By thinking smarter, you can actually decrease your organisation’s voice costs, both in and out of loadshedding, and anything else that comes your way.

The Realities of Voice Calling and Loadshedding

Business communication doesn’t come to a grinding halt when loadshedding hits. Calls to help desks or service centres don’t stop during loadshedding; in fact, evidence suggests those calls actually increase. On the flip side of the coin, outgoing calls to customers from businesses don’t drop in volume during that time either.

In both scenarios, calls are made over more expensive channels than VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

In essence, businesses and consumers pay double during loadshedding – we need to pay for alternative power supplies (including batteries, inverters and solar panels) and we’ve witnessed a large portion of the population simply switching their voice calling channel from the more affordable VoIP to high-cost cellular calls. It’s time to start thinking differently about this approach.

Calling Solutions For Businesses of All Sizes

When the electricity goes off, last mile connectivity is severed – not because the Fibre network is unavailable, but because the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) and Wi-Fi router lose power during loadshedding.  Along with this disconnect from the Internet is an interrupted connection to the Cloud-based telephony system (or, in dire cases, the on-site PBX is not powered during loadshedding).

This prompts companies to switch their inbound and outbound calling to the cellular phones of their employees and then reimburse their employees for these comparatively high call costs via an expense claim at month end.  Which is a very expensive and admin-intensive way of working around load shedding challenges.

Especially as Vox offers cost-efficient and robust communications solutions for businesses of all sizes – ones that allow you to benefit from saving on normal corporate VoIP rates while simultaneously utilising the trusted mobile phones of employees.

Unlimited Calling With Vobi

During the times that power is available, employees working from office sites receive and make VoIP calls from their desk phones connected to a Cloud-based phone system, or PBX.  When loadshedding hits, they can still receive and make calls over an alternative VoIP connection at the same corporate call rates, using their mobile phones and the Vox Vobi app.

With Vobi, there’s no need for additional number allocations for these two modes of work: the same SIP number is assigned to both the desk phone and the mobile phone.  When the desk phone is unable to connect to the Cloud phone system, the call transfers to their mobile phone via the Vobi app.  Remote workers (whether operating according to a permanent or hybrid arrangement) will also be able to receive and make calls over an alternative VoIP connection at the same corporate call rates.

Outbound calls are similarly made at the same much-lower VoIP business rates – charged per second – instead of exorbitant cellular calling rates that are charged per minute (on all pre-paid Voice bundles). Better still, the app is free to install and can make and receive unlimited calls to and from any number, including landlines – all for just R171, incl. VAT per person, per month.

Vox Verto: Always On For Small Businesses

Verto, when coupled with Vobi, offers an extremely cost-efficient Cloud PBX solution for small businesses that enables mobile phones as endpoints for staff. The solution offers basic, reliable PBX functionality, for example, transferring a call or putting a call on hold – meaning that a customer call need never be missed.

PBX features such as voicemail, conferencing and automatic call distribution are included as standard, as well as access to a wide range of additional features dependent on needs and budget, while competitive business rates are applied.

Vox offers Verto Supreme as a fully managed IP telephony solution to the SME market, which can be deployed over numerous Vox last mile access types, such as Vox Fibre, Wireless or Diginet services.

This solution allows small businesses to be ‘always on’ and is scalable and flexible – you pay per user.

Experience Unified Communications with 3CX Cloud for Medium Businesses

Having your PBX in the Cloud where it is consistently powered by your service provider is a no-brainer when it comes to loadshedding preventative measures.  However, traditional handsets need power too and if alternative power solutions aren’t readily available in your office, then you may have a problem with both internal and external communications when trying to cope with the recurrent loadshedding experienced in South Africa.

To keep your team connected and productive, 3CX Cloud, built for true mobility with iOS and Android, provides your users with free and unlimited mobile applications ensuring your team can make and receive calls using your office number, chat with co-workers or even start a video call quickly and easily. Ultimately, your customers are never left hanging because your team can take their call from anywhere, on any device.

As a certified 3CX Titanium Partner, Vox is best equipped to offer your company the very best 3CX experience. Our network is compatible with any 3CX deployment. We’ve been thoroughly tested with 3CX to ensure no manual configurations are needed, which means you can simply plug and play your PBX with our SIP trunks.

From last mile connectivity to market-leading uncapped or rated calling plans, as well as world-class data infrastructure to host your 3CX services and telephone expense management reporting, Vox 3CX has everything a small or medium size enterprise needs for a unified communications solution.

Take Teams to the Next Level with Operator Connect

For organisations that have already standardised on Microsoft Teams as their video, collaboration and instant messaging platform, adding the final component of unified communications – Teams Voice – is a very simple upgrade with Vox.

By enhancing the integration of Vox’s low-latency, quality-controlled Voice Network with Microsoft Teams, Operator Connect offers streamlined, fully managed Vox Voice services and radically improved call quality.

With Operator Connect, users can make, receive, transfer, forward and put a Voice call on hold from any location via a Teams-enabled computer or smart device.

With Operator Connect’s best practice solution, you can get the most out of your Microsoft licensing and replace your PBX with the ultimate unified communications and collaboration platform.

Stay Connected, No Matter What

With bottom lines under pressure, organisations need to remove all unnecessary costs from the business permanently. Ultimately, Vox has a communications solution to suit every size business and need.  With Vox, companies can stay connected to customers both in the office and out – this includes remote and hybrid users. You’ll always save on outbound calling costs thanks to our competitive Voice rate plans on any solution you choose.  Most importantly, loadshedding won’t force you into seeking more expensive and time-consuming communications alternatives.

With Vox Voice, you’re always just a phone call away.