For decades, landline phones have been integral to organizations. From connecting with customers to internal meetings, phone communication is critical to business operations. However, landlines are limited in their ability to connect you wherever you are. While mobile devices have overcome this issue, they are still a costly solution. With voice over internet protocol (VoIP), you aren’t tethered to traditional networks and can make and receive calls online with a more seamless experience. With this technology, calls are made via the internet.
VoIP allows you to embrace the benefits of moving telecommunications. A few advantages of moving from traditional phone systems to the internet are reduced operating and capital expenses, and improved business continuity and flexibility. In this blog, we’ll review the concept of VoIP and how to switch to VoIP to benefit your business.
Table of Contents
What is VoIP?
Voice over internet protocol or VoIP is a way to deliver and receive phone calls over the internet. It eliminates the need for traditional phone lines and converts your voice into a digital signal transmitted over the internet. Because of this, phone calls are no longer limited to cell phones and landlines. Instead, you can use your laptop or desktop computer to make calls.
Now that you understand what a VoIP phone system is, you may be asking yourself, “Why switch to VoIP?”
9 Reasons to Switch to VoIP
As we’ve established, VoIP is a phone service that uses an internet connection to make and receive calls, which improves your ability as a business owner to communicate while reducing costs and improving efficiency. If you’ve experienced high costs with traditional phone lines or have felt that your call quality could be improved, you’ve likely wondered, “Should I switch to VoIP?”
Check out our top nine reasons your business should consider implementing a VoIP system.
1. Lower Costs
One of the main reasons as to why switch to VoIP is cost savings. Traditional phone systems have higher costs associated with long-distance and international calling. With a VoIP system, you’ll get unlimited local and long-distance calling flat rates, and it significantly reduces telecommunication operating and capital expenditure. Moving away from the costly phone infrastructure and industry regulations of traditional phone companies means less capital expense (and monthly fees). VoIP operating costs are also significantly lower than standard phone companies. Moving to the cloud shifts IT service and IT support to your VoIP provider, which means fewer in-house resources are required to keep communications going.
2. Value
Switching from a traditional landline to VoIP brings many value-added benefits for little to no cost. Using an internet connection instead of a phone connection, VoIP virtually eliminates long-distance charges, employee moves, adds, and changes, and the expense of added features such as voicemail, call forwarding, conferencing, video calling, and more. Providing more for less is just another one of the ways voice over internet protocol reduces costs.
With VoIP, you can access advanced features like call recording and auto-attendant, which improve productivity, increase efficiency, and give your business a more professional image.
3. All-In-One
VoIP ties together all communications. Coworkers and clients can keep in contact with you through a single business number. Little do they know, you could be sending and receiving calls with a workstation microphone or headphones or accessing, sending, and forwarding voicemails via email. Another benefit is that you can enable VoIP to ring on multiple devices simultaneously so that you won’t miss a call, no matter where you are.
4. Integration with Other Applications
One of the main benefits of switching to VoIP is its ability to be integrated with the applications you already use. From Teams to other CRM platforms, the ability to integrate VoIP streamlines communications across your organization to improve overall efficiency.
5. Mobility
VoIP plays a role in digital transformation to a more modern and efficient workplace. With VoIP phone capabilities, your phone number follows you wherever you go, ensuring you are reachable anywhere you travel and can be easily found at the same number.
You don’t need to sit next to the phone to receive a call with voice over internet protocol. You can take calls anywhere, as long as there’s a broadband connection. This means you can answer calls and get voicemail via email, whether with a cell phone, laptop, or tablet.
Another added benefit is that a VoIP system allows for virtual numbers. With these numbers, choosing an area code (and not being assigned one) enables international calls without the hindrance of long-distance charges. VoIP makes working mobile from locally and abroad more accessible and less costly.
6. Scalability
With traditional phone systems, you’ll need to add new numbers and hardware when you increase capacity and remove these things when downsizing. The scaling process is more efficient with VoIP, and phone lines are easily added and removed. They can also be adapted to the existing hardware and device you have so you can cut costs when necessary.
7. Business Continuity
With VoIP telecommunications, phone services and connections are moved offsite. This reduces redundancy and ensures essential operations are at full throttle. Communications can continue in the unfortunate instance of a power outage, and you’re not relying on a single provider to get it back up and running. Wherever there is an internet connection, there will be a VoIP phone line. This flexibility and adaptability are crucial for ensuring business continuity and avoiding downtime.
8. Flexibility
VoIP is much more flexible compared to traditional phones. With this system, you have added features such as voicemail-to-email, call forwarding, and video conferencing, which can improve communication and collaboration. These options give you greater flexibility in using phones to conduct business. You can make and receive calls from anywhere with an internet connection, and phone calls can be made from multiple locations with remote employees.
9. Voice Quality
Nothing is more frustrating than conducting a call with clients, customers, or vendors, and you can’t hear them, or your voice cuts out. With VoIP using high-quality digital connections to transmit calls, there will be fewer dropped calls, clearer sound quality, and less chance for delays or interruptions.
Why Switch to VoIP?
Switching to VoIP can be a seamless and straightforward process, and the benefits far outweigh any potential drawbacks. Before you decide if voice over internet protocol is right for your business, ensure your current bandwidth and internet speed and strength are capable of supporting the service. If these factors are low, phone quality will be weak and potentially unreliable. To optimize VoIP and maintain quality communications, one line for phone calls and another for the internet are recommended.
How to Switch to VoIP (5 Steps)
So, once you’ve determined you meet the criteria, here is a simple 5-step process for how to switch to VoIP.
Step 1: Research VoIP Providers
For this step, you’ll consider factors like cost, features, call quality, customer support, and the ability to integrate the service with your existing hardware. Providers are plenty. From Teams Phone, Zoom, Webex, and beyond, many options and factors must be considered. You’ll also need to evaluate your current phone system and needs. Consider your phone usage, number of users, and call volume to determine your VoIP requirements.
Step 2: Connect with a Provider
Now that you’ve decided what provider you’d like to move ahead with, connect with them to determine where you’ll port your existing phone numbers so the number can remain the same over VoIP.
Step 3: Configure Your Setup
With the help of your provider, your new setup will integrate the VoIP system with your phones, smartphones, and other devices.
Step 4: Test Your New Phone Service
Make a test call to ensure your new VoIP service is working properly and you can make and receive calls without any issues.
Step 5: Enjoy the Benefits of VoIP
Once you have completed the above steps, you can start enjoying the benefits of your new VoIP service, such as improved call quality, advanced features, and lower costs. However, there is a way to bypass these steps by connecting with a managed services provider (MSP) like SysGen. An MSP will do all the research and heavy lifting for you. Working with top vendors and building solutions is what they do best.
Make the Switch to VoIP
In this blog, we’ve looked at what VoIP is, the key benefits your business can derive from it, and how to switch to VoIP. Let’s recap the top reasons to make the switch to VoIP:
- Cost savings through reduced capital expenditures, increased scalability, and flexibility
- Improved call quality for a better professional experience
- Increased flexibility to make your workplace modern and efficient
- Better communication and productivity across teams
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