Hosted Phone Systems: A Game-Changer for University Campuses

Educational institutions are constantly struggling to deliver quality communication to students via their expensive traditional phone systems. Private institutions are also feeling the squeeze in the current financial climate. Budgets are being scrutinised while rising data and telecommunications workloads are continuously stretching the limits of what legacy systems were meant to provide. 

A phone system is not only a means of communication but also plays a vital role in securing an institution’s data and managing various operations. Introducing a cloud-hosted phone system can be a game-changer for your university campus. 

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire education system has become virtual. Professors and staff are delivering lessons and information online, with students trying to make the most of these. Operational costs have skyrocketed. A traditional phone system cannot be a permanent solution for a remote world. 

So, what now?

A cloud-based phone system can be your saviour in this crisis. 

Hosted phone systems support remote working. You can experience the best possible features while staying regulation-compliant at much lower costs. What’s more––you’re easily able to monitor performance and resolve any issues faced by your students, faculty, and staff effortlessly regardless of their location. 

However, many administrators hesitate to make this shift because they fear the new phone system will not be able to cope up with the university’s administrative workloads. It’s a common myth among people that installing and setting up a cloud-based phone system is a time-consuming and painful process with a high upfront expenditure. 

But the fact is––shifting to a cloud-based phone system is time-saving and cost-effective at the same time. 

Many cloud service providers offer hosted phone systems at competitive prices using which you can deliver superior customer experiences and handle all your business operations effortlessly. In fact, the advantages of cloud-based phone systems for universities significantly exceed the pain of upgrading. 

In this article, we will talk about how hosted phone systems can be a game-changer for educational campuses.

So, let’s dive into some benefits of hosted phone systems that you’ll love for your educational institution.

8 ways the education industry can benefit from hosted phone systems

Communication plays a significant role throughout the admissions process. Institutes need an efficient phone system that can solve their day-to-day communication needs. 

A hosted phone system will be the best option for not only overcoming any communication barriers but also managing administrative operations effortlessly. Here’s how they can help.

1. Scalable solutions

Scalability is an important concern for universities. As student enrolment fluctuates, a traditional set-up will drive the overall expenditures of a platform owing to its limited scalability. 

A cloud-powered phone system allows administrators to easily reconfigure virtual classrooms and faculty offices as per changing needs and easily decrease their workload. With cloud solutions, they don’t need to invest in a scale they won’t use. On the other hand, there’s no need to pay extra when it comes to scaling up––they only have to pay for what they use.

The learning and development departments of educational institutions require higher bandwidth to operate seamlessly. 

2. Mobility

On a university campus, hundreds of operations take place day in and day out. All the faculty, employee and student operations are connected at every step, no matter where all the stakeholders are.

Regular operations such as adjustment classes, rescheduled practicals, and on-site projects collapse against the potential of conventional phone systems. The majority of traditional phone systems fail to offer the mobility feature, due to which it becomes very hard to operate off-campus. 

The hosted phone system fulfils this lack of functionality of conventional phone systems. It allows everyone to connect to the centralised system from anywhere and at any time. They can even access information and data on the go, communicating seamlessly as they do.

As the world is moving towards wireless technology, wireless mobility has become one of the essential requirements of educational campuses. 

3. Seamless security

Big educational institutions are not just meant to provide education; they are also meant to deliver healthcare services, research facilities, and counselling sessions to their students, faculties, and employees.

In order to carefully handle such a massive amount of university records, the university needs to maintain high-end security controls. A cloud-backed phone system offers various measures to manage campus communications in a secure manner. These measures include two-factor authentication, end-to-end encryption, firewalls, and role-based access to data.

4. Disaster management

Disasters never come with prior notice. The majority of traditional phone systems fail whenever a disaster strikes. 

A hosted phone system is disaster-proof. Your provider will ensure that your data is backed up securely on several servers across the world. They also provide instant recovery of your data, facilitating business continuity and eliminating loss of revenue or reputational damage. This offers high-level stability and peace of mind to administrators even in case of an emergency. 

Once you move from your traditional phone system to a hosted phone system, no matter even if the system encounters any disaster or emergency, communications will continue seamlessly.

5. Improved productivity and connectivity

At the time of admissions, connectivity is the most important thing for universities. In order to connect with new students and to smoothen their admission procedures, universities need productivity apps that help them handle bulk operations.

Hosted phone systems offer reliable and efficient connectivity tools that save both time and money. They can also improve the productivity of the admission staff with features such as call conferencing, call monitoring, and more.

These phone systems also offer communications over multiple channels, allowing procedures such as data and media sharing, counselling using video conferencing, and many more functionalities. 

6. Easy to set-up

It’s a common myth among people that migrating from a traditional phone system to a cloud phone system is a complicated task. But the truth is that cloud solutions are quite easy to install.

These phone systems do not require bulky hardware and heavy set-ups. Everything happens over the Internet. Even at the time of installation, the university can work in a hybrid environment. When the migration process starts, the institute must keep some of its users on the existing phone system until the installation of the new cloud-based phone system is completed.

The maintenance, too, is the cloud provider’s responsibility. Institutions don’t have to worry about timely upgrades, compliance with the regulations, security checks, and regular maintenance activities.

7. Strong communication even at the time of emergency

Traditional phone systems are static in nature. So, when you call 911, the phone system will announce its location address. In case of an emergency, when 911 is dialled on the traditional phone systems, a correct PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) connection is needed to reach the correct location address.  

On the other hand, cloud telephony set-ups work with a unified communication system. Users can connect with each other using any channel.

In case of emergency, using a mobile with 911 compatibility, a professor can dial 911 from their laptop from anywhere on the campus. It will announce the professor’s location to PSAP. In this way, instant help can be sent to anyone on the campus caught in an unfortunate incident. 

Conclusion

A shift to the cloud phone system can be a game-changer for universities. It is an irresistible combination of value and service for every penny-pinching administrator. 

A hosted phone system smoothens everyday operations and communications at these institutions. It is also an efficient tool to handle the daily records of hundreds of students out there on or even off-premises.

If you are also planning your educational institution’s communications to shift to a cloud-hosted phone system, contact Acefone today at [email protected] or call us at 1888-859-0450.

Himani

Himani is a content writer at Acefone. She is an avid blogger and Youtuber as well. She loves to explore the miraculous world of technology. Connect with her on Linkedin