Business VoIP considerations from ComCanada
When you’re setting up a business VoIP system, there are a lot of things you’ll need to consider that are very easy to overlook if you don’t give proper consideration to your system needs.
Scalability
Business is a landscape which is constantly shifting and changing. Any business which hopes to achieve success in today’s economically uncertain environment must be flexible, open to change and willing to adapt to survive. When this vital business maxim is applied to business telephone systems, you need to consider just how the company might change in the time ahead. Successful businesses grow and expand, and with this, more phones become necessary. Each employee will usually require a direct number for clients to be able to reach them without going through a switchboard or receptionist each time, and this can become very costly with traditional ADSL communication solutions. VoIP, on the other hand, scales very well and can easily be expanded along with your business to provide additional points of communication.
Function Rich Handsets
VoIP phone handsets tend to have lots of utility and provide features that can really help improve efficiency in a business environment. One of the most useful of these is a shared global address book. Having names and phone numbers stored and available to every staff member without them having to locate it each time can be a huge time-saver, and it makes sure that everyone has the correct and most up-to-date details on-hand. Most handsets also have conference call functions which are great for dealing with people who are some distance away where face to face meetings are not really viable. In conjunction to this, speaker muting can be useful for private discussions as part of a conference call.
Call Forwarding and Hold Music
Inevitably, some of the calls that come through to you are going to end up being fielded by someone else. Cordless phones took one step towards reducing this inconvenience, but VoIP phones really cure the problem. They make it easy and efficient to direct the call to the correct person with the touch of a button, and allow you to implement hold music too. 60% of business callers will hang up if they encounter silence when put on hold, and 30% of these will simply not call back, so keeping them engaged with some music or a message can be vital.
Voice Mail
Although voicemail is now a ubiquitous feature when it comes to phone systems, standard voicemail solutions may not provide enough functionality for a large and busy business. Of the additional features you might require of your voicemail services, being able to pick up your messages from other locations is perhaps one of the most useful. If you’re out at a location and cannot answer your phone, being able to listen to any messages you receive will allow you to keep on top of what’s going on without having to wait until getting back to the office. It allows you to return important calls as soon as you get the message and save less urgent ones for later. Another very useful feature you might want set up is unlimited message length. Having people leave you long and rambling messages might be irksome but clients and business associates tend not to take too kindly to being cut off mid-message. Business VoIP provides these features and more (such as having more than one answer message stored and set up for different situations.)
Hosted VoIP systems are an all-round excellent solution for business communications. They are cheap in regard to set-up costs and maintenance and provide very high sound quality due to the fast transmission speeds available with these systems. They offer a lot of functionality in comparison to traditional ADSL phone-lines and are so easily scalable and adaptable when necessary. For small and growing businesses, hosted VoIP provides a clean and simple infrastructure which is becoming increasingly popular in today’s highly technological, fast-paced business environment.
Business VoIP considerations from ComCanada
When you’re setting up a business VoIP system, there are a lot of things you’ll need to consider that are very easy to overlook if you don’t give proper consideration to your system needs.
Scalability
Business is a landscape which is constantly shifting and changing. Any business which hopes to achieve success in today’s economically uncertain environment must be flexible, open to change and willing to adapt to survive. When this vital business maxim is applied to business telephone systems, you need to consider just how the company might change in the time ahead. Successful businesses grow and expand, and with this, more phones become necessary. Each employee will usually require a direct number for clients to be able to reach them without going through a switchboard or receptionist each time, and this can become very costly with traditional ADSL communication solutions. VoIP, on the other hand, scales very well and can easily be expanded along with your business to provide additional points of communication.
Function Rich Handsets
VoIP phone handsets tend to have lots of utility and provide features that can really help improve efficiency in a business environment. One of the most useful of these is a shared global address book. Having names and phone numbers stored and available to every staff member without them having to locate it each time can be a huge time-saver, and it makes sure that everyone has the correct and most up-to-date details on-hand. Most handsets also have conference call functions which are great for dealing with people who are some distance away where face to face meetings are not really viable. In conjunction to this, speaker muting can be useful for private discussions as part of a conference call.
Call Forwarding and Hold Music
Inevitably, some of the calls that come through to you are going to end up being fielded by someone else. Cordless phones took one step towards reducing this inconvenience, but VoIP phones really cure the problem. They make it easy and efficient to direct the call to the correct person with the touch of a button, and allow you to implement hold music too. 60% of business callers will hang up if they encounter silence when put on hold, and 30% of these will simply not call back, so keeping them engaged with some music or a message can be vital.
Voice Mail
Although voicemail is now a ubiquitous feature when it comes to phone systems, standard voicemail solutions may not provide enough functionality for a large and busy business. Of the additional features you might require of your voicemail services, being able to pick up your messages from other locations is perhaps one of the most useful. If you’re out at a location and cannot answer your phone, being able to listen to any messages you receive will allow you to keep on top of what’s going on without having to wait until getting back to the office. It allows you to return important calls as soon as you get the message and save less urgent ones for later. Another very useful feature you might want set up is unlimited message length. Having people leave you long and rambling messages might be irksome but clients and business associates tend not to take too kindly to being cut off mid-message. Business VoIP provides these features and more (such as having more than one answer message stored and set up for different situations.)
Hosted VoIP systems are an all-round excellent solution for business communications. They are cheap in regard to set-up costs and maintenance and provide very high sound quality due to the fast transmission speeds available with these systems. They offer a lot of functionality in comparison to traditional ADSL phone-lines and are so easily scalable and adaptable when necessary. For small and growing businesses, hosted VoIP provides a clean and simple infrastructure which is becoming increasingly popular in today’s highly technological, fast-paced business environment.
