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A virtual (landline) reality

United Telecoms has launched its cloud-hosted business landline solution, United Voice Landlines. This feature-rich virtual landline gives small businesses, start-ups and employees on the go cost-effective access to a business telephone number within minutes, allowing for professional appearance, truly mobile business communications and rapid scalability when it is time to expand.

Johannesburg, 22 Jul 2020

Over the past decade, copper landlines have fallen out of favour with South African businesses due to issues around their reliability, typically caused by cable damage or theft. In addition to these inherent problems, Telkom has, since late 2019, begun sunsetting users from their legacy copper lines, leading many businesses to make the transition from their traditional Telkom landlines to “virtual landlines” based on cutting-edge VOIP technology.

The COVID-19 lockdown has further accelerated this trend, with many businesses having had most or all of their employees working from home since March this year. Many of these businesses were not geared towards remote working and therefore have not had their communications tools correctly set up, sometimes leading to costly, inefficient and effectively temporary call routing strategies.

“It is common practice for South African businesses using traditional on-site PBX telephone systems and copper lines, to activate a call forwarding facility in the event that their main landline number cannot be answered. However, there is a notable cost associated with redirecting calls, along with an inability to transfer more than one incoming call at a time,” says Candice Evans, Marketing Coordinator at United Telecoms. “This leaves businesses with more than one employee vulnerable to missed calls and potentially lost sales.”

With so much uncertainty about what the next few months may contain, many businesses have decided to offer employees the option to continue working from home indefinitely. Some businesses have even decided to downsize and or relinquish premises, with a long-term view of adopting either permanent “hot desking” or “work from home” policies. The benefits of a virtual landline perfectly complement this new approach to mobile and remote working, giving employees full access to use their office number at home or at a different office desk, with no additional hardware required.

United Telecoms’ UVC virtual business landlines give users the option to receive calls made to their office phone number on three devices, namely a mobile phone, desk phone or softphone, using a program installed on the laptop or PC. This means the users are contactable on the same number, and can remain productive whether they are at their desk, working from home or even on the move, with no concern around incoming calls being transferred or placed on hold. A common concern is keeping your existing number, and with the virtual landline solution, businesses can keep their existing number forever, no matter where they relocate. Alternatively, you can request a new geographic or 087 number.

The benefits of a UVC landline make it the ideal solution for small businesses of one to three users within the commercial, retail, education, medical, non-profit or hospitality sectors, such as doctors' rooms, schools, hairdressers, beauty salons, guest houses and bed & breakfasts, freelancers, or small businesses with regional or home offices. In addition to the virtual landline, the UVC solution offers small businesses cost-effective access to a feature-rich PBX, offering benefits such as an auto attendant; free call transfers to colleagues’ extensions; conference and video conferencing call facilities; instant messaging services; call recording; and the useful ability to receive voicemails via e-mail at no additional charge,” explains Ryan Lumley, Managing Director of United Telecoms.

With the right communication tools, businesses are able to transition seamlessly to a remote working scenario without impacting productivity. The UVC landline can be set up remotely within a matter of minutes and is available on a prepaid or monthly payment basis, without the need for a long-term contract. Users can easily be added or removed to adjust to your business’s growth, offering an ideal solution to seasonal or temporary employment.

If you would like to find out more about United Voice Cloud or how we can minimise disruption to your business through a seamless transition to remote working opportunities, please contact us on (086) 001 8500 or info@unitedtelecoms.net

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Editorial contacts

Candice Evans
United Business Solutions
(011) 239 8720
candice@unitedbusiness.co.za