PBX Services using your Smartphone

If your hosted PBX service can't handle the latest technology, then your virtual office capabilities are going to be severely curtailed.

With BYOD the norm and everyone toting a smartphone a Private Branch Exchange must have the capacity to integrate smart phones. Numerous problems arise because of this which we'll cover below.

Standard PBX/Smartphone integration issues

Find-Me/Follow-Me

Call forwarding services that are often found together that are routinely used by PBX services. The Find Me service lets you receive calls no matter where you are. Follow Me enables you to be reached at any of a group of phone numbers.

VoiceMail to Email

Without a dedicated business voicemail suite for your smartphone most UI's are at the very least cumbersome and slow. A definite issue if you often have many to wade through. A WAV player app download makes this service accessible to most smartphones.

VoIP Apps

A bewildering amount of choices comes about for VOIP integration. There are countless apps out there for Android, iPhones, and  Blackberries.

Free and premium VOIP apps are available including Skype, Bria, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Hangouts.

Depending on the individual app, you can have access to conference calls, video chat, call redirection, file transfer, and PC to phone/phone to PC. Most of these apps are designed to run cross-platform.

A company branded Smartphone 

Before getting started, it’s important to figure out which smart phones your company is using. Many companies are device-agnostic. But if one option is one the cards then consider that if your company chooses one smart phone device (like in the old Blackberry business days) many problems are averted. When choosing the best OS to go with your PBX service look for  the apps and OS that work best across multiple platforms and run with it. Bria is a name seeing some kudos at the moment for an app that works well with both Android and iPhones.