Technology
Why VOIP is better than Traditional Phone Services for Business
While emails, texts, and video calls are now more popular than ever, it’s hard to find an office without telephones. In fact, most businesses prefer calls over emails for delivering messages that require quick feedback.
Depending on their budget and needs, businesses tend to have different types of telecommunication systems. The modern business use VOIP phones. Traditional businesses are still stuck with landlines. VOIP provide communications over the Internet in a secure and cost-effective manner. Landlines work offline.
Businesses that use VOIP communications are more efficient than regular businesses for a lot of reasons. Below we explore the benefits and explain whether it’s time you migrated into VOIP-based systems.
Cost Saving
Imagine this. Pay a fixed fee of less than $80 a month and get an unlimited amount of call minutes. You can call anyone all-day long without incurring additional costs. Where you get a limited number of toll-free call minutes, the cost per minute is a fraction of what you currently pay.
Considering how much money business calls tend to cost, the savings made by migrating to VOIP are remarkable. The savings are even bigger when you make multiple out of state and international calls. VOIP providers have fixed charges for all types of calls while traditional landline providers charge more for distant calls.
The differences in prices are only logical. VOIP uses the Internet to facilitate calls, hence the low costs. With traditional calls, two people making a call means the line used to enable that call is in use. When the call is between distant places, providers will charge more for it.
Service Mobility
Internet Phones keep business owners in contact with their employees and clients round the clock. It doesn’t matter where sales reps are located or whether your transportation workers are on the road. You can broadcast calls to anyone in the office in real time and without using your personal smartphone.
Traditional phone services can’t provide the mobile responsiveness VOIPs provide. Once you are out of your office, the only way to contact different departments is via email. If you need immediate feedback, you must look for individual cellphone numbers, something not everyone appreciates.
For businesses where close contact and quick exchange of information is important, VOIP should be the only option. Your business’ productivity will increase profits will improve and can enhance your customers’ overall experiences.
Multiple Features
VOIPs allow you to hold video conferences, forward calls, have a virtual receptionist and integrate with different software in the office. They are not just telephones. The VOIP systems are your business partners. Their wide variety of features improve efficiency in communications and add convenience.
Vonage is one of the top providers in the industry that have risen the ranks thanks to an avalanche of features and great pricing plans. With Vonage, all their plans come with unlimited call minutes. You can share files, chat and control all your communications on a single app. Read an expert Vonage business review 2019 for more information about the company.
Improved Client Interactions
A holiday abroad shouldn’t keep you away from your clients. With an IP phone and the mobility it provides, you have a chance to stay connected to your clients 24/7. You can forward files to them while abroad, chat with them and even arrange meetings.
With proper integrations, your clients will always have someone to talk to at the office. VOIPs make that possible by linking one number different departments. If your client wants to talk to your finance department, they will always be a call away.
Improving customer satisfaction isn’t something only small businesses are interested in. JP Morgan closed down their voicemail services in 2015 while Coca-Cola did the same in December 2014. The world-famous bank cited a need to save money and eliminate unneeded office equipment. It reportedly saved $3.2 million in the process.
Vonage conducted a related study in 2012 to find out whether customers preferred voicemails or real-time communications with businesses. As per their reports, there was an 8% preference to leave voicemails to business phone numbers. Instead, the clients preferred immediate communications like those enabled by VOIP systems.
Reliable
A majority of businesses that cancel VOIP services accuse the systems of unreliability. In reality, poor Internet connections are to blame for any unreliability caused by VOIPs. With fast and reliable Internet connections in your office, VOIPs can be available 99.99% of the time.
If you have issues with unreliable Internet providers, have mobile LTE connections as a backup. You’ll find the systems more reliable. Also, work with companies that make it possible to receive calls while you are offline. It works as a temporary solution but you are able to make calls or receive them when your Internet connection is temporarily disrupted.
Many VOIP providers don’t tie you to annual contracts. You pay monthly so that if you find their services unreliable, it’s just easy to cancel the contracts.
Scalable
VOIPs are a better solution for small businesses with the dream of growing. There is no need to keep on investing in expensive equipment. VOIP providers have multiple plans that cater to different business sizes. A simple clear and you can have five IP lines instead of three. Another plan and you can extend a single IP number to multiple phone numbers in your office.
With a good provider, adding features to your VOIP system is an easy process. Modern providers make it a self-activated process. You can add and edit phone numbers linked to your IP line. You can pay more to access more video calls, cancel your contract or renew it instantly.
When added with the cost savings, portability and flexibility, VOIP systems are clearly the better systems for office communications.
To Conclude
Landlines are a thing of the past in many homes. Not so much in officers where some businesses are reluctant to migrate to modern, more efficient VOIP systems. However, there is almost no reason you shouldn’t try voice over Internet phones. They are secure, convenient and keep your business connected.