A Brief Review of (Some) VoIP Features

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solutions famously offer businesses some significant cost savings. While this may be the extent of many people’s understanding of its value, VoIP actually has a lot more to offer. That’s why we wanted to go over just a few of its benefits - to provide a bit of insight into what makes VoIP such a great choice for today’s organizations.

How is VoIP Different than the Normal Telephone Service?

To the casual onlooker, there isn’t really any difference between VoIP and traditional telephony… the phone rings, you answer it, and you have a conversation with whoever is on the other end. However, when you’re the one using it (or at least paying for its use), VoIP offers a few advantages that set it high above the traditional approach, in addition to the aforementioned cost savings.

Like the cost savings, most of these advantages can be attributed to how Voice over Internet Protocol data is delivered: over the Internet. This method allows for other useful capabilities.

It is important to mention that many of these capabilities are available through a traditional phone solution, but there are those that are only possible with VoIP, and all of them will cost extra. Standard VoIP solutions usually include these same capabilities, making a traditional telephone service the more expensive (and less impressive) alternative.

Here are just a few such capabilities that VoIP offers:

Call Forwarding/Mobile Applications

You never want to miss a business call if it can be helped, which is why VoIP’s ability to integrate with your mobile device or even an existing landline is so useful. If a call goes unanswered in the office, other numbers for that contact can be tried. Most VoIP solutions offer mobile applications that also allow calls to be answered from the mobile device in question.

As a result, you and your staff are capable of maintaining communication from anywhere that there’s Wi-Fi available or that a mobile signal can be established. This means that your employees who travel for work can remain in the loop, and your productivity is that much less reliant on your team being in the office.

Call Recording

We’ve all been an important phone call where a key piece of information has been shared, only to later realize we can’t remember specifically what was said. VoIP solutions help to resolve this by offering the option to record a conversation, allowing you to return to different spots for reference. As an added benefit, you can also use these recordings as training materials, demonstrating practical examples of certain kinds of calls.

Collaboration

On a related note, VoIP can be extremely useful as a conferencing tool, as long as your team can handle it. With most of your VoIP options conference-bridging, more of your staff can participate in the dialogue.

To learn more about VoIP and the other benefits it offers, give us a call at 607.433.2200.