With the growth of the internet and ever-increasing bandwidth and data transfer speeds, businesses have been given more options to reduce costs and improve service. VoIP service is one way that small and large businesses are doing both of these without having to make any significant changes.
What Is VoIP?
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a calling system that works over the internet rather than standard phone lines. Voice and sound are transferred between two or more parties instantaneously. Instead of using traditional phone lines, all calls are carried over the internet. As long as you have a connection to the internet, you can connect to a VoIP Phone system and make or receive calls. Individual users have been hooked up to VoIP for years. For simple calls from remote areas and for international calls, VoIP has been instrumental in simplifying the process and lowering costs. But, individuals aren’t the only ones who can benefit from online call systems; read more about What Is VoIP.Why Is VoIP Useful for Businesses?
VoIP service doesn’t just replace your phone connection. If you use other communication methods, like messaging, files transfers, video messaging, conference calling, or others, it can take the place of all those things at once. You can connect all your communication systems together and monitor everything from a single, centralised admin platform.Centralised control is very useful in controlling usage, understanding what you actually use, cutting expenses, and fully utilising the technology. You'll have concrete data to work with rather than just guesstimating how many minutes you’ll need or the volume of calls going to and from your company. Not only that, but your employees will also have better lines of communication with each other, especially if you have remote workers of any kind.
Small businesses can find a lot of uses for VoIP that go above and beyond just replacing traditional business phone lines. For companies that want to get ahead of the competition by cutting their own costs and actually improving customer experiences, VoIP is a useful tool.
How Small Businesses Can Benefit from VoIP
Cost-cutting is the main benefit most businesses can expect from migrating to VoIP systems. Calls between VoIP users are free on most plans, while calls placed to regular phone numbers are charged on minute plans that range in price depending on the company you use. Most plans have cheap talking minutes that are pooled between all connected devices, even for international or long-distance calls. You can also choose unlimited plans that allow for any usage without restrictions.Costs are cut on every front. Many services you may be paying for right now, like E911 services for mobile phones or single number receiving, are either free or low-cost through a VoIP provider. Business plans are more likely to give you a wide variety of choices for additional features, package sizes, integrated systems, etc.
Is VoIP Right for Small Businesses?
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from VoIP. However, it’s not always a useful solution if the cost or complexity increases over what you’re doing now. In some cases, especially where there’s very limited phone usage, a VoIP plan may not make sense if you’re already using a cheap mobile plan for your business every month. Saving a few dollars a month may or may not be worth switching and going through the short learning curve to understand the new system.That being said, if you’re using your business phone regularly, if your phone is part of doing your business, or if you need a few features beyond what a normal phone can do, VoIP systems are a great solution. Getting hooked up is easy; you have a huge variety of package choices to make, and you can scale up as needed without a lot of hassle.
Not every small business will see the use of VoIP, but most can gain more from it than it seems at first glance. The added flexibility, cost savings, and scalability make VoIP a great choice for many different businesses across industries. Some small businesses may even benefit more than larger businesses.
Making the Switch
If you’re interested in getting VoIP, switching from your existing office phone to a VoIP phone is not difficult. There’s no physical infrastructure necessary for most businesses if you already have a strong internet connection. Phone lines don’t need to be removed or changed in any way and can even be used with analogue telephone adaptors if you want to hook it up that way.Most systems work best with an app or program downloaded and installed on any company's mobile devices or computers. You can use the program on your computer through a good headset with a microphone. Or, use your mobile phone, and you won’t even notice the difference.
Getting physically connected or downloading software and apps comes after you decide which company to work with. You’ll have to choose the best VoIP service for business packages. There are a lot of companies to choose from with a ton of different individual, business, and enterprise packages.
Consulting a service like GetVoIP may be useful to narrow down your options. Even if you’ve run across a few plans that look good, or you’re looking at the top name brands in the industry, using a consolidation service to know all your choices is convenient. That way, you can look at a whole list of options that fit your budget and business requirements instead of just looking at major known brands.
In most cases Switching to VoIP service instead of regular telephone service won’t be a revolutionary game-changer for your business. But, small businesses can gain great flexibility features that weren’t available under a phone plan, acquire a lot of useful data, and cut operational expenses without sacrificing quality phone service.
