VoIP originated in 1995 as a way to get around long-distance and international phone charges.
What started out as a sly loophole for costly calling fees has turned into one of the world’s biggest revolutions when it comes to communication.
VoIP plays a crucial role in today’s modern business world. Not only does it allow more companies to expand their reach in terms of managing remote teams, but it also allows them to reach more global customers and partners.
If you haven’t yet experienced the benefits of VoIP, then here are ten of the biggest reasons why it’s so important, and why it beats conventional phone service.
Lower Costs Per Call
There are a few reasons why a VoIP phone service is cheaper than conventional phone service. However, the biggest reason why is perhaps the pay-as-you-go model that most providers offer.
While this type of model is pretty popular for individual mobile phone services nowadays, it’s hard to find a business model that comes with the same features and costs.
VoIP solutions are generally low-risk and allow you to pay for only the minutes you use. Because you’re making and receiving calls over your internet network, you aren’t paying for two separate services.
When it comes to monthly payments, this usually ends up being cheaper, especially for larger companies with employees who work from various remote locations around the country or even the globe.
While lower costs per call are a huge benefit, it also translates into more control. As a company, you have more control over your costs and can manage them more efficiently than you might be able to with traditional phone service.
On top of it all, there’s usually no hardware to install or manage, meaning that there aren’t any service fees that you have to factor in.
Excellent Business Services
VoIP benefits far outnumber those that traditional phone services offer. In fact, it’s hard to come up with a definitive list because it’s simply too long!
Business services are numerous, and as technology advances, they keep expanding year over year. Some of the most popular features that companies enjoy include:
- Voicemail to Email
- Voicemail Transcription
- Call Analytics
- Software Integration
- Remote Access
- Unlimited Virtual Extensions
- Unlimited Phone Numbers
- Dial Menus
- Automated Surveys
- Call Monitoring
The list goes on and on. The best part? These services and features are usually flexible add-ons within certain hosted plans.
If you’re a big business, this means that you’re able to basically build your own custom phone service package.
You can then, for example, create your own small call center to handle large call volumes during a busy season. Then, when things slow down again, you can switch back to your normal business coverage.
You can also map out a business phone system in a way that makes sense for your team. Being able to fully customize a communication network like this is crucial when it comes to cutting costs and optimizing business practices.
Remote Access
With the next couple of years, over a third of employees in the country will work remotely. This means that more and more companies are going to need to search for telecommunication solutions that cater to remote teams.
VoIP is a sustainable solution. Whereas traditional phone services are tied to a physical connection, VoIP allows businesses to access their network from wherever they can connect to the internet.
Using any broadband connection, and employee anywhere in the world can log into their VoIP telephone and connect to their phone line or voicemail.
When traveling, VoIP systems are also accessible via an employee’s email.
While it’s still important to ensure your employees are striking the right kind of work-life balance, this means that remote workers or on-the-go employees who have to travel a lot for work can still stay on top of calls and messages.
This type of portability creates consistency when it comes to clients and providers.
An employee who has to travel to Asia every few weeks will be able to call US-based clients from their VoIP phone system while retaining the same number.
This means that clients won’t ever receive confusing calls from numbers they don’t know.
Reduced Overhead Costs
There’s no denying the fact that technology is changing the way that companies do business. It’s even changing the need for certain roles within the workplace.
While a receptionist is sometimes a crucial role depending on the industry that a company is in, the role isn’t that necessary for most businesses.
Hosted VoIP services that are complete with certain features can help reduce the number of administrative employees that you need.
VoIP phone systems can effectively reroute calls, convert voice messages into emails, and analyze communication data.
These are all tasks that an administrative assistant might take on, meaning that you can hire a receptionist or assistant to take care of other tasks, or do away with the position entirely.
If you’re a small business, then this reduces the amount of wasted time you have to spend dealing with administrative tasks. Either way, you’re saving time and money while improving your company’s workflow.
Integration with Existing Technology
When you use a traditional phone system, it’s hard to integrate it with existing technology.
Because VoIP phone systems use internet connection to transfer data, it means that they can also easily connect to other applications that use the internet.
You can place outbound calls through Outlook or other email applications. Or, you can access a profile of a customer or provider that will show you all of the information regarding that customer’s previous inbound calls.
When it comes to physical technology itself, VoIP makes business life easier, too. Why?
When you switch over to a VoIP network, you don’t usually have to change your phone systems.
Some providers will allow you to “bring your own equipment” and will simply set up adapters or converters that will allow VoIP to work with analog phone systems.
This makes the switch efficient and cost-effective, and it ensures that you can easily integrate this new way of communication into your company’s communication workflow as easy as possible.
Easy to Use and Maintain
Long gone are the days when a service technician had to spend a day, or two or three, installing and configuring a traditional legacy system.
Not only were these types of systems extremely expensive, but the setup was pretty intrusive on a business’s day-to-day activities.
If you ever needed to reconfigure them, then you had to schedule a technician and also schedule downtime. This meant delayed or no communication for a few days, which can mean lost revenue.
Intrusive setups aren’t a part of VoIP. They also don’t require maintenance or repairs.
Because you’ll need a broadband internet connection to make and receive calls, the only kind of downtime you might experience is if there’s a power outage or internet issue in your area.
However, internet service providers are usually able to resolve these fairly quickly.
The turnaround time for the installation of a VoIP phone system is usually same-day. Count on fewer maintenance issues as well, if any at all.
If you’re a growing business and you need to scale fast, then it’s important to consider this kind of benefits as part of the process of scaling IT costs.
Flexibility for You and Your Customers
It’s (hopefully) clear by now that VoIP offers flexibility to businesses of all sizes. However, it also allows you to be more flexible with your customers, too.
The flexibility that this kind of communication service provides you with allows you to free up your time to focus more on what matters: your customers.
Wasting time dealing with connection issues, maintenance, and the overall hassle of administrative tasks doesn’t leave you with much time to understand how your business is actually doing.
You don’t have to understand in-depth how VoIP works to truly understand that it’s both time and cost-effective.
This means that you can focus on your customers and their needs.
Do you have an underserved market on the other side of the country you could cater to? Great! Adjust your phone system and hire remote workers to cater to that market.
Do you need to adjust your business hours to prioritize calls from your most important vendors? Awesome! With VoIP, that adjustment is super easy.
The flexibility to adjust how your company works is one of the biggest and most beneficial features of VoIP, and it can result in higher levels of client satisfaction. This translates into more sales, leads, conversions, and revenue.
It’s the Way of the Future
As a business, it’s important to stay ahead of the game when it comes to technology and trends.
This is likely why Australia introduced the national broadband network (NBN) in 2009. The idea behind the NBN was that it was an open-access data network that allowed residents and businesses all across the country to enjoy better connectivity.
Let’s face it, times are changing. VoIP and other broadband-based communication systems are changing the way that people communicate.
Switching over to the NBN is mandatory in Australia, and there’s no reason to believe that similar changes and regulations aren’t on the horizon in the US and beyond.
Staying ahead of changes means adopting technologies and implementing them into your business’s framework before it’s too late.
Switching over to cloud computing and ensuring that you’re hosting your communication pipeline on a broadband network are both huge changes that you’ll need to implement if you want to stay ahead of the curve.
Easy to Scale Up or Down
Today’s modern-day business world is incredibly fast-paced. This is especially true if you’re embracing the gig economy and employ a team of remote workers that change every quarter.
If this is the case, then VoIP definitely beats conventional phone service.
When you choose to contract the services of a traditional phone company, you usually have to decide how many lines you want for the entire year. This is hard to do if your company’s employees change frequently or if you’re growing fast.
If you don’t correctly figure this out, then it could mean that you have to spend lots of money on wasted phone lines that you don’t use. Or, you’ll have to go through the hassle of adding phone lines to your existing contract later on.
What a headache!
VoIP is easy to scale up or down, making it ideal or businesses that are scaling fast or who work with a lot of remote employees and freelancers.
With VoIP for your business, you can add a line as soon as you contract a new employee and then immediately remove it when they’re done working for you.
This makes it a whole lot easier to manage a global company in different time zones and countries. As well, it means that you’re not wasting money on lines you don’t need.
Better Quality Calls
Lastly, but certainly not least, is the fact that VoIP calls usually have better quality than those made over a traditional phone network.
It’s important to note that you’ll need a solid understanding of VoIP to truly harness the power of calls made on the network.
Factors such as bandwidth, equipment, latency, weather, and the location of your hardware can all affect call quality.
However, the benefit of this is that these are all things you can control. This isn’t the case with traditional phone systems. With conventional phone service, you have to rely on the settings and network that they give you.
With VoIP, not only do you usually experience higher-quality voice calls naturally but if you don’t, then you are able to quickly resolve the problem on your own simply by adjusting a few factors.
Getting Started with VoIP Services
Using VoIP services for your company’s communication network simply makes sense. Reduced costs, more range of services, and higher quality calls all make this kind of phone system ideal for businesses.
If you’re growing your business and need to scale fast, want to manage a large team or remote employees, or simply want to streamline your in-office communications, then consider switching over to VoIP.
Ready to make the switch or need IT help with your existing phone system? Contact us today to schedule a consultation.
