Why should your business choose a VoIP phone system?

Why should your business choose a VoIP phone system?

In the last decade, VoIP technology has become very popular with businesses looking to save costs, enhance convenience, and give employees the tools they need for a modern, efficient workplace.

One of the first tasks for anyone starting a business is ensuring reliable phone access. A lot of work is done on networked computers, but offices still need phones for day-to-day communications.

Older, proprietary phone systems were quite expensive and were difficult to reconfigure and they were difficult to reconfigure or scale up or down as business dictated. However, a VoIP phone system solves these problems and offers many advantages over the old systems.

A VoIP phone system also gives you much more flexibility because you can take and manage calls not just from your desk phone, but from your computer and your mobile. So you can use all of the features of the office system wherever you are. With VoIP, you’ll never miss an important call again.

What is VoIP?

VoIP stands for Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol and in common terms means having a phone system that runs over the internet.

It allows you to make free, or very low cost telephone calls over the Internet. You can call any telephone in the world and any telephone can call you – regardless of what equipment or network the person you are calling uses.

It works by digitizing sound which is the process of turning voice into 1s and 0s, compressing it to make the voice packets smaller, then breaking it up into data packets and sending it over an IP network.

What are the advantages of VoIP?

There are many advantages of switching to a VoIP phone system and this is why hosting your business phone system in the Cloud is becoming increasingly popular. Below are some of the main advantages of VoIP:

Costs

One of the biggest advantages of VoIP is that it can offer significantly cheaper calls over traditional landline services. On a PSTN line, time is really money. You actually pay for each minute you spend communicating on the phone which means if you’re a business that makes a lot of calls, it can get very expensive. Adding to this, international calls are much more expensive than UK to UK calls so therefore if you see yourself making a lot of these calls, it may be worth looking at your options. Since VoIP uses the Internet, you can make calls using your broadband connection which can save you a lot of money. Compared to using a PSTN line, using VoIP can potentially make you save up to 40% on local calls, and up to 90% on international calls.

Great Features

Another great benefit of VoIP is the functionalities and features that is at your disposal. With the Hosted service that Cactus can offer, you will get features like:

Disaster Recovery – In the unlikely event of a loss of service, you have the option to forward all your calls to a different telephone number automatically.
Call Recording – You can record and store you phone calls which may be necessary for compliance.
Voicemail and Voicemail-to-Email – You can decide whether you want voicemail on your line and have a voicemail notification sent to your email address which lets you open and listen to that voicemail as an audio file straight from your email inbox.
Conference Calls – It is possible to conference in different clients, colleagues and suppliers whilst on a call.
Mobile Application – Your smartphone, tablet, laptop or any other mobile device can become your extension so you will be able to receive calls remotely.
Desktop Application – Your PC can act as a ‘softphone’ which will allow you to make and receive calls from your extension.
Call Reporting – Inbound and outbound calls are logged so you can then go back and look at the performance
Other great features that are included as standard are Hunt Groups, Auto-Attendants, Pick-Up Groups, Conferencing Facilities, DDI’s, Hot-desking, Remote Office, Twinning, Time of Day Schedules, Extension Dialling and Speed Dials.

VoIP is easy to install, configure and maintain

The whole setup of a businesses phone system and its call routing is ran by an easy-to-use web portal which makes it easy to move, add, or change the system’s configuration and this can be managed by yourself or Cactus. There is no VoIP hardware to install, you only need IP phones, and you don’t even have to install software.

Multi-site deployment – only one system to buy

If you’re a businesses that has multiple sites then VoIP is definitely a great option for you. You can connect multiple sites easily and cost-effectively with one system and you can transfer calls to different locations seamlessly, integrate with your company CRM and corporate directory and implement call schedules in minutes.

Premium Handsets with HD Voice

Cactus offers top quality IP handsets from Polycom, Cisco and Yealink which in themselves have a great number of features that work very well with the Hosted system. Also, compared to traditional telephone systems, VoIP delivers better quality audio and this is refereed to as HD voice. This means that VoIP gives your business clearer and crisper sound quality which can mean a lot to the person on the other end of the phone.

Conclusion

Whether you’re an Estate Agency that needs the Mobile Client to still to be able to make and receive calls on a portable device when you’re in a meeting or house viewing, or, you’re a Recruitment Agency that needs to establish a local presence by changing the number that you dial out on, a Hosted VoIP solution is definitely the way forward for you.

If you would like any more information on VoIP or if you’re interested in the Hosted VoIP solution that Cactus can offer, please call the office on 0330 333 2 333, use the below contact form or email me at jamie.pidgley@cactusbusiness.co.uk.