Source: VoIP_News
As companies look to save costs and recuperate return on investment (ROI) with information technology investments, consolidated business communications may be a priority. Switching to voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephony can allow organizations to reduce their monthly phone bill while achieving a higher level of client and employee satisfaction.
The concept of VoIP is simple. Instead of relying on a major phone provider to manage your telephone service, your voice, teleconference and video services are run on an internet connection. Join us as we review five ways VoIP can allow organizations to achieve a higher ROI on communication investments.
1. Lower Monthly Fees
If your organization’s business communications require regular long-distance or international communications, the potential for cost savings is immense. Instead of being billed on the basis of usage, which can vary significantly, businesses can expect to pay per line, the monthly fees associated with each line are typically lower. Not only can this lead to a significant reduction in total cost output (TCO) over time, it can also significantly simplify the billing process.
2. Flat Fees for Long Distance
The average retail cost for long-distance phone calls is approximately $0.20 per minute. For businesses with a high volume of voice calls, these costs can add up very quickly. An increasing number of VoIP providers are offering unlimited long distance and international calling, which is billed as a flat fee per line each month. As your organization’s need for global communications grows, you may be able to avoid seeing a similar uptick in your phone bill.
3. Savings on Add-On Services
Many organizations use dozens of tools to communicate on a daily basis, including chat, video chat, email, phone and more. VoIP providers increasingly offer add-on services, which can streamline business communications. Some communication tools that can be commonly added to VoIP service include:
Interactive Voice Recognition
Integrated Messaging
Video Conferencing
Auto Attendent
Voicemail to Email Transcription
By purchasing add-on upgrades to your VoIP service, you will likely find that the TCO is lower than purchasing communication tools separately from different vendors.
4. Mobility
For organizations with a flexible work policy, accounting for users who may work from home or during business trips is important. Mobility has become an increasingly standard option for VoIP, a fact exemplified by the ability of users to download an easy-to-use app on their personal or work-issued mobile device that is reachable from their desk phone. As Ipitomy writes, VoIP vendors are always working to improve mobility offerings. Users can now opt to have desk lines and mobile devices ring simultaneously so they never miss a call.
5. Automated Messaging
VoIP administrative users have the option to create sophisticated contact lists of internal VoIP users, which can lead to streamlined and efficient internal communications. If you need to share an internal announcement, pushing out a voice mail, email, phone call or text message is as simple as selecting the correct list of internal contacts.
Automated messaging can lend remarkable convenience, particularly when a company needs to share important information about weather conditions or scheduling. Perhaps most importantly, this feature is simple enough for most administrative users to learn and adopt with minimal time investment. By opting for automated messaging, companies can significantly streamline their internal communications and achieve ROI through time savings.
Conclusion
Communications can be a costly aspect of business IT budgets, and organizations today are increasingly opting to use a multi-channel approach to managing internal and external communications. By offering chat, email, mobility and other options simultaneously, companies can increase internal efficiency and customer satisfaction.
By unifying your business communications solution with VoIP, you can save significant money over time when compared to traditional phone lines or multiple business communication vendors. This can introduce efficiency while reducing your TCO and maintaining high end-user satisfaction scores.
Contact Joe Sankey at 901.725.9271 to learn more!
