For a couple of days now I have been spending some time on reviewing and trying out VirtualPBX’s demo small business telephone line. Just like a lot of their competitors, VirtualPBX provides a wide variety of small business telephone plans for customers to choose from depending on their telecommunication needs, the number of extensions required and the amount of usage in general. VirtualPBX is based in California and provides hosted telephony along with “disaster recovery” products.

Their rates and prices are very competitive and can be compared to most other hosted PBX providers. VirtualPBX provides standard business phone lines or multiple extensions that are not only affordable, but can be configured with little or no effort. Most hosted service providers run very reliable systems with almost no down time and high reliability. Since the PBX systems are not hosted on site to begin with, there are no worries for the user about system maintenance, upgrades and updates.

Customer support is one of the most important things I consider when it comes to selecting a PBX service provider and VirtualPBX really blew me away with their customer support system. To begin with, they provide customers with a wide range of options to choose from: their customer service agents can be contacted via email, live chat or telephone. They also provide a rich knowledge base which includes a training and educational center. The training is very easy to follow and is very detail oriented.

Nothing screams effective customer support as having your call answered within the first 20 seconds as was my experience when I placed a demo call to the VirtualPBX customer service. To top it all, my level 1 support issue was handled by a US based agent in VirtualPBX’s  headquarters, something I would have thought impossible since most companies out source such services overseas.

I felt the web-based interface was a little bare in terms of layout and function, but I found that to be a plus for user experience.  As you log into the default “Message Center” module of the interface, you are not overwhelmed with features and options.  Users can speedily navigate between voice and fax messages and then listen and manage messages from this module.  The fax feature within the module is configured to deliver documents in PDF form that makes it easy to manage and store in your online documents folder.

VirtualPBX comes with its own call routing interface which allows you to follow your calls as you make them. Unlike most other PBX systems, this module is present within the VirtualPBX system itself. It also allows users to forward calls directly to mobile devices, and as one who prefers not to use uncomfortable handsets or soft phones, this provides great flexibility.

A special tab and an entire module was dedicated to handling and notification–this goes to show that the VirtualPBX system made it a priority in the design of their interface. Although I would not have recommended that an entire module be dedicated to it within the interface, I will commend them for being thoughtful and meticulous. Personalizing your settings and turning on and off notification messages for faxes has been made such routine business processes a lot easier.

Managing greetings on different menus, and even extensions, is incredibly easy. And additional greetings can be setup using the “add new greetings“ menu. It also allows the system to dial users on preferred extensions or even external phone numbers

To top it off, I would like to state that VirtualPBX is very user friendly, easy to use, and easy to understand and navigate. As a small business owner myself, VirtualPBX comes with my highest recommendations, and I’m positive its unique features will meet your small business telephone needs, as well.

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