Historically, business phones have been a necessary evil. No one likes to deal with the big phone companies and shell-out a crazy amount each month for their business lines, but you have to have them.
Fortunately, you live in the Digital Age – and therefore, you have new options. If you’re not currently using Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, here are three really great reasons why you should:
Bill Consolidation
Imagine calling your longtime business phone provider at the big phone company. After going through a cacophony of auto-attendant branches, you finally get to speak to a human being. How nice would it be to say:
You: “Yes, I’d like to cancel my business phone service, please.”
Them: “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you dissatisfied with the service?”
You: “Not really. It’s just my phone’s now being handled by my IT provider.”
And it is. Switching to VoIP allows your phone service to be absorbed into your monthly IT bill, making one less bill you have to address each month. And another nice thing is – you can always add more or less to your VoIP phone line with a simple form submission or phone call. Speaking of which . . .
Features, Features, Features
Some people feel like they really don’t need features beyond the traditional: call waiting, three-way calling, voicemail, maybe even caller ID. Most of those people are unaware of just how much the many features of VoIP can positively affect their business. Here are just a few examples:
- Door Phone Entry Buzzer Integration – Need security clearances to admit visitors? Your receptionist can talk to (and even see!) visitors before unlocking the door for them with a simple press of a button
- Find Me/Follow Me Call Routing – Incoming calls can be programmed to call certain phones with a predetermined number of rings before redirecting to another phone. After all attempts are exhausted, callers can be pushed to voicemail
- Transcription – Simply pull up an automatic transcription of voicemail messages sent via SMS or email
- On-Demand Music On-Hold – Ditch The Girl From Ipanema and selections from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Now you can select any type of music for callers to listen to while they wait
- Data Usage and Call Reports – Reports on both your company’s VoIP bandwidth usage, along with who called whom and when
- Call Screening – Not only shows who’s calling, you can control the call with a few button presses
- Call Recording and Coaching – Listen in on and record employees’ business calls for performance review. You can even speak to the employee without the other caller hearing you
- Availability – Schedule or manually choose when calls can or cannot come through, and how to handle them if refused
Cost Savings
Why do traditional business phone lines cost so much? Take a look at your bill sometime – fees, fees, fees. Why? Well, those phone companies had to undertake a lot of labor to run lines all over the city in order to get your phone signal to your building, and that cost has to be offset somewhere.
With VoIP, we simply provide you with our Cisco Business Edition 6000 phones, run your phone system through your existing internet connection, and ensure your bandwidth is adequate to handle your new VoIP system and your regular data load. Then, you’re ready to go – and very likely paying a much lower monthly rate than you ever paid before for business phone service.
Axxys Will Bring VoIP to Your Office
Believe it or not, there are quite a few other reasons why migrating your office to VoIP is a smart idea. Give us a call and we’ll be happy to discuss all of them in detail with you.
