Cloud and telecoms
A business phone system that lives in the cloud rather than in a box on the wall, so it works the same on a desk phone, a laptop at home and a mobile on a train. Set up and supported by the same people who look after the rest of your IT, on the same invoice.
Three platformswhichever actually suits you
No hardwarenothing on the wall to buy or replace
One invoicephones and IT, itemised separately
Why people move
Usually because the old one stopped matching how the business works. The phones are in an office that half the team is not sitting in, the system is tied to a box that somebody has to come out and touch, and adding a person means a visit rather than a click.
Calls arrive at a desk somebody is not at. People give out their mobile numbers instead, and before long the business has lost control of which number its customers actually ring.
On premises systems age, go out of support, and eventually need replacing as a capital purchase. A cloud system has nothing to buy, install, manage, upgrade or replace.
Adding a user, changing a hunt group or altering an out of hours message becomes a quote and a visit. It should be a change somebody makes for you the same day.
When the phones stop and the broadband is fine, the argument about whose fault it is happens on your time. That is the actual reason most of our clients moved their phones to us.
What we sell
The one that fits how you work, which is why we sell three rather than one. Intermedia Elevate is where most businesses end up, and there are good reasons to choose one of the others.
Our primary platform, and the one doing the most interesting things.
Phone, video, team chat and file sharing on one platform, with over ninety calling features. It runs on a desk phone, a desktop app on Mac or PC, and a mobile app on Apple or Android, and it is the same system on all three. Intermedia publish a 99.999% availability figure for it.
A well established UK platform.
A sensible choice for businesses that want a straightforward, mature UK hosted system, particularly where an existing setup or a specific integration points that way.
For businesses already invested in it.
Where there is Mitel in place already, or a requirement that specifically suits it, moving to something else for the sake of it is not an upgrade. We will tell you when staying put is the right answer.
Our partner providers
The newer part
This is the bit worth paying attention to, because it is genuinely new rather than a longer feature list. Intermedia Elevate now does three things that used to need separate products or a bigger business.
A summary of what was said and what was agreed, without anybody taking notes during the call. For a small team where the person who took the call is also the person who has to action it, that is time back every day.
Answers, works out what the caller wants and routes them, instead of a menu that makes people press four buttons to reach a person. Useful when there is nobody sitting on reception, which in a business of your size is most of the time.
Customers already message businesses on WhatsApp. This brings it into the same place as the calls rather than leaving it on one person’s personal phone, which is where it usually lives and where it disappears when they are on holiday.
Video calling with screen sharing, team chat, and file sharing with real-time backup and virus scanning. Whether you use those or stay in Microsoft Teams for them is up to you, and we would rather you used one properly than both badly.
Talk to us
How many people, how many numbers, what is in place today and what annoys you about it. We will tell you which platform fits, what porting your numbers involves, and what it costs per user.
Why buy it from us
You can buy any of these platforms from a reseller who has never seen your network. The reason to buy it from your IT provider is what happens on the day it does not work.
Phones down and broadband fine, or the other way round: either way you ring us and the question of whose fault it is becomes our problem rather than a conference call you have to chair.
Phones sit outside the fixed monthly support fee and appear as their own line on the same invoice, so you can see what each part costs rather than one number you have to take on trust.
Configuration, porting your existing numbers, and showing people how to use it. A phone system nobody understands gets used as a phone and nothing else, which wastes most of what you are paying for.
If what you have works and a change would cost you more than it saves, we will say so. Telecoms is a commission driven market and that is exactly why it needs saying out loud.
Questions
Yes. Numbers are ported across from your current provider, which is a routine process and one we handle rather than leave with you. It needs planning around a date, so it goes in the schedule at the start rather than being sorted out at the end.
The system carries on, because it lives in the cloud rather than in your office. Calls can be routed to mobiles automatically, so the business keeps answering the phone even when nobody can get online in the building. That is one of the practical advantages over a system that sits in a cupboard on your premises.
Not necessarily. Plenty of teams use the desktop and mobile apps and never touch a desk phone. Where people want a handset, they come pre-configured and work wherever they are plugged in. We will go through what you actually need rather than quoting a phone for every desk by default.
Most businesses we look after are already in Microsoft 365, and how the phone system and Teams sit alongside each other is one of the first things worth deciding. There is more than one sensible answer depending on how your team already works, so it is a conversation rather than a default.
Most businesses are running within days rather than weeks. The part that sets the timetable is porting existing numbers, because that depends on the current provider rather than on us.
No. Phones can be bought on their own. The argument for taking both from the same place is what happens during an outage, but plenty of businesses start with one and add the other later.
Next step
Tell us how many people need a phone and what you are paying now. You will get a straight comparison rather than a proposal designed to look good next to a bill we have not seen.
Based in Cardiff, working across Wales and the West.
