10 Reasons SMBs Run Better on VoIP
If you’re still on a Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), what’s keeping you from switching to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony solution?
Maybe you’re asking, “Why should I switch to a VoIP phone system? Mine works fine.” That’s exactly why you want to consider a VoIP solution: for the impending day your phone system doesn’t work fine.
At Advance2000, we don’t just want your phone system to ‘work fine.’ We don’t want you to ‘get by’ with what you currently have. We want your phone system to be a tool to help you communicate faster, evaluate metrics, and become more mobile.
We have the top 10 reasons SMBs run better on VoIP telephony systems as experienced by our customers and us. If it convinces you, reach out to us today!
Outdated Phone Systems
One of the biggest reasons SMBs start to look for a new phone system is because their existing one begins to fail. Their phones and PBX are not maintained, and it’s hard to find replacement parts or the people to repair them.
Rather than waiting for your phone system to fail, start talking to a VoIP partner such as Advance2000. A VoIP solution provides you a hosted PBX that will always run on the most recent updates. Full 5 year warranties on our Yealink’s phones keeps your handsets covered for longer than the usual life of technology equipment. This means your phone system doesn’t have to cross your mind again. It’s entirely maintained and optimized by us.
Affordability
Replacing an aging and deteriorating analog phone system is an expensive endeavor. The equipment replacement cost plus the existing phone service contract is nearly prohibitive to some SMBs.
Some hosted phone systems, such as Cloud In-Touch with Advance2000, bundles equipment with the hosted service. Advance2000 customers can acquire brand new equipment as part of their service. The payments for the equipment are then built into your subscription throughout the length of the contract.
In addition to lowering costs through bundling, the monthly phone bill is always a flat predictable rate. When planning the yearly budget, the cost of the phone system will be an assured known expense.
Better Sound Quality and Fewer Dropped Calls
POTS lines and cellular connections might drop calls or have poor call quality, but VoIP systems provide crystal clear call quality and don’t drop calls. Time and time again our partners report how much happier they are with their sound quality. Their customers regularly make comments on how clear they can hear our partners. The drastic improvement in sound quality makes a stronger professional impression to clients, which in turn increases customer trust and loyalty.
Unified Communications
VoIP phone systems have a variety of benefits when it comes to integrating several means of communication into one unified system. Call, instant messaging chat, video, voicemail, fax, and more are brought together to increase the efficiency of business communications.
A favorite of our clients, and even ours at the office, is the voicemail-to-email function. When a caller does not reach the intended person at your business, they leave a traditional voicemail. The voicemail is still retrievable by the phone handset, but an mp3 of the voicemail is also sent to the intended’s email with CallerID info and a time and date stamp.
Another favorite is the integration of the internal company chat application into the phone system. Launch the internal chat app, Communicator, and identify at a glance who is available, who is on the phone, and who has their DND enabled. It’s perfect for asking quick questions, keeping internal emails to a minimum, and improving your chances of reaching someone by phone.
Mobility
The mobility features a VoIP phone system provides are worth the switch. POTS require you to rely on call forwarding or giving out your private cell phone number (if your company enforces a bring-your-own-device policy). VoIP goes with you on your mobile device. If you travel regularly to satellite offices, court, or worksites, you can be reached when needed by logging into the softphone on your PC or Mac laptop.
If you have business that takes place across the across the globe, VoIP is ideal as it cuts down on international charges. For communicating with co-workers, when you need to call an internal office extension from your own office line, there are no international charges, regardless of where you are in the world. When you travel abroad and receive a call on your business line, there are no international charges. The only time an international charge would apply is when you use your business line to make an outbound call to another country. Since you’d be calling from your local number, it would register as an international call.
The real benefit of VoIP mobility, of course, is the ability to log out of the softphone on your PC or Mac. When it’s time to shut off work for those short precious moments of family time, a recreation, or vacation, work literally shuts off. The voicemail will be there when you log back into your softphone. And it would go to your work email too, so there’s that peace of mind.
Conference Calls Are Easier
VoIP conference calls are exceptionally easy, and the sound quality of each additional attendee is as clear as the first. Advance2000’s Cloud In-Touch includes unlimited 3-way conference calling and free 6-party conference calling. VoIP conference phones have exceptional omnidirectional microphones and can pick up an impressive range in a conference room.
Depending on the unified features integrated into your VoIP phone system, video conference is possible. Video calls make for better conferences as they allow for participants to view who is talking in large groups. Even one-on-one calls are improved as interpreting physical cues from body language can help convey more meaning through calls than voice.
Reporting Metrics and Data
Are you wondering how many calls are going out each day? How many calls are coming in? There’s no waiting for an end of the month bill to scan for data. A VoIP phone system has reporting features that display the inbound and outbound calls in real time. There are other features that are easy to integrate, such as call recording for quality or training purposes. The data available from VoIP phone systems will empower you to make smart operational decisions to improve sales and service.
Provisioning
Perhaps a VoIP phone system is scary because it requires provisioning. Provisioning a VoIP phone is easy, but at Advance2000, we don’t want you to spend your time on it. Our Cloud In-Touch clients’ brand new Yealink phones arrive at our headquarters and we do the provisioning. When the phone system arrives at your location, it’s literally a plug and play set up.
Helpdesk
When you work with Advance2000, we become your one point of contact for any and all questions. You will always reach a live person who is happy to resolve your issue. Our helpdesk staff includes tier one and two engineers, so they are experts in our services and know how to help any request. Our helpdesk does not discriminate requests. We tackle everything quickly, correctly, and with consideration to your situation.
Our helpdesk has four response levels:
Level one is for urgent requests such as complete outages; if your service provider is down, we step in and redirect your phone lines to alternative numbers so your clients can reach you regardless. Level two is for high concerns, Level three is for mid-range concerns. Level 4 is for low concerns, such as onboarding a new employee and scheduling a training sessions with Advance2000 for the phone system.
And yes, we will absolutely train your new staff or run refresher training conference calls with existing staff. We want your business to optimize every feature available to you. Just because you didn’t need a specific offered function 6 months ago doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from it now.
Managed, Maintained, and Supported Directly by Advance2000
This is our customer’s favorite feature. Maybe you’ve heard that service providers tend to have terrible service. Perhaps you are personally familiar with sitting on hold trying to get something done. It’s wildly frustrating when the person on the other end (if there even is a person) can’t, or won’t, help you.
That’s where we come in. At Advance2000, we have long established relationships with most of the service providers across the US and Canada. Because of that partnership, we have direct contact to the service providers.
Our Cloud In-Touch Phone solution monitors our customer’s phone systems at all times. If there is anything strange, at any time of day, we’re on the phone with the service provider to get it looked at and resolved. We have an incredible response rate, so customers rarely experience service interruptions.
If customers do experience a problem, rather than calling the service provider, customers contact us. Because of our system monitoring, we have someone on the phone already working on it, but we still document your exact experience to report to the carrier. When the issue is resolved, we update customers affected by the service providers as well as our A2000 Uptime History webpage to ensure transparency and accountability to our customers. We’ve resolved issues with Microsoft updates, other software updates, and regional carriers.
Convinced? Talk to us!
When SMBs begin to seriously investigate hosted telephony solutions, the lower price point plus the added benefits financially make sense.
If you’re ready to start a quote for a VoIP telephony system, contact us now.