A sluggish economy isn't necessarily bad for everyone in the economy-- we hear pawnbrokers are doing well.

Most businesses are looking for cost savings. Right, yes, they always are, but the search takes on a certain urgency in a down economy. One way businesses are finding to shave expenses is to install hosted PBXs.

They don't need much in the way of up-front capital, if you shop around you can find pretty low monthly fees, and if you're careful about the package you buy, you can save maybe even several hundred dollars a month on phone bills if you're a small business – and even more if you're a bigger one.

So says Scott Seltzer, president of ConnectMeVoice, a vendor of hosted PBX (News - Alert) services. Yes, 'the weak economy has been a good time for hosted PBX services,” he says.

For an idea of how low you can get in the hosted PBX market for, the company’s hosted PBX services start at $14.95 per month.

But don't sign up with any company just because of the low price. Check out what services you're getting, too - the cheapest plan in the world isn't saving you anything if you don't have the communications you need. 

ConnectMeVoice, for example, offers call recording with their ConnectDirect product. Not a whole lot of other companies offer that, 'especially not for free and with all the other features the product has to offer,' ConnectMeVoice officials say.

 

They also offer prompt warnings for recorded calls, which is a pretty strong feature when it comes to laws and regulations. Company officials claim to have 'a subset of clients' who choose to work with them specifically for that reason - because they need to have call recording.