VoIP Phone Systems for Medium Businesses is being sought after by a growing number of businesses today. The advent of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has dramatically altered the way in which businesses communicate with their customers and prospects. VoIP provides a reliable, flexible and cost effective alternative to traditional telephone services. The benefits of VoIP are wide ranging. But what exactly does VoIP offer to the business community?
VoIP enables organisations to reduce their overall infrastructure expenditure. Traditional PBX solutions have tended to increase over the years as a proportion of business revenues, and the rising costs have impeded business organisations from increasing their spending on telecommunication infrastructure. This trend has been accelerated by the recent downturn in the global economy. The impact of the recession on the global economy has reduced business revenues worldwide and increased the costs associated with telecommunications infrastructure, particularly for companies operating in developed markets such as the US. The introduction of VoIP solutions by most major global phone and cable companies has resulted in dramatic cost reductions and improved productivity.
This is not to say that VoIP can be used by any medium sized business without any noticeable improvement in productivity. On the contrary, most leading VoIP phone systems providers today have specific linesets that are designed for each business requirement. It’s important to understand how and where to find the best value before investing in a system.
One of the primary features of VoIP systems is the implementation of unified communication. This is achieved through the deployment of IP phones. An IP telephone connects to an IP network, which contains the servers that make up the VoIP service itself. IP telephone lines are much faster than conventional phone lines, making them ideal for applications requiring fast, efficient calls. A further feature that makes IP telephony a viable option for small business enterprises is that there is no need to install dedicated lines for this purpose. In fact, there may be no need for dedicated lines at all if your company utilizes a SIP based VoIP phone system.
Consolidation of phone systems has become quite common in the recent years. This can take the form of integration of VoIP into the existing PSTN system. The existing network infrastructure has already been modified to enable hosted VoIP. Once this is completed, it becomes easy to integrate VoIP systems with other existing systems and even with other types of communication equipment. This integration offers one unified communication solution that can span multiple communication domains.
Another way to consolidate communications is to apply hosted VoIP to the premise of an existing switch. The premise is the location of the business enterprise and the switch connects all incoming calls to the switch. Switching to a hosted solution results in significant cost savings since there is no need to purchase additional hardware and software, and the installation is also considerably less complex than it would have been otherwise. This offers many advantages to small and medium business enterprises.
Hosted phone systems are also ideal for international call centers. Large numbers of calls can easily be handled by using a single system. They can connect to multiple extensions, allowing customers to make multiple calls in one go. For small business enterprises, this provides a cost-effective solution for staff that need to make a number of calls in a day. It allows the employees to divide their attention between calls that bring in more revenue and calls that do not.
There are many companies that provide hosted VoIP services to help small and medium business enterprises achieve their business goals. To get the best deal, it is advisable to compare the features offered by different providers. It is also advisable to ask questions that might arise during the process to determine the feasibility of using VoIP phone systems.