VoIP Helps Grow Franchised Businesses Without Headaches

When the history books are written about the most important technologies that helped small businesses compete with and even get ahead of large companies, there’s a good chance that voice over IP will make the list. For a growing business, traditional phone service often represents a significant cost, and its questionable flexibility means the company is always running to catch up with its telephony needs. Voice over IP (VoIP), of course, is inexpensive and highly scalable, allowing companies that are growing and expanding to add capacity and capabilities.

In a recent blog post, VoIP solutions provider Nextiva profiled its customers MaidPro, a residential and commercial cleaning service founded in Massachusetts in 1991. The company is in the process of expanding its franchise business, and as a result, it had significant telephony needs.

“When we originally built our model, the only option was to get copper,” said Jeff Wechsler, VP of R&D and Technology at MaidPro. “To be able to handle multiple calls simultaneously, you’d have to get multiple lines, and it became very expensive and cumbersome.”

Its goal was to provide franchisees with easy to use and easy to set up telephone service. Nextiva’s service can be activated by simply plugging an IP phone into an Internet connection, which means a franchise can be up and running on the same day, and it can have access to the kind of support it needs to avoid having to cope with IT-related headaches. According to Wechsler, the company is charged a flat monthly rate payment structure instead of being charged per-minute, which has improved their franchisees’ profit margins. These features have led to greater usability for franchises, who are better able to concentrate on growing their business rather than wrestling with phone service.

“One of the real benefits we’ve always found with Nextiva is that their infrastructure is designed in such a way that it makes it very usable for franchised and distribution organizations,” he explained, noting that franchises that require support can simply call Nextiva’s Support Team for immediate assistance.

For growing businesses or those that have strongly seasonal or cyclical needs, a well-supported cloud-based voice over IP solution sold by a company that act like a true business partner can be an invaluable tool for saving money, boosting efficiency and providing employees and customers with access to advanced telephony features at affordable prices. In a franchised business such as MaidPro, the need for flexible telephony becomes easy to handle, as opposed to the complicated, expensive nightmare it would be with traditional telephone systems.