10-Minute Guide: Planning out Your Hosted PBX Business from the Very Start

10-Minute Guide: Planning out Your Hosted PBX Business from the Very Start

The marketplace for hosted PBX is surely in a growth phase. Many businesses have entered the market while there are also many ready to give it a shot. To get the most from your investments, it’s important to have a strategic plan with clear objectives for implementation, service delivery, marketing, and sales. Here is a 10-minute guide with 6 major factors to help you build a solid hosted PBX business from the ground up.

Learn about the latest trend in the hosted PBX market

According to Eastern Management Group, hosted PBX sales exceeded 18% of the total PBX market and hit a new revenue of $5 billion worldwide in 2018. Customers are bullish about their continuing use of hosted PBX. It is necessary to learn more about the market trend to be well-positioned in the marketplace. What are the basic market drivers, opportunities, challenges, and restraints? What features and technologies are gaining popularity? What are customer projections for continued adoption of hosted PBX seats? How do these affect hosted PBX providers’ business strategies? In our last blog, we talk about a rising trend in 2019, which is that more SMB are shifting to hosted PBX, analyze some key drivers, and share advice for hosted PBX providers.

Related:  SMB Trend: More Are Shifting to Hosted Phone Systems in 2019

Target customers and identify their needs

From the perspective of company size, SMB and large enterprise are two broad hosted PBX market. Hosted PBX is particularly appealing to the SMB segment. For all hosted PBX the fastest adoption is 50 employees and less, according to Easter Management Group. As for large enterprise customers, while the market is relatively small now, it is growing rapidly and offers revenue potentials especially for services, system integration, and 3rd party applications. Besides, wealthy vertical markets are the hosted PBX industry’s future. Every vertical market has distinctive communications needs and hosted PBX providers often structure their offers with unique features and enhanced functionality to match industry needs. Top vertical markets for hosted PBX are professional services, healthcare, education, and retail. Research your options and target the right customers before investing in marketing to them.

Evaluate your infrastructure and technical strength

Businesses considering adding hosted PBX service into their portfolios must first assess their existing communications infrastructure and IT staff skill sets. Basically, there are two ways of providing hosted PBX services, depending on whether you take care of the infrastructure and where you manage the service. Yeastar also provides different deployment plans for Yeastar Management Plane (YMP). If you have few technical skills and experience in hosted PBX, but still want to use YMP to deliver hosted PBX services and realize fast time-to-market, the OpEx turnkey solution requires low upfront cost, no server investment, and no infrastructure to maintain. The other option is a CapEx solution where you bring your own infrastructure. You can reside YMP in public cloud service platforms or your local data center through virtualization and thus have complete control. Whether one solution is better than the other depends on your preference and technical strength, on how much importance you attach to easy entry and control.

Calculate the return on investment of different business models

First, determine your objectives and try to anticipate your needs in the medium and long term to make your investments worth its while. Try to calculate the ROI from a macroscopic perspective. Besides the initial costs, it is necessary to take all the peripheral expenses and benefits into account when calculating the ROI. For example, if you decide to deploy the services in your data center, the cost associated with hosting the server needs to be taken into consideration. As well as those associated with the configuration, maintenance, and updates. In addition to focusing on the issue of money, focus on issues of efficiency and performance. Do you have to reconfigure your corporate infrastructure? How much time and human resources are required? Yeastar has developed an ROI calculator to help you make an informed decision. You can schedule a free YMP demo or contact us directly, we will help you figure out the level of profitability based on your situation and requirements.

Have a general understanding of your vendors’ roadmap

Before adopting a service, have an in-depth discussion with the vendor around their plans for evolving the capabilities, including new features, integrations, and more. Find out if the vendor’s roadmap matches your potential customer needs and the market trend so that you can better future-proof your hosted PBX business. For example, 84% of IT managers say mobility is important to them, in a recent Eastern Management Group survey. Business applications data integration continues to grow and customers want it connected to the phone system. Unified messaging, instant messaging chat, and presence are those of the most important and popular UC features. See if these capabilities are included in your vendor’s offer, how effective they are, and if the vendor keeps improving them.

Work out a comprehensive go-to-market strategy

Execution in sales and marketing is a crucial part of any go-to-market plan. Regarding sales and marketing, hosted PBX requires a different set of skills and a different mindset. Since most sales prospects self qualify, hosted PBX companies must get on the customer’s shortlist, which is driven by inbound marketing inquiries (Easter Management Group). A quality website and rich content library could be the foundation of your inbound marketing plan and play as the “anchor” for attracting more prospects. Align customers’ pain points with your unique value proposition in your content marketing. Free resources (datasheets, brochures), blogs, webinars, social media, search engine optimization, affiliates, paid ads, tradeshows, and events all contribute to lead generation. To structure your ideal marketing mix, research where your target customers go to get information about your products and services.

Armed with a strategic business plan, your hosted PBX business will be on the right track from the very beginning. Yeastar offers fully-fledged solutions for selling, delivering, and managing hosted PBX services. Become our partner and develop your hosted PBX business strategy today.

Partner-With-Us

Explore More Blogs

User Login

Instantaneously receive user login credentials via email once the extension has been deployed by the adminstrator.

Log in conveniently via any web browser for access to the user portal.

Integrations

Integrate various CRM software for better customer service and satisfaction.

Enable transcription of audio messages into text with integration of third-party transcription service.

Enable API for integration with various third-party integrations for advanced performance such as call center and hotel reception services.

System

Provision email SMTP and template settings for event notifications to be sent out.

Manage storage allocation and duration of various types of data being stored on the PBX.

Determine the types of event notifications to be sent out, and the parties receiving them.

IVR

Add various audio voice prompts to be played according to different call scenarios.

Add voice prompts on multiple levels for more effecient and precise inbound call routing.

Voicemail

Customize default voicemail settings for each user extension.

Add various voicemail messages for allocation to different call scenarios and users.

Provision specific rules to how voicemail messages are played over the PBX system for better caller experience.

Reports and CDR

All call log activities are stored, with the option of having audio conversations recorded by default or for specific extensions.

Use intuitive visual call reports, to check various call statistics over extensions, trunks, queues, ring groups, and more.

Call reports can be viewed and downloaded directly from the PBX, or scheduled to be sent via email to respective parties.

Security

Restrict a general group or specific IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access to your PBX.

Limit the number of otbound calls users are allowed to make within a time period to protect against toll fraud.

Restrict certain country codes for outbound calls either company-wide or on certain extensions.

User Login

Determine extension ranges for different functions.

Define use of different voice prompts depending on call scenarios or intended function.

Provision basic and advanced SIP settings to be used on the PBX.

Recordings

Record all calls made on specified trunks, including inbound and outbound calls.

Recordings

Record all calls made on specified extensions, conferences, or call queues.

Paging and Intercom

Create different types of paging and intercom broadcast groups for selected extensions.

Set a time schedule to automatically start your broadcast.

Maintenance

Check for and download firmware upgrades to ensure that your PBX is always up-to-date.

Perform back-ups to prevent data and settings from getting lost.

Perform troubleshooting on your own to debug.

Conference

Pre-set conference settings and dial-in passwords for security, and allow internal users to send conference invites to external parties.

Speed Dial

Create multiple speed dial numbers to respective external numbers frequently used for outgoing calls.

Speed dial is activated when the set prefix (default or customized) is dialed.

Ring Group

Create multiple ring groups and determine custom ring strategies and failover settings for each.

Call Queue

Create different call queues with specific ring strategies and failover settings.

Static agents permanently answer calls in queue, while dynamic agents can log in and out. Allocate different extensions to each group.

Determine what actions are to be allowed for Mangers or Agents to manage on the Queue Panel.

Call Control

Have calls received on specific SIP trunks routed to designated extensions or destinations within the PBX.

Set-up dial patterns so that outbound calls are routed to their intended destinations.

Determine how calls are routed and received at different times of a day.

Contacts

Store, retrieve, and share company contact details easily on your PBX.

Organize company contacts into dedicated phonebooks and determine accessibility rights to extension groups for each.

Bulk import a list of contacts instead of having to key details in individually.

Role and Client Permission

Pre-defined user roles within the PBX are conveniently available for allocation, or create your own set of permissions.

Restrict users from viewing specific extensions, departments, or extension groups with Extension Visibility.

Allow or resrict specific users from managing or viewing certain company contacts

Auto Provision

Pre-defined setting parameters specific to respective IP phone models are conveniently available for easy set-up.

IP Phones can be quickly provisioned to your Yeastar PBX with just the pre-defined template and device MAC address.

Trunks

Register multiple SIP trunks on a single PBX as needed.

Different types of trunks can be created, Caller ID can be customized.

Extensions

View, deploy, add, and remove user extensions within your PBX system.

Configure default call and user settings for individual extensions.

Customize allocation of user extensions to specific ring groups.

Portal Login Page

Receive your administrator log-in credentials and set-up guide via email.

Log-in on any web-browser to get started with PBX set-up.

Installation Wizard will guide you through basic configurations.

User Login

Access all company contacts made available to you by the administrator.

Create your own personal contacts list for easy reference and dialing.

Bulk import contact details for convenient data entry.

User Login

Access and manage user settings for softphone application and voicemail.

Manage call routing and presence status for your individual extension.

Retrieve or download your personal call logs and recordings.

User Login

Receive your log-in credentials and set-up guide via email, sent by your admin.

Log-in on any web-browser to get started with PBX set-up.

Configure contacts and personal settings from the web portal.

Auto Provision

Add, remove, or modify IP phone settings from your web interface.

Upgrade IP phone firmware conveniently from your PBX.

Upload various default setting parameters specific to respective IP phone models for greater convenience during set-up.

Contacts

Store, retrieve, and share company contact details easily on your PBX.

Have detailed contact information for your vendors and clients conveniently stored .

Bulk add a list of contacts instead of having to key details in individually.

PBX Monitor

Monitor the status extensions, whether they aren idle, in use, or unavailable.

Know whether your SIP Trunk running properly, or experiencing problems.

Monitor the number of call conferences currently running on your PBX, and their individual durations.

Maintenance

Check for and download firmware upgrades to ensure that your PBX is always up-to-date.

Perform back-ups to prevent data and settings from getting lost.

Perform troubleshooting on your own to debug.

Call Detailed Report

All call log activities are stored, with the option of having audio conversations recorded by default or for specific extensions.

Filter by date, time, or extension number to retrieve specific call logs or recordings

Playback call recordings directly from the PBX or download to store externally.

Event Center

Determine what events and logs are to be recorded and/or have notifications sent.

Specify particular notifications to be sent to respective authorized personnel.

User Permission

Set up vaious groups of users for allocation to certain sets of access rules.

Determine what features a certain group of extensions can or cannot access.

Determine if users can access, play-back, or download call logs and recordings from the pbx.

Security

Restrict a general group or specific IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access to your PBX.

Determine specific the range of SIP ports for connection between your PBX and endpoints.

Restrict country codes for outbound calls either company-wide or on certain extensions.

Voice Prompt

Upload and designate customised audio recordings at multiple levels of a call journey.

Upload recorded music to fill the silence that would be heard by callers on hold.

Upload customised voice prompts to create a professional call experience.

General

Customize general call preferences either company-wide or for individual extensions.

Set-up feature dial codes for convenient user navigation to specific call features.

Determine how voicemails are retrieved, and also upload custom voicemail recordings.

Call Features

Add multiple automated responses to be played at different phases of a call journey.

Designate specific extensions to ring concurrently based on an external caller's dial pattern.

Customize messages and waiting times to keep external callers engaged when put on hold.

Call Control

Have calls received on specific SIP trunks routed to designated extensions within the PBX.

Set-up dial patterns so that outbound calls are routed to their intended destinations.

Determine how calls are routed and received at different times of a day.

Trunks

Register multiple SIP trunks on a single PBX as needed.

Provision SIP trunk settings and dedicate them to particular extensions.

Bulk add DDIs on each SIP trunk, for allocation to an individual or groups of extensions.

Extensions

View, deploy, add, and remove user extensions within your PBX system.

Allocate and deploy specific extension numbers to respective users via email.

Set-up default ring and presence status settings for individual users.

Deal One View

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

Deal One View

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

Deal One View

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

View cases created for a Deal in One View.

View cases created for a Deal in One View.