Kingdom (UK) workers have had company telephone failures caused by factors such as flooding, power cuts, road works and equipment faults during the past year.

This is the main finding of a new study commissioned by a hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) provider, and of those respondents, 60% had experienced up to a full day’s phone disruption, costing them an average of £14,431 per day. To achieve improved business communication services, a hosted VoIP solution can be the answer to sustaining communication between company and client during times when a regular phone would fail.


The potential cost to businesses of such an unforeseen disaster can be enormous. For example, more than a quarter of people questioned (26%) were unable to take incoming work calls during telephone downtime and resorted to using their mobiles instead, and could thus incur typically higher mobile costs. Despite the disruptions and company telephone failures causing huge losses of capital, 61% of businesses had no disaster recovery plans to address the issue.

This research comes a year after severe flooding caused havoc for businesses in many parts of the UK.

Hosted VoIP Solution
By replacing a traditional Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone system with a hosted VoIP solution, telephone calls are made over the internet rather than a conventional telephone network; businesses can divert all calls off-site should an unforeseen disaster strike. Alternatively, firms can keep their existing PBX and connect a hosted VoIP solution too, ensuring they have a back-up plan in place should one network fail.

The nature of a hosted VoIP solution means that business can be done as usual because calls can be easily diverted to home phones, mobiles or other offices – giving the company the ability to continue functioning from a different location and benefit from such improved business communications services. Despite this, nearly two thirds of those questioned (61%) weren’t aware of a plan to deal with disruption to incoming calls caused by events beyond their control. Worryingly, more than a quarter (26%) said they couldn’t be contacted or didn’t know how customers or suppliers would contact them during times of phone outage.

The Importance of Having a Plan B
Surprisingly, the survey revealed that one in four people (25%) still rely on their fax machine as a viable communication method with customers if their telephone system goes down. However, when fax machines operate using a central office phone service, this is not a workable solution to the problem. All too many companies seem to disregard the threat of unforeseen circumstances and factors, and then feel regret when experiencing company telephone failures and losing tens of thousands of pounds per day and upsetting their client base.

Businesses need to reassess the value of being able to maintain a reliable telephony solution during adverse circumstances. Communication is the foundation of all successful businesses, yet companies are failing to put as much emphasis on ensuring that their phone system is as protected from downtime as they put on other areas such as network and data access. Commercial company telephones with failures and are out of service have costs which build quickly and the daily financial damage potential to a company is massive due to lack of business communication with clients.

By: Rosemary Grace Brooks



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