As businesses continue to expand and more companies open offices across the globe, VoIP solutions are becoming increasingly popular with firms worldwide. But what exactly are they and how can they help your organisation stay connected?
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the technology underpinning consumer services such as Skype and Zoom that allow telephone calls to be made using internet connections rather than traditional phone lines.
Looking specifically at corporate demand, there are a number of VoIP specialists such as IDT. These offer business telephony solutions including voice termination services. IDT is unique in that it offers its own combination of wholesale and wider services, in addition to a range of messaging and payment services.
Today’s business VoIP solutions dramatically reduce communication costs and offer a number of key benefits to enterprises. The following are a few examples.
Connecting your sales team
Many organisations have representatives on the road. VoIP can help these employees stay connected with office-based colleagues. This means that they can easily share information on a regular basis with all members of their team without punitive mobile call costs.
Home working and non-office working
Similarly, VoIP means that more of the workforce can work from home or from alternative, non-office locations but still remain easily contactable and feel part of the team as a whole. This means that calls can be scheduled around commitments such as medical appointments, collecting children from school etc. Some studies have shown that working from home can increase productivity by up to 30 percent.
An increasing trend has been towards senior partners/business founders moving to remote locations. This is something they can now do; thanks to VoIP and similar technologies they are not left feeling that they are losing the sense of collaboration/team ethic that being in a single geographical location brings.
Video Conferencing
The option to run video conferencing over VoIP gives a team a way to connect and see each other even if they cannot meet in person. This improves efficiency and dramatically reduces or eliminates travel costs and time. In addition, utilising VoIP rather than traditional video conferencing solutions which used the public sector telephone network (PSTN) once again delivers dramatic reductions in call costs without sacrificing call quality.
VoIP video conferencing also means that teams can collaborate on projects from any location across the planet and that they can still build a sense of sense of unity/togetherness. In addition, VoIP allows for files to be sent during calls; documents can be sent to anyone participating in the call, allowing for review and discussion whilst on the call.
Staff management
Managers can use VoIP to communicate with individual team members. Depending on system functionality, some VoIP solutions allow management to determine whether an individual team member is ‘available’ or ‘away’ – and in the instances when they are showing as ‘away’, they can leave voicemails or send instant messages to be read when someone becomes available. They can also conduct catch-up meetings or appraisals one-on-one using teleconferencing, as and when required.
