A cloud phone system for a Quebec SME: what it actually changes

A cloud phone system replaces the box on the wall with a service you configure in a browser. Calls travel over your internet connection. What changes for a Quebec SME is not mainly price: it is that configuration stops being a technician's visit.

What goes away

Hardware first: no switch to house, cool and keep patched. Then (and this is the real gain) the delay between wanting a change and having it.

Editing a menu, adding an extension, changing business hours before a holiday: on an on-premise system each of those is a service ticket. On a cloud system it is a screen. The difference is measured in days, not dollars.

What does not go away

Your internet connection becomes your phone line. If it drops, the phone drops. That is the real trade, and it is manageable: a cellular backup, or automatic forwarding to mobiles when the office stops answering.

Nor does the rest. Somebody still has to decide who answers what, when, and in which language. A cloud system carries out your decisions faster; it makes none of them.

Three questions French-language comparisons do not ask

Almost all French-language writing on this subject comes from France. It is often good, and all of Quebec is missing from it.

Where does the data live? Law 25 requires a privacy impact assessment before personal information is communicated outside Quebec. Recordings and call logs are personal information. Almost every cloud provider triggers that obligation and almost none mention it: the detail is here.

What language does the system answer in? Your telephone greeting falls under the Charter if you serve the public in Quebec. That is not a configuration preference, it is an obligation. See Law 96 and your phone system.

Which area code? A 418 does not say the same thing as a 514 to a customer in Lévis. See Quebec's area codes.

What we do, and what we do not

Ringfully is a cloud phone system: browser and Windows softphones, a visual call-flow builder, skills-based queues, call recording. Our data is in AWS us-east-1, in the United States, stated plainly rather than described as "the cloud".

What we do not have: the softphones are Windows desktop and browser only, there is nothing for a phone, and there is no self-serve signup. We set your numbers, hours and routing up with you.

We are not yet incorporated, which is written on every policy page rather than implied.