5 Reasons Why Your Metairie Business Needs VoIP Phones
If your business isn’t using VoIP yet, then it’s behind the times. VoIP or voice over internet protocol is a type of telephone system which uses the internet, not traditional landline networks, to route calls. Because of this, it offers a host of benefits over legacy systems, which can dramatically increase the efficiency of your business.
Check out these five reasons why your business should start utilizing VoIP communications today.
Reason #1: Lower Costs
It should come as no surprise that the main reason Metairie businesses love VoIP is that it lowers costs. Rather than paying to install and maintain multiple landline connections, companies realized a long time ago that they could slash their telephone expenditures by routing the whole lot through an internet connection. Call centers were among the first to benefit, but it’s now something that has leaked out into the wider business community with remarkable speed.
VoIP systems layer on top of your existing internet infrastructure. All the data for multiple concurrent phone calls can be transmitted through a single fiber optic or broadband connection, meaning that there’s no need for the heavy capital expense of landlines. You just plug and play.
Reason #2: Better Redundancy
Landline failures are a considerable risk to businesses. A landline connection could fail at any point, separating companies from their customers and putting their operations at risk. Not good.
VoIP, however, lowers risk. VoIP typically moves phone connections off-site and into the cloud, providing you with all of the benefits that distributed computing brings. You’re able to communicate with your customers and team, even if your main office has a power outage, so long as you’re using mobile or battery powered devices.
Reason #3: Better Mobility
Fixed landlines chain people to their desks. As a Metairie business, you always need a person to sit right next to the phone, just in case a customer calls and offers a lucrative opportunity.
VoIP, by contrast, is cloud-based, meaning that you and your employees can use it wherever they happen to be, so long as they have an internet connection.
VoIP offers additional mobility benefits too, besides being able to take calls out of the office. It also transforms other landline services into packets of information that can be sent over the web. So, for instance, you can send faxes and voicemails through to your colleagues’ email accounts, just as you would a regular email communication.
Reason #4: Tie All Your Colleagues Into A Single Business Number
The last thing you want is to have to quote multiple phone numbers for different people in your organization when communicating with customers. Ideally, you’d have just one number than anyone could call and get into contact with the right person. With traditional landlines, this is tricky to pull off. But with VoIP, it’s easy. You can route incoming calls to any number of agents depending on priority or customer need. You can also use VoIP to instruct multiple devices to ring when somebody calls, meaning that you won’t miss a call, regardless of where you happen to be.
Customers don’t want to call your business and be presented with an engaged tone because somebody in your office is on the phone to another client. That’s not good business practice. The problem with traditional landlines is that you need a separate connection for each person who wants to get in contact with your reps. It creates bottlenecks, something unacceptable for the vast majority of customers in today’s world.
The solution, you’ll be pleased to know, is VoIP. With VoIP, you can connect to multiple customers at once: no waiting in queues, no dialing tones. The same applies to conversations between colleagues and departments. You can run any number of discussions across a VoIP system, which no issues whatsoever.
Reason #5: Value For Money
Metairie businesses that rely on landlines typically wind up paying much higher fees than their VoIP-using counterparts. Firms must pay all kinds of additional costs: everything from international calling fees to new employee terminals.
VoIP reduces or eliminates these costs. International calls cost the same as local calls because you’re using the internet rather than the landline system. And the price of setting up a new employee is usually that of providing them with a new headset: there’s no additional landline fee required.
VoIP also provides a host of additional functionality that just isn’t possible using legacy systems. You can, for instance, use VoIP for video conferencing with remote offices, forward calls to the correct person, and wrap up voice messages in emails and send them to the appropriate person. Additional features include:
- Last number redial
- Call waiting facilities
- Forward calls to the relevant person
- Block calls from unwanted numbers
- Live caller ID to see who’s calling and from where
- Convert voicemails into files and send them over email
- Convert fax in to digital documents
The capital outlay for firms is also lower for VoIP. The majority of VoIP providers breakdown costs into a series of low monthly fees, depending on the number of units you require and your existing infrastructure. You don’t have to pay an upfront sum to install or facilitate multiple phone connections, as you do with landlines.
Secondly, there’s no need to pay high prices for professional installation. You simply plug VoIP phones into your existing internet services or buy headsets for your colleagues and then use computer-based software to do the rest.
So, in summary, VoIP offers a far better service than traditional landlines. Not only is it more flexible and feature-packed, but more scalable too, making it ideal for businesses wanting to grow fast.
The fact that VoIP offers Metairie businesses scalability shouldn’t be underestimated. With VoIP, you can increase the number of staff you have quickly, without having to worry about whether you have enough phone connections to service them. You can also grow your customer base without risking overloading your communication system. So long as you have sufficient reps, VoIP can handle the numbers.
