First of all it is worth just looking at what a multi-tenant pbx actually is? Simply put, it is a office telephone system that can be configured to operate a number of phone systems on the same system or hardware.

It is great to serviced office centres or space that want to provide tenants with the option to rent or purchase office telephone system functionality from the building owner rather than have a number of individual phone systems in the same building.

In a serviced office environment there could be lots of different businesses all in the same building. They all want to have their own independent brand and be able to answer calls, transfer calls, receive voicemails etc. on their own phone system and phone number.

Imagine if you just had one phone number for 100 businesses! It wouldn’t look very professional! This is where a multi-tenancy PBX helps.

There isn’t really much point in having a pbx for a number of different businesses if you can’t onward bill the costs each month. This can either be done to make some money for the landlord or it can be set-up to just onward bill the charges.

One of the options open to a serviced office owner or operator is to install an ip pbx system. This gives a certain level of flexibility to the whole set-up.

The main benefits of having a Voip system in place is when it comes to new tenants, rather than purchasing a lot of spare capacity on a more traditional pbx system you could always have a steady and reliable partner to come and install new handsets as and when tenants move into the property.

We have even set multi tenancy voip systems that have their own order form and ordering process.  If a new tenant is moving in the order form gets filled in with the set-up and configuration they would like and the phones will be there on move in day ready to use.

We have found this approach to work really well from a competitive perspective for the serviced offices we do this for.

We first of all understand the maximum number of tenants likely to be in the building. With this number we can suggest the correct type of data connectivity that the building will need. Generally we’ve found that the assured sip trunking services from the likes of Gamma and other voip providers are more than enough to service even large serviced office buildings.

In the event we need something a bit more substantial, we have installed leased lines that are capable of being increased in data throughput within 24 hours. This way the owner is not paying for data connectivity that is not being used.

We then produce an order form, fully branded, which can be filled in by any new tenants.

The phones are then configured as per the order and we will then deal with everything else. We use the Gamma business Voip providers for the set-up we offer and we've seen great results.

Generally the feature set is similar to that of a call centre set-up. But with the additional feature of Voip billing. Other features that we suggest you have to make sure you are the office provider they choose would be:

• Unified Communications including a good mobile app for when they aren't physically in the office
• Auto Attendant and music on hold to help the company look professional
• Hot desking area in case they have any consultants or sales people who don't need a permanent desk
• A good range of ip phones to choose from
• Call Recording as an additional option, always needed for regulated industries e.g financial services
• Call centre software can also help bring in the larger business set-ups

If you would like to speak to one of our specialist multi tenant pbx specialists please don’t hesitate to contact us.