Connect the
whole office.
A business phone system for reception, accounts, managers, sales and everyone else who needs an extension. Organise how calls reach people and how colleagues call one another.
Explore the PBXTHE SAYVONA GUIDE / CHOOSING YOUR SETUPCloud PBX or
Cloud PBX or
contact centre?
Start with your team.
Both help your business handle calls. The difference is the work around the conversation: everyday office calling, or a customer operation built around agents, queues and performance.
Connect the
Organise the
customer team.
A workspace for people whose job is answering and making customer calls. Organise queues, agent availability, call activity and the supervisor’s view of the operation.
Explore contact centreSame conversation.
Different responsibilities.
| What matters | Cloud PBX | Contact centre |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Connect business extensions and manage everyday phone calls. | Coordinate a team handling customer conversations. |
| Typical users | Reception, office staff, departments and managers. | Support agents, sales teams and supervisors. |
| How calls are organised | Extensions, greetings, menus, ring groups and hours. | Queues, agent availability and customer-team workflows. |
| Management focus | Who has an extension and where calls should go. | Who is available, queue activity and team performance. |
| Plan unit | Three plans: 10, 25 or 50 extensions. Enterprise capacity is quoted. | Three plans: 3, 5 or 10 agents. Larger teams receive a custom quote. |
| Telephone connection | Bring a compatible SIP trunk or use Sayvona calling. | Bring a compatible SIP trunk or use Sayvona calling. |
| AI receptionist | A separately scoped pilot for a welcome and fallback journey. | A separately scoped pilot for a conversational opening and handover. |
| Calling costs | Number rental and external airtime are separate. | Number rental and external airtime are separate. |
WHICH SITUATION SOUNDS LIKE YOURS?Choose around the work.
Choose around the work.
Then choose the plan.
“We need a professional business number.”
Start with PBX if the goal is a shared number, office extensions, a greeting and sensible call routing. One public number can serve many internal extensions.
“Our agents answer calls all day.”
Start with Contact Centre if availability, shared queues and a supervisor’s view are central to the work. Plan for the agents handling those conversations.
“We have an office and a support team.”
A combined setup can make sense. Put everyday office calling on PBX extensions and scope contact-centre access for the customer team. We quote the arrangement together.
“I want calls inside my application.”
Start with Developers if the application controls the experience. You do not need to buy office extensions or agent seats simply to access the voice API.
FOUR NUMBERS. FOUR DIFFERENT JOBS.Count the people.
Count the people.
Then size
the connection.
A public number, an extension, an agent seat and a call channel each describe a different part of your setup.
| What you count | What it means | A 50-person example |
|---|---|---|
| Public numbers / DIDs | The telephone numbers customers dial to reach your business. | One main number can serve all 50 people. |
| PBX extensions | Internal telephone destinations for people or shared devices, such as reception on 101. | 50 extensions for the office, without buying 50 public numbers. |
| Named agent seats | People assigned the contact-centre agent workspace and its call-handling tools. | 10 seats if 10 people need those tools. Each agent includes an extension. |
| Simultaneous calls / channels | The external calls the agreed connection can carry at once. | An inbound limit of 10 allows 10 incoming calls in progress, even with 50 extensions. |
ONE OFFICE. THREE VALID SETUPS.
What if all 50 people answer customers?
Everyday shared answering: a 50-extension PBX can route customer calls to your team using its configured answering arrangements. Handling a customer call does not, by itself, require a contact-centre licence.
A dedicated team within the office: 40 basic extensions plus 10 contact-centre agents gives you 50 extensions in total. We quote the combination together; the 10 agents’ included extensions are counted once.
A full 50-agent operation: if all 50 people need the agent workspace, availability controls and supervisor reporting, choose a quoted 50-agent contact-centre setup. Their phone extensions are included.
A caller waiting in your PBX queue still occupies an incoming channel. For example, six callers speaking to staff and four waiting already use a ten-call inbound limit. Agree additional capacity and overflow handling around your busiest period. Outgoing calls and external transfers also need appropriate capacity.
Plan a combined office & customer teamACCESS THAT FITS THE RESPONSIBILITYA login for the person.
A login for the person.
Permissions for
their work.
Plan access during onboarding. A web login, a phone’s SIP credentials and a paid agent seat have different purposes.
| Person | Access to agree | Needs an agent seat? |
|---|---|---|
| Owner or administrator | Manage the account, invite people and configure the authorised phone settings. | Only if they also work as a contact-centre agent. |
| PBX user | Use an assigned desk phone or softphone. Personal web calling, where enabled, is limited to their own calling tools. | No, for ordinary PBX calling. |
| Contact-centre agent | Use the agent workspace and assigned queues, with access to permitted call records. | Yes: one seat per named agent. |
| Supervisor | Review the agreed team’s queues, activity and authorised recordings or supervision tools. | Only if they also take an agent role. Supervisory access is scoped in the quote. |
| Billing contact | Review billing and agreed payment or usage information. | No. |
| Developer | Manage permitted integrations and API credentials. | No, for API work. |
A shared reception phone can have an extension without a separate human web account. People using the web app should have individual logins. Administrative access is granted separately; owning an extension does not make someone an administrator. Available screens and permissions are confirmed for your deployment.
Can a PBX have a queue?+
Yes, a PBX can support queues as well as ring groups, depending on its configuration. The need for a contact-centre package comes from the agent workspace, availability controls, supervision and team reporting. Agree which answering features your PBX deployment includes; a queue alone does not decide the licence.
Are agent seats counted by who is logged in?+
The displayed plans use named agents: each assigned person takes one seat, including while signed out. Ten people on one shift and ten different people on another need twenty named seats. Supervisors or administrators only need agent seats if they also work as agents.
Do I need a different public number for each product?+
Not necessarily. A call flow can connect a main business number to different destinations. We map the office and customer-team journey together and confirm the number and routing setup.
Can we start with PBX and add a contact centre later?+
That is a sensible path when your call operation grows. We review the account, agent requirements, routing and commercial scope before changing the setup.
Where does the AI receptionist fit?+
It can welcome callers and answer agreed questions before handing over to the configured extension or queue. It is an optional service with separate processing costs, and can be piloted with either kind of team.
LET’S MAKE THE CONNECTION
Tell us how your team works. We’ll help you connect it.
Bring your questions. Let’s work through your setup.