1. What VoIP Features Will My Business Benefit From?
When considering and comparing VoIP providers, it's important to ensure that you'll get the best value for your company. The main factors to look for include:
- Robust features set
- Mobile access and/or app
- Sophisticated call routing management
- Video conferencing
- Collaboration tools
- Third party integrations
- Competitive pricing
- Ease of setup and use
2. How Will VoIP Impact My Business?
Business VoIP can help your business save money, handle larger call volumes, and create a more professional impression for your customers. In fact, the list of all of the benefits goes on for miles, but here are a few of the most important gains you'll get from business VoIP:
- Lower costs
- Greater productivity
- More reliability
- Greater customer satisfaction
- Increased flexibility
- More mobility
3. How Can VoIP Save Me Money?
It's a well-known concept that business VoIP saves businesses money; the question is how. Well, the number one answer is, through the reduced phone bill. Since calls are often free (unlimited minutes, etc.) or offered at an incredibly discounted rate per minute, businesses save thousands of dollars on their phone bills alone. Additionally, you can save money with a VoIP by:
- Utilizing remote workers
- Direct inward dialing
- Voicemail-to-email ensures faster response times (and time is money)
- Conference bridges and video conferencing
- Lower maintenance costs
- Free SMS
4. How Can VoIP Enhance My Company's Efficiency?
As with financial gains, VoIP services offer tremendous boosts to your productivity as well. Here’s how:
Increased productivity with great collaboration tools
Team members can text for free, share files, and swap phone calls from clients. Remote workers can sit in on conference calls, staying up to date and in the loop.
Mobility
Since you can take your business on the go, you can get more work done wherever you are. And you’ll never miss another business call again.
Voicemail
Voicemail on VoIP is the ultimate efficiency. Instead of checking multiple phones and accounts, all of your voicemails come to one location to be checked. Plus, you get an alert whenever a voicemail comes in, so you are on top of things faster. Even voicemail transcripts let you read your voicemails, so you can make the most of those boring hours spent in meetings.
Once you’ve narrowed your search down to 2-3 VoIP providers, we recommend calling each of those providers and grilling them on the details.
5. What Are the Costs?
For most businesses, price is a top factor to consider when deciding on any service or product–whether it’s a VoIP system, office space, or office furniture. But when it comes to VoIP providers, it’s important to be familiar with the company’s pricing structures before speaking to its salespeople.
Most of the top VoIP providers—such as Vonage, RingCentral, and 8x8 —offer separate packages for small business, medium-sized businesses, and large enterprises. Most of them start at around $20 per user and work their way up to more than $50 per user for a full suite of functions. Some companies offer all features for one price, while others offer basic functionality for a base price and additional features for extra charges.
As an example, RingCentral offers a 4-tiered pricing system: an essentials package for up to 10 users for $19.99 monthly per user, a standard package for an unlimited number of users for $24.99 monthly per user, a premium package at $34.99 per user, and an ultimate package for $49.99 per user. RingCentral’s premium and ultimate packages allow 100 and 200 people per meeting, respectively, while the 2 cheaper packages only allow 4 people per meeting.
Before calling your shortlist of providers, make a note of which services you’ll need and which you won’t—and use these to negotiate a better starting price per user.
6. What Kind of Setup Support is Provided?
As a paying customer, you should expect your VoIP provider to offer full support, including setup, onboarding, and training.
As an example of what to expect from the top providers, Vonage offers new customers the services of a dedicated VoIP specialist. Once you activate your account, the specialist recommends IP desk phones and orders them to your offices. At the same time, a specialist porting team works on transferring your existing phone numbers to your Vonage business account. You’ll also receive a welcome kit, including a guide to setting up, onboarding, and custom features and tools. New customers may also attend a live “Admin Portal” training session for a broader view of the VoIP phone system.
During your conversations with sales people, ask for a full breakdown of how setup and installation works—with a live one-on-one demo, if possible. When it comes to setting up infrastructure such as a VoIP, every company’s needs are different. Some companies have in-house tech teams that can handle complex setups, while others need as much assistance as their provider is willing to offer. Before reaching out to your potential VoIP providers, make sure you know what your needs are and how much help you’ll require with setup.
7. What Type of Customer Support is Included?
Customer support doesn’t stop with setup and onboarding. If you’re running a growing operation, you’re going to need customer support sooner or later for any number of different issues.
The more established VoIP providers offer extensive knowledge bases on their websites, with answers to dozens of frequently asked questions on everything from phones and headsets to voice analytics and integration and billing and accountant management. Depending on your pricing package, you should also expect access to a dedicated account representative who can help you through any urgent issues.
When deciding on a VoIP provider, consider asking whether they offer 24/7 customer support (a must if your business operates around the clock); how they can be contacted (e.g. email, live chat, phone); and their expected response times. And don’t forget to read customer reviews, as they can be very revealing when it comes to a company’s level of customer service.
8. Is Mobile VoIP Offered?
One of the benefits of a cloud-based VoIP system is that it allows you to communicate from anywhere. Therefore, any VoIP provider worth their salt should offer a mobile VoIP solution to enable employees to participate in meetings remotely.
Many top providers offer virtual office apps for iOS and Android. For example, if your company uses 8x8’s VoIP service, your employees can download its virtual app to benefit from many of the same features as they would if they were working from their office phone. Employees can use mobile VoIP to save money on calls and global roaming, make calls from the company directory, listen to voicemail, record calls, and participate in company conference calls from anywhere in the world.
These days, almost every SMB has the need for mobile communications. Ask your provider about mobile VoIP to integrate your office and remote operations.
9. What Features Does Your Voicemail Have?
Voicemail is a fixture of most VoIP services, but how good is it? Does your chosen provider offer only basic voicemail, or does it offer customizable features to ensure you never miss a customer—even when your offices are closed?
For example, RingCentral enables companies to configure their voicemail system so that employees can check their own voicemails or the voicemails of colleagues (provided they have the necessary permissions). It features customizable voicemail greetings, plus an essential but often-overlooked feature: holiday hours. With holiday hours, you can create custom rules for special routing during holidays, closing times, or specific hours of the day—and handle those calls accordingly with features such as call-forwarding, screening, greeting, or hold music.
Even when you’re away from the phone your business’s fortune is still on the line, literally. Don’t forget to ask your VoIP company about voicemail features.
10. Does the VoIP System Integrate with Third-Party Apps?
As cloud-based VoIP systems have become more and more sophisticated, providers have been developing integration abilities. Even small companies need email, analytics, and customer relationship management tools, and you should expect your VoIP provider to facilitate integration between your phones and these other types of software.
As an example of what to expect, Vonage offers the following integrations: Salesforce, Salesforce Desk, Microsoft Dynamics, Office 365, G Suite, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite, Clio, Workplace by Facebook, Zoho CRM, JobDiva, Zendesk, Bullhorn, ConnectWise, SugarCRM, and ProdoScore.
If you rely heavily on a particular type of software, shop around to see which VoIP providers can accommodate you, or ask them if they’re able to create a custom integration.
Bottom Line
With your businesses' interests at stake, approaching a VoIP provider can feel like a daunting task. There are many VoIPs on the market and each one offers a wide range of features and integrations.
The right VoIP for your company will optimize your work, boost productivity and improve the reliability of your calls. To get on track, you just need to have the right questions on hand when selecting a VoIP provider.
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