10 VoIP Features That Benefit Small Business
VoIP (voice over internet protocol) is a telecommunications solution that is ideal for small businesses. As the name suggests, VoIP refers to technology that uses the internet to unify communications for your business. Some people might think that small businesses don't need to consider using VoIP, but the solutions available can deliver some excellent benefits to your small business. It's especially useful to use VoIP if your business deals with large volumes of calls, but this doesn't have to be the case. You can also benefit from the features of VoIP if you only handle an average number of calls.
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are predicted to grow more than 15% in the VoIP market by 2025. Here are ten of the top features that you can get with a VoIP phone system that could change your business.
1. Auto Attendant
Technology often can't completely replace the skills and the customer service of a real person. However, it can provide assistance to your teams so that they can do even better work. The auto-attendant feature is designed to do this by answering, escalating, and routing incoming calls automatically to help out your team. Instead of having to hire a switchboard operator to do this for you, it's all taken care of by technology.
Everyone receives the calls that they are meant to receive with less effort. You save money on hiring costs, and you can also keep your call staff upbeat and on-point. It's easier for them to handle calls when you have the assistance of the auto-attendant feature. It's essentially a virtual receptionist, acting as the first point of contact.
2. Mobile App
Everything these days seems to have a mobile app. Sometimes they might not seem useful, but the mobile app with your VoIP phone system will definitely come in handy. A mobile app means that you don't need to be sitting at your desk to handle calls and other communications. In fact, you could be just about anywhere when you have the mobile app installed on your smartphone or tablet. VoIP does make use of hardware, but it's the software that matters most, enabling you to run a virtual office. In fact, by 2017, there were almost one billion mobile VoIP users.
When you install a VoIP mobile app on your favorite mobile device, you can stay in touch with your team, customers, or anyone else that you might need to contact. You will also never miss a call, no matter where you are.
3. Call Pulling
Call pulling is a feature that lets you move a call from one device to another. This smooth transition means that you can continue a conversation even if you're moving between rooms or need to go somewhere. You might need to move a phone from a desk phone, for example, over to your smartphone. You will no longer be tied down to a desk, and you can go where you need to, whether it's across the office or you want to head home. While you're transitioning a call from one device to another, the person on the other end won't even know what you're doing.
You can also easily switch from work to home, and other locations, but picking up your phone and plugging it in wherever you need it.
4. Text Messaging
Text messaging can be the preferred method of communication for some people. It's less disruptive than a phone call, particularly when the communication is something like a reminder, which can easily be conveyed through text. However, when you send text messages, you don't want to do it through your personal cell number. Text messaging with VoIP allows you to send messages from your business phone number. This looks much more professional than using a cellphone number, and it's a feature that most VoIP solutions offer.
Some services offer unlimited business text messaging, and you can use an app to make it easy and do it from anywhere. Your local business phone number will look trustworthy and be more recognizable to your customers compared to any alternatives that are available. Of course, customers can reply to your SMS messages too.
5. Call Recording
Having a record of the calls that your business makes and receives can be very valuable. You can use the recordings to train new staff, keep a record of important conversations, and improve customer service. You will be able to track, analyze, and rate your calls when you have recordings of them. They can be used to set higher standards for customer service and ensure your agents are meeting these standards. Recordings of calls might also be important if any customers make a complaint about a member of staff or if a customer mistreats one of your employees, helping you to protect everyone.
You can collect important call data by recording your calls. All of the data that you collect can be useful to your small business in a number of ways, from improving training to boosting customer retention.
6. Call Analytics
As well as recording your calls, your business can benefit from lots of other data when using a hosted VoIP system. After you have collected useful data, you can then analyze it to see what patterns you can find. There are various types of data that you might choose to collect, including call volumes, the length of your calls, behavioral trends, and even how well each of your customer service agents is performing. Using different VoIP devices, you can collect and process the valuable call data that you need.
A call analytics add-on to your VoIP system can provide some key insights into your calls. You can learn things such as average call-answer times or the number of abandoned calls. You could be missing out on valuable information if you're not using call analytics.
7. Call Forwarding and Routing
Call forwarding means that you will never miss a call, and it will always get to the right person. When a call comes through, it won't matter where your team is or what they're doing. If the call needs to be answered, it can get to the person who is most appropriate to handle it. When you receive calls to an office phone, you can route them to a mobile phone or other devices. When you can direct calls anywhere, you can stay in touch with customers and others at all times.
Call routing makes directing incoming calls to the right people easier than ever. It gives you the option to route calls using different criteria, such as the type of customer, the purpose of the call, the performance of your agents, and more.
8. Call Notify
Getting automatic notifications of calls can help to ensure you never miss anything important. A call notify feature sends an email notification to chosen employees as soon as the call comes in. It can be used to mark important calls so that you can guarantee they are answered without having someone waiting by the phone all day. You avoid making a mistake by ignoring an important person who is trying to get in touch, and you can ensure the call is answered by the right person at the same time.
You might use this VoIP feature to ensure an account manager is made aware when an important customer calls. Or it could be used to let a specific customer service agent know that a customer they have been handling is calling back about an ongoing issue.
9. Call Presence
When customers call you, you don't want to leave them waiting any longer than necessary. If you send them to a busy line when they call, they might not have the patience to wait until someone can speak to them. To avoid this issue, you can use the call presence feature that is available with many VoIP systems. Using call presence, you have oversight of the phone status of everyone in your small business. You can see who is already busy taking a call and who may be free to take their next call.
Using this feature, you avoid the pain of having your customers wait or having them unable to get through because they are directed to the wrong agent. Instead, they will always have their call answered by an available person whenever possible.
10. Save Money By Using VOIP
If there's one big reason to choose VoIP for your small business, it's that the cost savings can be excellent. A business with 30 employees could save $1200 per month with a new VoIP system. VoIP helps you to save money for your business by removing the need for traditional phone lines. These are more expensive than a hosted VoIP system, and will soon be outdated too. Once the system is installed, it can start to save your small business money right away. You can save money on long-distance calls because you will no longer have to deal with expensive long-distance charges.
Switching to a VoIP phone system delivers a huge range of beneficial features for your small business. Making the change is worth it if you want to prepare your business for the future.