Your VoIP Phone System is Only as Good as Your Service Provider

If you are a small business owner and you’ve made the decision to switch to a VoIP phone system, then you’re already ahead of the game. You most likely know the major benefits VoIP offers in terms of cost savings, return on investment and all sorts of advanced features and functionality. But you still have a pretty important decision ahead of you, and that involves choosing a VoIP service provider.

Price is always a major factor when making any type of business infrastructure and operations decision, and communications systems are no exception. And even though you’ve made the decision to migrate to VoIP, you should know that not all VoIP service providers are alike and can charge you a massive range of fees for essentially the same core set of services. Knowing what you are getting and what you will be paying for is key to choosing the proper VoIP service provider partner.

What you are getting in terms of service features and functionality should help drive your decision making. And one of the key issues with considering any type of VoIP system or product is voice quality. Service providers deal with this in a variety of ways, using both hardware and software components to control voice quality levels. But you, the customer, should be aware of the technology and protocols being used to ensure they are up to speed with the latest industry standards. This includes factoring in for volume of broadband consumption and ensuring voice quality won’t be affected if other workers are using broadband-intensive applications.

Scalability is always an important consideration for small business owners, and you want to make sure your new phone solution may be scaled both up and down to stay on top of business fluctuations and growth. Not only that, but you want to be able to scale your offering quickly and easily, with minimum disruption to your business communications. You will also want to ensure your service provider has a system for automatically updating and monitoring solutions so you don’t have to worry about maintaining them.

Ease of use is a pretty important factor, and you’ll want to be certain your new phone system may be easily set up and managed. This includes being able to set up new lines and voicemail, etc. quickly and easily. You will also want to ensure your solution is portable and mobile to support BYOD, and not reliant on legacy phone and Ethernet wiring and ports.

Speaking of mobility, your system should be able to operate transparently, no matter where your workers happen to be located and no matter what type of device they are using. What’s the point of migrating away from rigid, legacy infrastructure without this type of freedom and flexibility? All of this mobility should be transparent to your customers, as well, who will simply phone into your business through a main line and be connected to your workers, wherever they may be.

The customer is always right, of course, and you will want to make sure your VoIP phone system is professional and offers a good reflection of your business image. And that goes back to selecting the proper service provider. You will need to make sure their offerings, support services and business ethics are in line with your own company’s, so that you may ultimately project the right type of image to your customers.