The cost of doing business tends to be top of mind for any business leader, especially in intensely competitive markets. How do you stand out from the competition while still protecting healthy margins? Marketing and sales strategies play a part here, but so, too, do the technology implementations that streamline processes and positively impact the bottom line. Hosted VoIP is one technology that tends to be at the top of everyone’s list.

Companies throughout the global landscape are searching for cloud-based solutions that allow them to reduce costs, improve phone and data services and keep CapEx infrastructure at a minimum level. According to a recent Broadvox (News - Alert) blog, business customers are also getting much savvier when it comes to the technology and what service providers should be able to deliver.

VoIP clients don’t just want to reduce the cost of communications, they want other proven benefits, such as reliability from their service provider. They also want a provider with proven growth, lower pricing, more functionality, better quality, better support, cutting edge solutions, remote accessibility, demonstrated security and a solution that is easy to use.

It’s also not uncommon for customers to want service providers to be serving companies just like theirs, demonstrating they have the expertise and experience to properly serve the business and not just retail clients with minimal demands. As such, the enterprise also wants clear and upfront costs so that budgeting is much easier to manage and there aren’t any surprises.

As mobility is becoming increasingly important in the corporate strategy, organizations have to be able to integrate the mobile devices with the corporate network. The hosted softswitch provider needs to be able to accommodate the challenging demands of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategies, a variety of devices and platforms and still maintain the necessary level of availability and reliability for the organization in-house.

Hosted providers are generally much better equipped to meet these demands as they aren’t restricted to the corporate infrastructure alone. They aren’t limited to a single geographic area or smaller bandwidth levels. Plus, the off-site design and built-in redundancy means that in the event of a disaster that renders other services unavailable, the organization will still have access to their hosted softswitch.

Even with these benefits, the hosted softswitch provider still needs to be able to meet high customer expectations when it comes to service and support. This means offering robust Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and responding to customer requests in a timely manner. Given the number of providers in the market, it’s too easy for a company to make a switch if they aren’t happy. Understanding the higher level of expectations and delivering accordingly is essential to achieving the competitive advantage.