Having A Disaster Recovery Plan for Business Communications

Prepare for the worst

Even though we can’t always control everything, there are ways to protect our business from outside forces. This could be anything from natural disasters to cybercrime. However, instead of idly waiting for something bad to happen, we must take proactive measures. By having a disaster recovery plan, we decrease the chances of our company being impacted by negative circumstances.

According to FEMA and the US Small Business Administration, 40% of businesses do not reopen after a major disaster. Of those that do manage to stay open, 25% will fail within one year and 90% will fail within two years of being struck by disaster. It is therefore critical to your business to be prepared and protected in the case of any unexpected event that causes partial or complete data loss.

Too often, people don’t see the importance of a disaster recovery plan–that is until it’s too late. By then, businesses have usually already lost revenue, customers, and important data. In this blog post, we will show you everything you need to know about having a disaster recovery plan for your company so that hopefully you won’t find yourself in such a situation.

Is your system outdated?

Relying on an outdated system means that you will be unable to communicate with anyone, including your employees. This lack of communication would result in an inability to service customers and clients, as seen during natural disasters such as power outages, floods, or storms. A PBX system is useless without a dial tone, so don’t rely on one during tough times.

If your company is still using legacy systems, then it is completely inaccessible. Productivity and your physical office are tied together with these outdated systems. This means that anything that happens to your physical office is going to disrupt the productivity of your company significantly. However, it does not need to be this way. You can give your employees the option of working remotely in a safe area if you have a disaster recovery plan in place.

The answer

In the situations discussed earlier, you’ll want to take measures so your business won’t have an extended period offline. After all, being offline for even a short amount of time can result in lost customers and revenue.

By utilizing a smartphone app to route your business calls to your phone, you can avoid missing any important calls if your business internet happens to go down. This way, you can ensure that you’re always available to answer customer inquiries.

Hosted cloud communications are a must

The most apparent perk of hosted cloud is that you can consistently communicate with others, even during a natural disaster– all you need is an internet connection. Make sure your cloud-based provider has geo-redundant servers to keep your communications available during emergencies.

Consequently, if your office’s internet connection abruptly cuts out, you can simply relocate to another site that has an internet connection. This will maintain your company up and running. You’ll be able to get in touch with your team easily, making sure they’re okay while simultaneously minimizing any operational issues by keeping channels of communication open.

Not only will you have a reliable backup plan, but in the event of an emergency or power outage, you are less likely to lose data. If there was ever a data breach, hosted cloud makes it much easier to recover from these types of situations.

Cloud-based hosting makes it possible to constantly monitor your systems for any red flags, meaning you can head off disasters before they happen. It also allows you to easily track and investigate potential breaches if they occur.

Options

We recommend a failover connection using a 4G or 5G appliance, such as Rabbit Run, for mission-critical calls. These solutions protect Point-of-Sale systems and offer other benefits like out-of-band management, virtual router redundancy protocol, and enterprise-class reliability. This way, you never have to turn down a sale.

The key to disaster recovery is being proactive about your disaster preparedness. By investing in a cloud-based communications platform, you can ensure that your business will be able to operate smoothly, even during the worst of circumstances. So why wait? Invest in disaster recovery today and keep your business up and running no matter what happens.

Contact us today for more information

Carolina Digital Phone has everything you need to prevent your business from experiencing a loss in revenue, including 24/7 support. If you have questions or want to take advantage of our service, users can request that calls be routed to an alternate number or call center at any time. Contact us today at (336) 544-4000 to learn more.