Cloud PBX Phone System Features | Talk2Me

Cloud PBX, explained in plain English

Every business phone system has a brain that decides what happens when someone rings: which phone should ring, for how long, what the caller hears while they wait, and where the call goes if nobody answers. Traditionally that brain was a box in a comms cupboard, with wires to every desk. With Talk2Me Cloud PBX the brain lives on our network, and your phones and apps simply connect to it over your internet connection.

That means no hardware to buy, no maintenance contract, and no limit to where your team works. Add a user in the portal and they can be taking calls on their laptop in five minutes, whether they are in the Hawera office or at the kitchen table in Whanganui. Your business number goes wherever your people go.

Why South Taranaki businesses choose Cloud PBX

Hosted, so nothing to buy or maintain: we run the platform, you just use it.
Predictable monthly cost: pay for the users and channels you need, and change them any time.
Self-service portal: add lines, change forwarding, upload greetings and pull call records yourself.
Work from anywhere: desk phone, laptop app or mobile app, all on the one business number.
Local people: set up and supported by our team in South Taranaki, not an overseas call centre.

The Cloud PBX features businesses use every day

The headline capabilities, and what each one actually does for you.

Auto attendant

Greet callers with a recorded menu ("press 1 for sales, 2 for accounts") and send them straight to the right person or team.

Answer every call professionally, even when nobody is free
Different menus for business hours, after hours and public holidays
Record prompts yourself or generate them with text-to-speech

Call recording

Record inbound and outbound calls and play them back whenever you need to check a detail, coach staff or meet compliance obligations.

Settle "who said what" without guesswork
Train new staff on real customer calls
Pair with AI transcription so you can search recordings by keyword

Voicemail to email

Voicemail lands in your inbox as an audio file, with an AI transcript so you can read it at a glance and reply from wherever you are.

Never dial in to check messages again
Read messages in a meeting and call back the urgent ones first
Keep a searchable record alongside your email

Simultaneous ring & mobility

One incoming call rings your desk phone, your mobile app and a colleague at the same time, following rules you set.

Answer your business number from the ute, the site or home
Set different rules for weekdays, weekends and after hours
Callers only ever dial one number

Call queues & hunt groups

Ring a group of phones in turn or all at once, or hold callers in a queue with music and position announcements until an agent is free.

Share incoming calls fairly across a team
Overflow to another group or voicemail after a set time
See who answered what in reporting

Time-based rules

Almost every feature can behave differently by time of day, day of week or date, so the system follows your opening hours automatically.

After-hours greeting and voicemail without lifting a finger
Public-holiday messages set once a year
Lunch-break forwarding to a mobile

Full Cloud PBX feature reference

The complete list, grouped by what it helps you do. Availability varies by plan, and we will happily talk you through which features you need.

Call handling

Auto attendant (IVR). Recorded menus that route callers to the right person, team or message.
Call forwarding. Forward when busy, unanswered, unreachable or always, on demand or on a schedule.
Simultaneous ring. Ring up to five phones or apps at once so the call is answered wherever you are.
Call waiting. Hear a second caller while on a call and decide whether to take it.
Caller ID. See who is calling on your handset or app before you answer.
Call transfer. Attended (announce first) or blind transfer to any extension or outside number.
Call parking. Put a call on hold in a shared slot and pick it up from any phone in the office.
Group call pickup. Answer a colleague's ringing phone from your own handset.
Do Not Disturb. Send calls straight to voicemail or a busy tone when you need heads-down time.
Call screening. Screen all calls, or just anonymous ones, before they ring through.
Call rejection & blocklists. Reject anonymous callers and maintain your own list of blocked numbers.
Time-based rules. Change forwarding, greetings and routing by time of day, day of week or date.
Geographic routing. Send callers to the nearest branch or the right regional team based on where they are calling from.
Dial plan options. Let staff dial local or overseas numbers without the area or country code.
Speed dial. Single-digit speed dials for the numbers you call most.
Last number redial & call return. Redial the last number you called, or ring back the last person who called you, from the handset.
Intercom & paging. Speak through a colleague's phone speaker without them picking up.
Music on hold & caller tunes. Upload your own hold music, and optionally replace ringing with music for callers.
Message playback. Play a recorded announcement to callers before or instead of ringing.
Call barring. Rules that block chosen outbound destinations, such as premium or international numbers.
PIN authorisation. Require a PIN before certain calls (for example international) can be made.
Caller privacy. Withhold or replace your outbound caller ID when you need to.
Alternate caller ID. Present your main business number, a branch number or an 0800 when calling out.

Voicemail & messaging

Voicemail to email. Every message delivered to your inbox as an audio file.
Voicemail transcription. AI turns each voicemail into readable text so you can triage at a glance.
Missed call notifications. Be told about calls you did not answer, by email or text.
SMS notifications. Text alerts for events such as a new voicemail or a missed call.
Fax to email. A digital fax number that delivers faxes to your inbox as PDF or TIFF.
Global address book. A shared company contact list so every phone shows the caller's name, not just a number.
Business SMS. Send reminders and alerts and hold two-way text conversations from your business number.

Teams & queues

Hunt groups. Ring a set of up to ten phones in order or together, each with its own timeout.
Call queues. Hold callers in line for up to ten agents with hold music, announcements and overflow rules.
Reception console & line monitoring. See which lines are busy or free and transfer with a click, ideal for reception.
Presence. Know whether colleagues are available, on a call or away before you transfer.
Free extensions. Internal extension numbers for staff, meeting rooms and hot desks, dial each other for free.
Phone conferencing. Create a conference room on your number and bring several callers together.
Web conferencing. HD video meetings with screen sharing and whiteboard, joined from a browser.
Ring groups across sites. One team spread across offices or working from home behaves like a single group.

Security & reliability

Secure SIP (TLS). Signalling encrypted between your phones and our network.
Secure RTP. Call audio encrypted end to end on the network, and fewer NAT headaches.
Fraud & toll-fraud protection. Monitoring, call barring and PIN controls to keep your account safe from misuse.
Network call forward. If your office loses power or internet, calls automatically divert to a mobile or another number.
Failover & redundancy. Multiple options to keep calls flowing when a device, site or connection is down.
HD voice. Wideband (G.722) audio for noticeably clearer calls between HD-capable phones.
Voice quality options. Choice of codecs to suit your connection and devices.
Hosted in New Zealand. Your phone system lives on our NZ platform, close to you and your customers.

Apps & mobility

Desktop & mobile apps. Make and take calls on your business number from a laptop, iPhone or Android.
Desk phones. Works with popular SIP handsets; our preferred brand is Yealink.
Bring your mobile in. Route calls to your existing mobile number through the app, keep your SIM and carrier.
Remote call back & remote dial tone. Have the system call you, or dial in and place calls from any phone as if you were in the office.
One number. Give out one number and be reachable on desk phone, app and mobile.
Self-service portal. Add users, change forwarding, upload greetings and pull call records yourself.
Microsoft Teams calling. Make and receive PSTN calls inside Teams, alongside or instead of handsets.
SIP peering & trunking. Already have a PBX? Connect it to our network as a SIP peer or with SIP trunks.

Reporting & AI

Call analytics & reports. See call volumes, answer times, missed calls and busiest hours.
Call records. A full log of inbound and outbound calls in your portal.
AI call transcription. Searchable transcripts and one-paragraph summaries of every call.
Sentiment analysis. Flag calls that went badly (or well) without listening to every one.
Transcription alerts. Get pinged when a call contains a keyword, a promise to follow up, or low sentiment.
CRM integration. Journal calls, screen pop the caller's record and click to dial from your CRM.

Auto attendant (IVR), explained

An auto attendant is the recorded voice that greets callers and offers choices: "press 1 for sales, 2 for accounts, 3 for support". Behind each option you decide what happens, ring a group of phones, play an announcement, send the caller to voicemail or a colleague's mobile. Set a different attendant for after hours and public holidays, and record the prompts yourself or generate them with text-to-speech. Want it to understand natural speech instead of key presses? That is our AI receptionist.

Queues and hunt groups, explained

A hunt group rings a set of phones in a pattern you choose, one after the other, or all at once, until someone answers. A call queue holds callers in line with music and a position announcement and hands each one to the next free agent. Hunt groups suit small teams and reception; queues suit busier sales and support lines. Both can overflow to another group, a mobile or voicemail after a time you set, and both show up in reporting so you can see how quickly calls are answered.

Apps, handsets and mobility, explained

Your Cloud PBX extension is not tied to a desk. Use the desktop app on a laptop, the mobile app on your phone, a Yealink desk phone, or all three ringing together. Working from a site with no internet? Network call forward sends calls to any mobile automatically. And if you would rather keep using your existing mobile number, we can route those calls through the app too so they get recording, transcripts and queues just like office calls.

Where to next with your business phones

Business phone plans

Plans with included minutes and concurrent-call channels. Cloud PBX features come with selected plans.

See plans and pricing →

3CX phone systems Premium

Want video, live chat, WhatsApp, a standout mobile app and deeper AI? 3CX is our flagship platform, hosted on our NZ private cloud.

Explore 3CX →

AI for Business

AI receptionist, call transcription, sentiment and translation, running on top of your Cloud PBX.

See AI features →

Also see phone numbers and 0800, SIP trunking for your own PBX, how call rates work, and our guide to phone star codes for controlling features from a handset.

Cloud PBX FAQs

What is a Cloud PBX?

A PBX is the system that answers, routes and manages a business's phone calls. A Cloud PBX does the same job from our network instead of a box on your wall, so there is no hardware to buy or maintain, and you manage everything from a web portal. Your phones and apps just connect over your internet connection.

Which Cloud PBX features are included with my plan?

Cloud PBX features come with selected Talk2Me business calling plans, and the plan cards on our business phone page show which ones include them. Every feature on this page runs on the same platform, so if you need something specific, tell us and we will point you to the right plan.

Do I need special phones?

No. You can use the desktop and mobile apps on the devices you already own, or add SIP desk phones (our preferred brand is Yealink). Most businesses use a mix, and we will recommend what suits your team.

What happens to my calls if the power or internet goes out?

Set a network call forward and calls automatically divert to a mobile or another number whenever your office phones drop offline. Combined with the mobile app, most businesses never miss a call during an outage.

How is Cloud PBX different from 3CX?

Cloud PBX is our simpler, lower-cost hosted phone system for businesses that want reliable calling with solid features. 3CX is our premium platform, hosted on Talk2Me's own New Zealand private cloud, with a standout mobile app, video, live chat, WhatsApp and deeper AI and CRM tools. We will help you pick.

Can I keep my existing business number?

Yes. We port your current numbers across so customers keep dialling the number they know. See our phone numbers page for local, 0800 and 028 options.

Want a phone system that just works?

Tell us how many people and phones you have and we will recommend the right plan and features. Local setup, no long-term contract.

Contact us (06) 281 4967

Cloud PBX phone system features, hosted in NZ