Did You Make the Right Call with VoIP?

Dave Thomas

November 09, 2012


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For the small business owner looking to save money, dialing into VoIP services is a great way to ring up savings.

In the event you are not familiar with VoIP, it is simply Voice over Internet Protocol, allowing business owners to save money on their communication needs, both with customers and in-house for employees to communicate with one another.

According to a 2010 FCC report, usage of VoIP grew 21 percent, to more than 30 million subscribers in the nation alone.

Among the benefits to using VoIP, it is able to integrate with either your instant messaging setup or your email system. You can also receive calls on your laptop or have voicemail transferred to wherever you are with W-Fi. This eliminates the need to contact the office in order to check on waiting emails and phone messages.

Should your company be considering business VoIP phone service, there are several things to take into consideration, among which are:

1. Understanding VoIP in the first place - Before you consider going with VoIP for your small business, do some research on the product to see how it could potentially benefit your company. Along with giving you a full-featured communications answer, VoIP can be a very cost-effective measure for your bottom line. Not only can VoIP enhance your ability to communicate with customers (if you operate a call center for instance), but it can also improve communication between your office and employees that either work from home or are out in the field. Your employees can connect a remote IP phone through any data connection, be they in a hotel, cafe or bookstore wireless hotspot. Call forwarding options allow for the automatic transfer of calls to cellphones too;

2. Understanding the savings and flexibility - A VoIP system for your company can reduce travel expenses, allowing your business to take advantage of video and web conferencing for starters. VoIP is also rather simple to add or change phone connections over time when you grow your workforce. Lastly, you can reduce your business long distance charges, which can add up to quite the savings over time. While you may incur some sizable setup costs, the savings over time will prove worth it;

3. Understanding the transfer to VoIP - In the event you decide to transfer to VoIP for your small business, know some of the requirements necessary. They would include porting your current numbers from your current service provider to the new one, purchasing numbers to allow for future growth, having a back up plan in the event the transfer does not go smoothly, and educating your staff on how to use VoIP ahead of time so the transition goes more quickly once the system is set up in your office;

4. Understanding the speed - Another advantage to VoIP is its speed, not to mention the fact that the quality of service and bandwith have both seen major improvements over the years. You also have the ability with VoIP to juggle a number of client calls, while adding another one within the loop;

5. Understanding better customer service - Last but not least, customer service should always be at the forefront of your requirements for a successful business. Many VoIP services deployed by businesses permit callers to go to the right contact the first time around. Meantime, incoming calls can be transferred to other personnel when the person being sought is budy. Finally, for those businesses utilizing a call center, data from inbound calls can be screened and matched to the needed customer service selection, based on the customer’s buying history and/or the importance of their call.

With all that VoIP can do for your small business, have you dialed-in yet?