VoIP. Clear and Simple.

Isn’t that just phone? Pretty much…but lets try and think of it as phone that runs on your data network.  There was a time when this technology was cutting edge and plenty of people had bad things to say about it.  At this point it is about as tried and true as the Ma Bell network that was strung all over our country.  With that being said you are using VOIP right now whether you know it or not.  All the back end phone company networks are running on it for a simple reason.  It’s cheaper and just as reliable.

VOIP stands of Voice Over IP.  IP is Internet Protocol.  In layman’s terms this means phone that works over the network that your computers use to communicate with each other.  In a lot of cases the biggest reason for moving to VOIP is cost savings.  In some cases there is a large initial investment that is easily recovered in cost savings. You may ask, “How is that?” Basically if you have several offices and currently pay long distance in between the two of them for you daily interoffice phone calls you are wasting your money.  VOIP allows for those calls to be essentially free assuming you already have a WAN connection between the two offices.  Another perk is what is called least cost routing.  In that instance you could be in your San Francisco office calling a client in the Los Angeles area.  Instead of paying long distance from San Francisco the call is routed through your Los Angeles office as a local call.  The long distance charges that you are paying currently could be dramatically reduced.  This is where a majority of the ROI comes from.

There are other great features like single number reach.  This allows you to have one phone number on your business cards for your clients to call.  When they dial that one number it can ring your desk phone and your cell phone at the same time.  As far as the client is aware you are at the office.  There are mobile apps that allow you to place calls from your cell or tablet and appear they are being placed from the office.  In our newer mobile workforce it makes finding and communicating with someone much easier and less confusing.  No longer do you have to try several numbers to get ahold of someone.  VOIP systems also have the ability to send your voicemails to email.  This is a great feature that allows you to save client voicemails to your network if pertinent information is left in the voicemail.  Not to mention it becomes much easier to send that message on to others in the team without having to repeat what the voicemail said.

We must admit that some of the reasons for going to a VOIP system are better suited for a company that has multiple offices, however there are other reasons that make it’s ROI just as easy in a single office scenario.  Feel free to touch base with us if you have any questions and we’ll be more than honest with you on whether or not it fiscally makes sense for your environment.