Benefits of VoIP for office communications

If you’re looking for a new office communication system you may wonder what the benefits of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) are; can it take your business to the next level and make operations and customer experiences smoother?

Find out: Is it a VoIP phone number?

We’ll help you figure out both the disadvantages and advantages of VoIP. How easy is the transition to VoIP? Is it more affordable than your current solution? Is it more flexible for adjusting to your business needs? As a business owner, you have plenty of other things to worry about, so come along as we explore how VoIP in business works.

Advantages of VoIP

The benefits of VoIP can touch every corner of your business, from customer experience to paying the bills. Let’s look at what you can expect.

Lower costs

One of the advantages of VoIP is lower costs compared to traditional business phone lines. For example, for a business with a current monthly bill of $100 for three users, the savings would be $40.15 per month with a VoIP business phone system such as Ooma Office. You can check out the cost reduction for your business with Ooma’s handy VoIP savings calculator. Just put in your monthly phone bill and number of users.

But why is it so much less expensive? There are a lot of reasons, both upfront and obvious and some hidden.

First, VoIP is generally cheaper than more complicated phone solutions like PBX (private branch exchange). This is a phone system that’s set up on your premises that connects all your phone lines. It’s expensive and complicated to put together, and you will need to pay for a bunch of hardware plus the hidden cost of labor to make sure it all works right. Then, you’ll likely need an IT team to keep it in good condition.

VoIP doesn’t rely as much on hardware because it works over the internet. With VoIP, you only really need a device that connects to the internet, but we’ll get to that a bit later.

Second, there are some hidden costs that you can’t control. For instance, if you have an old copper-based phone system you are likely to be charged more than necessary. This is because of the copper sunset, as the FCC in August 2019 issued an order that allowed legacy phone providers to decommission old copper-based telephone lines, which has resulted in fewer copper lines that are also less reliable. In turn, legacy phone providers raised prices.

There are other hidden and indirect costs you may not be aware of with a more traditional business phone service, including maintenance and repair fees.

Mobility

One of the benefits of VoIP that helps make it feel like a modern, usable phone system is that it’s portable. VoIP phone systems let you use several devices to take calls, not just a phone that’s sitting on your desk.

That means you can stay connected no matter where you are. You can not only take a call on your smartphone, laptop or desktop computer, but you can take a call on the road in your car via CarPlay, at a café on your laptop, or at an open house on your smartphone. (That’s right, you can use VoIP on your cell phone).

This opens up even more possibilities for your business. You don’t need a fancy IT setup to hire someone remotely. You can easily get them a virtual phone number from your VoIP phone service provider and let them take calls on their laptop through an app.

It grows with your business

Scalability is a good problem to have as a business. As you gain success, you will need to scale your business to meet new demand. That can cause growing pains in a number of areas, but the advantage of VoIP is that you won’t have to worry about your phone service.

VoIP scalability is easy. You can simply add more lines, users or even add on features like a toll-free number. If you need a videoconferencing tool, you can get that too. VoIP grows with your business, not against it.

That means you can spend more time on scaling up the other parts of your business, like hiring or expanding, rather than dealing with calling a phone service provider in frustration trying to get more phones installed. Speaking of installation…

Easy installation

As we mentioned earlier, some business phone solutions like PBX can be complicated. You need a whole bunch of hardware and a whole bunch of labor to put it all together. Then you need a whole bunch of maintenance to keep it going.

Learn more: What are IP phones?

That is a thing of the past with VoIP. Setting up a VoIP phone system can take as little as 15 minutes with a provider such as Ooma. You don’t need any technical knowledge, and everything comes ready to work, right out of the box. All you have to do is plug everything in and start making some calls (or receiving them).

It plays nice with your other systems

Your business has a lot of needs, and those needs vary depending on your industry. With a VoIP phone system, you can gain benefits from seamlessly integrating your various systems together.

VoIP solutions like Ooma Office Pro Plus make it easy to integrate your phone system with a CRM like Square, NexHealth, Clio or AgencyZoom. That means you can save time and instantly see information like upcoming appointments, customer names, or even recent purchases of the customer you’re calling.

This increases the efficiency of your business and makes it easier for your employees to do their job. Once you start using integrations, it’s impossible to go back to a phone system without them.

Disadvantages of VoIP

While the benefits of VoIP are many, there are some disadvantages to using a VoIP system. Let’s take a look.

You need an internet connection

This is the primary disadvantage of VoIP. You’re going to need a reliable internet connection because that’s how VoIP shuttles audio data from your phone to the receivers.

In the modern world, an internet connection is pretty much a necessity. From streaming TV shows to updating a car’s operating system, an internet connection is essential. However, it is a major concern when a bad internet connection can harm your business, turning off customers and losing revenue.

Luckily, there are some ways to combat this disadvantage. One is to get an internet backup, a failsafe that can bail you out if your primary internet goes down.

The second is to utilize a reliable internet connection, which can depend on where you live. For example, a solution based on a mobile connection – like Ooma Connect – could be a good option for your business if you live in an area where cable or fiber internet isn’t installed. Alternatively, there are solutions like Starlink that use a satellite connection that can help if you’re in an area with bad mobile reception.

Internet quality can affect performance

Reliability is of course important, you don’t want an internet connection to cease, but there’s another concern you should be aware of. That’s latency and jitter. These two things can affect the quality of your phone calls.

Latency is the delay that can happen when data is sent across the internet. Think of it like a car driving on a highway. While driving 10 miles at 65 miles per hour means you should arrive to your destination in just over 9 minutes, accidents and traffic jams could make that journey take a little longer. You may have experienced latency while pressing a button on a TV remote or video game controller and seeing a delay in what happens on screen.

Jitter is essentially how noticeable that delay is. High jitter can mean dropped calls or annoying delays between when someone says something and when you hear it. You’ve probably experienced this frustration with you and another person overlapping and being unable to estimate when it’s your turn to talk.

Luckily, VoIP providers do a lot behind the scenes to try to solve high jitter before it becomes a problem. You can also take steps to mitigate both latency and jitter problems by keeping your router and modem updated with the latest software and periodically upgrading your equipment to more modern protocols that also mitigate issues.

VoIP for business: Right for you?

Now that you know the benefits of VoIP (and some of the disadvantages) you can determine whether getting a VoIP phone system is right for you. VoIP in business has come a long way in the past couple of years, with providers offering a wealth of features at an affordable price.

Combined with the intangible benefits of integrations, mobility and more, your business can take a big step forward with the right VoIP business phone system.