When was the last time you used a landline to make a call? A simple question that quickly and undoubtedly tells you one truth: Landlines are coming to an end. These wired telephones that once were a great solution have become unpractical in a world where everyone seeks flexible and convenient solutions.
Today, more and more businesses are moving to VoIP to simplify their telecommunications and benefit from its limitless features. If you want to join this future technology but still not sure if you need it in your business, here are the five signs that you should be looking for:
1- You are paying too much
Landline systems are very expensive to run; You need to pay for installation fees, lines rental and the cost of the calls you make. You’ll also need to pay every time you want to add more lines, features or additional phone numbers. You might end up with a huge bill that exhausts your financial resources and hinders the growth of your business.
Think of VoIP as an upgrade to your antiquated telephone system to a newer and more advanced solution that is full of features and much cheaper to run. These advantages were made possible thanks to VoIP’s unique technology that allows you to make and receive calls over the internet without the need of a separate cabling infrastructure in your premise.
VoIP calls between two extensions on the same system are completely free regardless of the location. International calls are also a lot cheaper because only a small portion of the call travels over the PTSN network while most of it travels over the internet. In fact, recent studies suggest that VoIP users save up to 40% on local calls and up to 90% on international calls.
2- You’re missing many calls
You might be missing your clients’ calls for different reasons;
- Your employees can’t keep up with your business call volume.
- Your clients are frustrated from your business’ busy lines.
- You waste too much time trying to connect your clients with the right people that can help.
- Your voicemail mailbox is full most of the time and you can’t access it from everywhere.
If the above points are daily issues in your business, then it’s time to move to VoIP. VoIP offers many solutions that helps to improve your business’ productivity and customers’ satisfaction. For example, a simple IVE solution can save so much time for your employees by giving your customers information about the status of your services, business opening hours and special holidays, and link them to the right department. You can also use VoIP call centres which are much cheaper than landlines and offer your business many benefits, such as call queuing, call recoding, click-to-dial from CRM databases, real-time call performance monitoring and more.
3- You’re ready to expand your target market
You might want to expand your business by opening a new branch in a different location or moving to a larger building that can accommodate for more employees. In these two scenarios your landline system poses a major financial and technical problem.
Landlines rely on a traditional telephone infrastructure that is installed in your business premise. Moving your business and your telephone infrastructure to a new location will cost you a lot of money not to mention potential technical errors in your system. The case is not different with multiple offices where business owners usually end up with a high phone bill due to increased communication between team members.
VoIP relies on the internet which means that you don’t have physical lines installed in your premise. All you need is an internet connection and an IP telephone to make a call. You can add as many concurrent calls as you want, transfer calls between your different offices at ease and have full control over the communication system in your multiple offices through an easy online administration portal that you can access from anywhere.
4- You want mobility
Landlines give no flexibility when it comes to working from home or outside of the office. This might not be convenient for modern businesses where the type of work might require being in a field most of the time or in meetings inside or outside of the country. It’s also a problem where your employees are working remotely from international offices or from home.
VoIP offers many useful features that gives you the utmost flexibility for your business so you can literally work from anywhere while still receiving your office calls. For example, call hunting allows you to connect an incoming call to different telephone numbers until it is answered by an available agent or transferred to a voicemail. Hot desking allows you to log in to any phone connected on your system and push your user profile and settings onto that phone. You can also use your smart phone as an office extension so you can receive your office calls no matter where you are and call your clients directly from your mobile with the caller ID showing your business’ name and number.
5- You want to improve your business’ productivity.
VoIP offers many features that facilitate daily tasks for your employees, improve their skills in handling customers inquiries and help them to reduce time waste. For example, call monitoring allows you to listen to calls between your staff and your clients without being detected so you can analyse your staff responses, highlight weak points and better methods in dealing with clients.
VoIP whispering on the other hand allow you to join the call and speak directly to your agents without being heard by the clients. This way you can support them in difficult situations and help them to give the right answers without making your clients uncomfortable.
VoIP also offer useful reporting tools that help you to analyse your staff performance, identify good and weak practices and plan the right development strategy to help improve your staff call handling techniques and provide a better experience for your clients.
Now that you have learnt why VoIP is a better telephone system for modern businesses that want to grow and thrive with flexible solutions and less expenses, you might be surprised to know that VoIP is blocked in some countries around the world. Read our article “is VoIP legal around the world?” to learn why.
If you want help moving to VoIP system or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 03300 881182 or send us an email to sales@vipvoip.co.uk