We have listed a few imperative things you should look for when picking up an internet phone package below:
A business phone network, though it may seem like a small thing could give your business the enhancement you’re looking for. This little change can generate a big result for your business when it is used properly for taking up sales calls, liaising with partners and distributors, or communicating with customers.
A professional-grade phone system makes a small business appear more impressive to customers, because it shows how seriously you take your business. In a corporate world, outdated voicemails and one main phone line that no one answers adds no value for your brand image.
With our new ways of working, a traditional landline, is no longer as viable. That is why many businesses have already moved or planning to move towards Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. This software is an ideal choice for a company phone setup now, especially with so many of us working from home.
Many of you probably have already used VoIP for personal or business uses – a few examples of VoIP are Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Skype etc. You can call through app-based ‘softphones’ or additional headsets or handsets that work just like normal phones as long as there is an active internet connection to make and receive calls.
VoIP offers an array of benefits over traditional phones. It is a given that they are easier to manage, less expensive, don’t require physical equipment and installation, and allow your employees to work from anywhere. Furthermore, VoIP systems usually include enhanced functions such as smartphone integration and advanced call handling rules. And as your business grows, it is cheaper and easier to upgrade your telephony system.
As abundant as the advantages of VoIP are, you don’t want to jump to a decision too quickly as there are a few key things to keep in mind while you shop around for the internet phone package that best suits your needs. There is a huge range of services to choose from and here are a few tips to help you pick the best!
Before implementing a VoIP system, the first thing you will need to ensure is your internet connection. The internet connection has to be fast enough for voice calls. One VoIP telephone call might use around 90-100Kbits/sec of bandwidth usually, both downstream and upstream.
Online VoIP speed-quality tests available such as myspeed.visualware.com or voipreview.org could be used to test if your connection is fast enough.
This test helps you to know whether your internet connection is already pushed to the limit. In such cases, you must upgrade it. A deficiency of bandwidth will quickly turn VoIP calls into garbled mush that certainly could do more harm to your business.
If your office has a lot of people using the internet at once, then you need to consider getting a second line dedicated to VoIP traffic so that you would be guaranteed that you won't have connection issues. Ordering a backup link is a very smart choice if phone calls are the crux of your business.
A suitable router is another technical prerequisite. To allow external users to access your VoIP lines, an on-site IP PBX port-forwarding rules needs to be configured in your router. You have to make sure that this router must support quality of service (QoS) rules for prioritising VoIP traffic. If it has a SIP ALG (application layer gateway), it has to be turned off to avoid potential instability issues.
You will need to sign up with a SIP (session initiation protocol) trunk provider that can link the public telephone network with your internal IP PBX to make your VoIP system more useful.
The number of SIP channels you need is entirely based on your usage. Each VoIP call uses one channel, so checking the number of staff using their phones during the busiest periods could easily determine how many you need.
It is imperative to remember that callers on hold and queued calls still consume a SIP channel. One more thing you need to consider are the mobile users running VoIP software on their smartphones. If you're still uncertain, a good rule of thumb can be implemented here. For every three users, one SIP channel could be an optimum solution for moderate phone usage.
The next important thing is to check the pricing schemes. There is a large range of providers to choose from and their schemes can vary widely. You have to make sure that you can upgrade easily, or downgrade (when the need comes), the number of channels you have already purchased.
And finally, let us not forget to check that you can have local phone numbers assigned to your SIP trunk. Find out if you can have multiple numbers, so that your IP PBX can easily route through to different extensions.
Once you have weighed the pros and cons, if you decide to install an on-site IP PBX system, never be tempted to take shortcuts. VoIP is a mature technology, but before they talk to each other, there are several pieces of the puzzle that all need to be configured properly.
The switch has to be treated as a fully documented, fully funded IT project, and host your PBX on server-grade hardware dedicated to do only this task. While some may think that it is not technically necessary, remember that you're creating a single point of failure that will take your entire VoIP system down if there's any conflict with other services running on the same host, or if everything goes south.
One more important tip is to never configure an IP PBX to use a dynamically assigned IP address. As the name suggests, these can change at any time. So, if yours does change then all your port-forwarding rules will fail, and your IP phones will no longer be able to access the PBX.
If your business is a small-scaled one with limited IT expertise on-site, it makes sense to consider a cloud-hosted VoIP solution instead. This will cost you considerably more than running your own server, but with the right service-level agreement and support contract in place, you can avoid the danger of something going wrong and save yourself plenty of cataclysm.
Before going live, you need to set up a test system and play around with it to make sure you understand how it works because the sheer range of features offered by a VoIP PBX can be too overwhelming to handle the first time.
To make your business sound all professional, one typical call-handling feature you might want to make use of is a "digital receptionist". This feature allows you to read out a menu of options like "For accounts, press 1; for sales, press 2," and so on.
The other feature you can set up is call redirection. Through this feature the incoming calls could be automatically routed to staff who may not want their mobile number made public, or to those on the road. And when the time comes to choose handsets, there are endless options to choose from. Mobile users could use "softphone" apps on their own phones, but the only drawback is that these aren't always included in the IP PBX price.
A well-implemented VoIP system will save your hard-earned money with cheap local and international calls. It also gives your business a professional image. Call-handling features that were beyond an SMB's budget once can now be set up reasonably and effortlessly.