Business VoIP Adoption Driven by Cost Savings and Value-Added Features

A recent survey conducted by WhichVoIP, a website that offers detailed comparisons of residential and business VoIP phones has revealed that low operating costs and highly useful features are the top two reasons WhichVoIP’s business customers transitioned to VoIP services.

“Business leaders are looking for cost-effectiveness and high functionality of goods and services, especially for technology-based services,” Michael Bragg, CFO of WhichVoIP said in a statement.

The survey also found that another important reason for enterprises switching to business VoIP is the reduced cost of acquiring and maintaining this communications technology. Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed said the price of the service was an important consideration in their decisions to select VoIP instead of a traditional telephony system.

Apart from the cost, business VoIP users are also concerned about the features and functionality offered by the service. Slightly more than 60 percent of the survey participants said the value-added features and functionality offered with business VoIP services at no extra charge appealed to them when considering VoIP in their business phone service purchasing decision.

Other factors that influence VoIP adoption include a salesperson’s knowledge (53 percent) and friendliness of the salesperson (more than 21 percent), the report said.

Recently, analyst firm IDC released research that showed a large number of SMBs are beginning to use unified communications technologies, specifically business VoIP. Titled "Unified Communications in U.S. Small and Medium-Sized Business, 2011: Growing Demand for Communication, Collaboration, and Connectivity — But Integration Remains Elusive,” the IDC report finds that over one third of small businesses and almost three quarters of mid-sized businesses own at least one UC component technology.