There are some needs that, for an office environment of any size, are pretty much standard fare and hard to challenge on any level. Electricity is one, as are thing like water service and heating and cooling. But one point that generally goes unchallenged on the “every office needs this” scale is communications technology. Businesses need to talk to people—consumers, other businesses and so on—in order to be able to accomplish anything at all. But it's carrying out these principles that can be a tall order, where execution is different at nearly any office. But one thing may prove to be universally valuable in office communications: the business voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) provider.
A business VoIP provider can, in many cases, not only offer the same services as many common phone service providers, but can often offer these services for less expense. Plus, business VoIP can sometimes offer features that aren't offered by the standard phone service, which gives it a further lock on value in the market. Even this is only just a start to what business VoIP can offer, as there are often special deals related to long distance or international calling rates, generally made inexpensive thanks to the nature of the connection at hand. What's more, many business VoIP providers are often better rated in terms of customer satisfaction than standard phone services.
Another point that often drives potential users of business VoIP is that there are seldom, if ever, any long-term contracts involved. Businesses aren't required to commit to the same company for years, and sometimes companies aren't even required to commit to the same plan. Business VoIP is sometimes referred to as being scalable, because the amount of the service—or the number of users that are allowed under the service—can be scaled up or down as need be. So for those times when a business needs more users in play, like during busy holiday shopping seasons, the business can bring these users in without having to spend a lot of extra cash on equipment. Plus, business VoIP systems are often more reliable than standard phone components; being able to operate from an Internet connection sometimes means that, in the event of a disaster, a connection can be rerouted, or staged from somewhere that didn't just have a disaster which allows somewhat continued operations. That means increased productivity as well; plus, call routing systems and the like can be put into play to further help.
Of course, there's one point that needs to be considered here. While business VoIP is commonly useful for the offices that bring it in, it depends entirely on access to bandwidth. For those places which don't have sufficiently robust Internet connections, bringing in a VoIP system can degrade operations to the point where same are next to useless. So before making that jump to a business VoIP system, make sure the Internet connection is up to the job. Generally, asking a current Internet service provider (ISP) of choice can supply that information fairly quickly.
But for the most part, though, assuming the connection can sustain the activity, business VoIP service offers a wide variety of useful traits that should be considered fully by potential users. Access to more features, better features, and all of it often at lower prices is a hard package to turn away from, and being able to put these tools to work will in all but the most unusual situations make a better office.
Edited by Alisen Downey