Coleman Technologies Blog

What is VoIP, Anyways?

Voice over Internet Protocol is simply a different, more cost-effective means of transmitting voice data from one telephonic device to another. Rather than using a telephone provider’s infrastructure, a VoIP signal utilizes the Internet. This eliminates an entire line item from your expenses by rendering your telephone provider’s services redundant. This enables you to simultaneously save money while enjoying many often-included features that would otherwise have cost extra—assuming that they were even available with traditional telephony.

Is That the Only Reason I Should Use a VoIP Solution?

Absolutely not! VoIP can help you save time and money in other ways, as well:

• With a history of being built upon open standards, VoIP solutions work on any device with sufficient specifications to support them—including mobile devices. This helps to minimize the investment you need to make to adopt VoIP, while simultaneously allowing you and your team to use your business telephone system remotely.
• As VoIP operates through an Internet connection, the infrastructure to support it should already be in place within your business. As a result, it is likely that no costly renovations or additional wiring will be necessary, provided that your infrastructure is up to par.
• Many businesses require costly Private Branch Exchange (PBX) equipment to properly utilize their internal phone network. VoIP eliminates the need for this expensive investment at all, also negating the need to maintain this equipment over time.
• VoIP telephony generally doesn’t cost your business any extra for certain kinds of calls, like long distance calling—and if it does, it generally costs you much less than the telephone company would charge for it.
• Unified communications are simpler to accomplish with VoIP, as many modern business solutions offer integrations with VoIP platforms. This makes communication easier to establish and track, which helps to keep the conversation moving forward efficiently.

All in all, utilizing VoIP as a part of your communications is not only a good strategy at the present, it is set to only show more promise as technologies—like artificial intelligence and 5G connectivity—continue to develop and improve.

Coleman Technologies can help you implement and maintain a VoIP solution that suits your business needs. To learn more, reach out to our team of experienced IT professionals by calling (604) 513-9428.

What Exactly is Hosted VoiP?

Hosted VoIP is easily described as a communications platform that utilizes an Internet connection to function. Unlike traditional telephone systems that are purchased through the telephone company and have their own dedicated lines, hosted VoIP is hosted in the cloud and allows a business to build a strong, customized telephone system that meets a lot of a company’s communications needs. 

While there are VoIP options for consumers, businesses need more. They need more control, more features, and more flexibility. A hosted VoIP platform allows businesses to add and remove lines from their system in minutes and provides them the options to customize the whole system to include more dynamic features designed to maximize a business’ ability to communicate and collaborate efficiently. 

The Difference Maker

Most business owners would probably admit to thinking that all telephone systems are the same, but that isn’t the truth. Hosted VoIP can help you control costs, build a more comprehensive communications strategy, and significantly offer solutions to the question of mobility that many businesses have absolutely no answers for.  Let’s look at some of the main benefits of hosted VoIP:

Cost

Obviously, for most businesses the cost of a solution has to be a prime consideration. Hosted VoIP can save even the smallest businesses money in multiple ways. First, since you are using your business’ Internet connection to fuel your phone platform, you can cut the telephone company right out of the equation. Secondly, you can customize your hosted VoIP platform to get the solutions that work for your business, presenting you with very little waste. Lastly, your VoIP platform alternatively serves as your business’ mobile platform, as you can use the solution’s mobile app to make and receive phone calls—from your assigned VoIP phone number—anywhere your mobile device has Internet access. 

Extremely Simple

A Hosted VoIP platform is extremely simple to set up. Working with a vendor, you can have a telephone system configured the way you like it in about a day. Compare that to the weeks of running cables and moving your business’ around to facilitate the installation of a traditional telephone system. For the end user it is even simpler. All you need to do is hook a VoIP-enabled phone into a workstation and you are ready to go. Additionally, you can add and remove lines extremely quickly, so you aren’t stuck paying for more that you need. 

Functionality

One major benefit of VoIP is the customization of the platform. You can literally get dozens of tools if your business needs them. Some of the tools you can get with your VoIP platform include:

• Audio and video conferencing
• Call forwarding
• Personalized extensions
• Call routing
• Call recording
• Automated receptionist
• Call queues
• Instant messaging
• Text messaging
• Integrated voicemail

...and there are many more.

Hosted VoIP can change the way your business looks at its communications platform. With reliable and crisp-sounding calls, the Hosted VoIP platform can be right for just about any business. To learn more about hosted VoIP, give us a shout at (604) 513-9428 today.

A business telephone system has picked up some pretty costly requirements over the past several years. Not only does your business need to have a clear and concise calling system internally, it needs to incorporate video conferencing and remote communications. This can get pretty costly if you don’t have the right technology in place. That right technology is VoIP and it can save your business money and present options that allow your employees seamless communication capabilities.

What is VoIP?

VoIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol, which is the basis of the technology. Instead of using traditional phone lines to carry communications, these connections are completed through the Internet. Most businesses have surplus bandwidth that just goes to waste. By shifting your communications to VoIP, you remove the need for traditional telephone service and conduct business communications over the Internet. It provides some serious benefits, including:

Cost Effectiveness

One of VoIP's primary advantages is its remarkable cost efficiency. Traditional telephone systems often have hefty installation, maintenance, and long-distance calling charges. In contrast, VoIP leverages the power of the internet to transmit voice data, eliminating the need for a separate infrastructure for voice and data. Businesses can significantly reduce their communication expenses by adopting VoIP, especially for international or long-distance calls. The cost savings extend beyond just call charges, as the simplified infrastructure requires less maintenance, further reducing costs.

Flexibility and Scalability

VoIP offers unparalleled flexibility and scalability, adapting seamlessly to the evolving needs of businesses. Unlike traditional phone systems that are often bound by physical limitations, VoIP operates over the Internet, allowing users to make and receive calls from any location with an Internet connection. This is particularly beneficial for remote workers.

VoIP systems are highly scalable, making it easy for businesses to expand or reduce user accounts without the hassle of rewiring or reconfiguring a traditional phone system. With this, VoIP provides the agility needed to adjust communication infrastructure on the fly.

Innovative Features

VoIP goes beyond basic voice communication, offering a plethora of advanced features that enhance productivity and collaboration. Features like voicemail to email transcription, call forwarding, auto-attendants, and video conferencing contribute to a more dynamic and efficient communication environment. VoIP integrates with other business applications and tools, fostering a unified communication ecosystem.

For example, integration with customer relationship management (CRM) systems allows businesses to streamline workflows and provide better customer service by accessing relevant customer information during calls. This integration saves employees a lot of time and improves the customer experience.

Enhanced Mobility

Many workers now work remotely, requiring communication solutions that can travel with them. VoIP empowers users with enhanced mobility, allowing them to make and receive calls using their business phone number from various devices, including smartphones, laptops, and tablets. This flexibility is especially valuable for remote workers, traveling professionals, and businesses with geographically dispersed teams.

VoIP's mobility features improve accessibility and responsiveness, ensuring that important calls are never missed, irrespective of the user's physical location. This adaptability aligns perfectly with the evolving nature of work and helps businesses maintain a competitive edge.

If you would like to learn more about VoIP's benefits and why it is the future of communications, call our consultants today at Coleman Technologies.

With communication rising to the top of many businesses’ priorities list, it’s no wonder that Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is one of the most powerful ways to revitalize your company’s communications infrastructure. If you’re still using your old traditional telephony solution, buckle up because you’re about to find out how to ditch it for good.

VoIP uses your Internet connection rather than a traditional telephone line to make and receive calls, making it a cost-effective, dynamic, flexible, and scalable solution that can quickly pay for itself. But what do you need to know when implementing it for the first time? Let’s go over the best way to implement VoIP for SMBs.

What Does Your Business Need?

Before you commit your business to a particular VoIP solution, assessing your business’ specific needs is important. Consider how many users you have and whether or not they are remote, in-office, or a mixture of the two, as this will determine the hardware you need to procure for them. Also worth considering is what kinds of features you need and whether or not you would benefit from more advanced ones. Most VoIP solutions come packed with all their capabilities right out of the box, so it’s more about picking the right provider. With all of this in mind, you can confidently approach implementing a new solution.

What’s the Right Provider?

Once you know what you need, it’s time to find a solution and a provider that offers just that, customized to suit your organization's specific requirements. You’ll want to work with a provider who has a proven history of reliability, security, and excellent customer support. The right provider should be able to help you answer questions regarding the services offered, the features of their solutions, pricing plans, and options to scale. Also, consider how well your new VoIP solution will integrate with your existing systems and how it will contribute to your company’s continued success.

How Do You Begin Integration?

Finally, you can begin the implementation process of getting your VoIP solution set up. Depending on how you want to set up your solution, it could be as easy as installing smartphone applications and creating accounts or as involved as installing new handset hardware and integrating with your CRM and other communications platforms. 

Make Implementation Easier By Outsourcing

Does your business want to implement VoIP, but you’re worried about making all of the right choices yourself? Thankfully, you can have Coleman Technologies explore your options. We can help you take a relatively hands-off approach to VoIP implementation. We’ll help you determine the best path forward, implement it, and maintain it for you so that you can focus on running your business. Learn more about how we can support your business by calling us today at (604) 513-9428.

What is Voice over Internet Protocol?

Traditionally, telephones work by sending electricity through the phone wires and phone lines and having it converted back into sound. Today, they have figured out how to do the same process through the Internet. Sounds are sent as data packets over Internet wires and then they are unpacked to make sounds again. VoIP is the product that has come from this innovation. Basically, where you once had to have an expensive business telephone system hardwired to your place of business, you can now do the same for a fraction of the cost by using your company’s bandwidth to send and receive calls.

How Does VoIP Work to Save Me Money?

VoIP presents several options that work to save your business money. They include:

You’re Paying for One Less Thing

Your business telephone system has worked, but the cost is high. Of course, you’ve needed it, but today, VoIP offers just as much in the way of features as a dedicated telephone system, but it does it through your Internet connection; a service that you almost assuredly have and use regularly. 

VoIP is Easier

Since VoIP is delivered via your Internet connection, your staff no longer needs additional infrastructure--such as a wired connection for every phone--to be able to make calls. You can scale your hosted VoIP solution up and back as you need. What’s more, for many solutions you can utilize your staff’s personal devices as reliable work phones through the use of a mobile app. That’s much easier.

VoIP is More Efficient

Most VoIP solutions enable you to provide them with an auto attendant feature that provides directions to callers. This reduces the time that people need to be on the phone. Clients get connected with the person they are calling, while employees won’t need to deal with their phone ringing and causing interruptions.

There are many other benefits to VoIP solution. If you would like to learn more about implementing VoIP and saving money in the process, reach out to Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428!

To start, let’s consider the situation that we find ourselves in.

With COVID-19 still spreading, the general consensus is that spending time around other people is currently a bad thing, making the workplace a less-than-ideal environment in which to spend one’s time. As a result, many people have self-quarantined themselves in their homes. With today’s available technology, however, this does not mean that they cannot get work done, with the cloud offering great opportunities for collaboration and remote work. This plays into VoIP’s benefits quite nicely.

For instance…

VoIP Can Simplify the Remote Process

Consider what your team might require in order to complete their tasks while out of the office. They should have a workstation of some sort, naturally, whether that be a laptop that travels between their home and the office, or a desktop device set to securely access their work resources. However, another piece of equipment that is generally necessary for many employees is an office phone… something that was once a much less portable solution.

Today, VoIP can change that, by allowing you to use the phone through the Internet, not the traditional dedicated phone lines. This means that your employees can continue to make their typical business calls, without the need to be in the office. Using the same business number, an application on their workstation or mobile device can take or make calls (along with a wide variety of additional features) from anywhere that they can establish an Internet connection.

VoIP is a Secure Means of Communication

When your workforce has the opportunity (or, as we’re now experiencing, need) to work from home, they will still need to communicate with one another. However, many residential Internet services lack the inherent security that many business conversations will require. No matter how efficiently you want your business to operate, no productivity is worth sacrificing security for.

VoIP allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds. By combining the cloud-hosted nature of VoIP with the use of a virtual private network (VPN), you can be confident that any conversations held over the VoIP system are private and secure. This is handy, as your employees could find themselves having to share protected data over the phone with their teammates. A VPN will protect their conversations from being listened in on, as the connection will be distorted to any outside observers by the inherent encryption of the VPN.

VoIP Incorporates Other Forms of Collaboration

Namely, video conferencing. Many VoIP platforms offer some kind of video conferencing feature, permitting a face-to-face interaction between callers, regardless of the distance between them. A big concern that is common amongst remote workers is the feeling of isolation that can develop from working alone.

By using the conferencing capabilities that the right platform has to offer, your team can interact with each other in a more personal way. This reinforces the idea that they are a part of a team, keeping up their morale and encouraging them to work collaboratively to accomplish their shared goals.

To learn more about implementing a VoIP solution for your team’s use, reach out to the professionals at Coleman Technologies by calling (604) 513-9428.

Security Considerations

Even though you aren’t in the office, you still need to follow the same security protocols and the processes you would need to follow if you were working in the office. In fact, these processes become even more important, as your home network is likely less secure than the one in the workplace. Here are some tips:

Be Hygienic
We aren’t telling you to brush your teeth or wash behind your ears, we are talking about practicing good security hygiene while you work remotely. Don’t reuse your passwords, use multi-factor (or two-factor) authentication to secure all accounts, and don’t share out information over email if you don’t know for certain who will read it. In other words, all the basics still apply.

Be Mindful
For similar reasons, you also need to be extra careful of online scams or phishing attacks while working remotely. Lost business data is lost business data, regardless of where you were when it was left vulnerable. Make sure you are up-to-speed in terms of identifying and mitigating breach attempts.

Use a VPN
Finally, because you will not be protected by the defenses on the company network, you need to implement a few extras, such as a virtual private network. A VPN uses encryption to conceal the contents of any data you transmit over the Internet, protecting the contents from virtually all attacks.

Business Practices

Again, as you aren’t in the office, your remote work needs to follow the same processes as it would if you were in-house, and you will need to be more deliberate about carrying them out. For instance:

Use Communication and Collaboration
Since you are not working alongside your colleagues and coworkers while you are working from home, you should be extra diligent about remaining in contact with them. Use your email, instant messaging, and phone capabilities to keep the rest of the team apprised as you progress with your tasks.

Follow Processes
As we don’t want anything falling through the cracks as we continue our operations, it is important that each team member sticks to procedures with every task they touch. This will help ensure that all the ‘i’s are dotted and each ‘t’ is crossed, and that things progress productively.

Schedule Strategically
While you should still work the amount of time you would be in the office, you may have a little more freedom and autonomy as far as your schedule is concerned. Don’t be afraid to arrange your tasks around any scheduling conflicts you may have, or shuffle your tasks to better fit your productivity levels throughout the day.

Personal Wellness

Finally, it is crucial that you are able to manage yourself and your time while not in the office environment. Here are a few tips to help you do so, that may be useful to keep in mind.

Set Limits
While the assumption surrounding remote work is that employees are prone to slacking off, it is also likely that you may be tempted to push yourself a little further than you should with your day to try and accomplish as much as possible. While this is an admirable goal, it isn’t effective if you overwork yourself one day and accomplish almost nothing the next as a result. Moderate yourself and stop when it’s time.

Build Patterns
Process is crucial to working effectively from home. This means you need to actively make sure you get into a work routine (even one that resembles the one you follow normally). Get up on time. Make yourself breakfast. Make sure you get dressed (at least most days). Establish a place that becomes your work area. Consistency will help keep you on task and feeling sharp.

Resist Temptation
There are a lot of things at home to help distract you from doing what you need to do. Hobbies, that TV show that you always meant to watch, even household chores can tempt you away from getting down to business. Shut these excuses to procrastinate out, and if you must procrastinate, do so in a beneficial way. Meditating can help you refocus, or even switching to another task briefly can help you refresh your mind.

Remember, your team is here to support you, but they also need that support to be reciprocated. Make sure your remote work is just as productive as your in-house work would be.

1.  Use the Best Tool for the Job

Your contacts should never find it difficult to reach you, so you need to make sure you’re providing them with plenty of options for them to make contact. Don’t pick between a phone number or an email address, give them both, along with a live chat feature, conferencing options, and other forms of communication. Making use of things like a blog and social media give you a great way to reach out to them first, starting the conversation.

With all of the options you can now give to your clients, they will feel much more confident about getting an answer to their questions and having their concerns addressed. They’re also apt to pay more attention to you as well.

2.  Automate as You Communicate

Of course, in doing so, you may make it more challenging for you and your team members to keep the conversation going with your clients while also accomplishing what needs to be done each day. After all, if your whole day is spent answering questions on the phone, it’s going to be a little difficult to do anything else. Fortunately, there are solutions that you can use to better manage all these communications. Automated phone systems can keep your whole team from being interrupted as a client plays phone tag, while following up with emails and other communications can help minimize the questions that clients ultimately reach out with and simplify their experience.

3.  Coordinate Your Team

For your business to provide a good experience for your customers and clients, your team all needs to work together as they deal with them to avoid repeating or contradicting messages. Improving your internal communications will only make your external communications stronger. Tools also exist to facilitate this, including instant messaging and customer relationship management (CRM) software.

For assistance in implementing this technology (and others), reach out to our team here at Coleman Technologies. We can discuss the tools that will suit your needs the most, as well as figure out how we can optimize them to your needs. To learn more, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Effective communication often operates behind the scenes, yet it serves as a vital cog in the smooth operational ability of business, lending support to a multitude of functions. Consequently, making judicious investments in the right tools can markedly elevate your business. In the contemporary landscape, one such indispensable tool is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Let's delve into VoIP and explore why it has emerged as the preeminent choice for businesses seeking a robust and feature-rich communication platform. VoIP, in a nutshell, delivers more value for less.

VoIP is a telecommunication method that harnesses your internet connection, removing the necessity for a dedicated phone line to cater to your business' communication needs. This not only reduces ongoing telephone service expenses but also confers access to a host of supplementary features, some of which would typically come at an additional cost or might not be available at all. By leveraging the power of the internet, VoIP offers a broader spectrum of capabilities compared to conventional phone services.

Naturally, VoIP emerges as the optimal solution for modern businesses. Furthermore, it's adaptable for mobile use, with user-friendly mobile applications at your disposal.

If you believe that VoIP could be a valuable asset for your business, don't hesitate to reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

The landscape of telephony for small businesses has changed dramatically. It’s likely that you don’t rely on your phone nearly as much as you rely on other technologies, like your Internet, communications solutions, and email. Still, an antiquated phone system can hold you back, so let’s explore the other viable option for your business: Voice over IP.

Let’s break down why your traditional telephone is no longer viable for your business first.

Adding New Users is a Pain

When you first started your business, you were meticulous about finding the right space for the moment, just to get things off the ground. You may have had to run wires across your office for a specific number of employees, workstations, and handsets. When your business started to grow, suddenly you found yourself limited by the infrastructure you had spent so much time cultivating. Adding new users to your infrastructure becomes costly and time-consuming, which is something that only a traditional telephone business makes you suffer through.

Organizational Communication is Already Challenging Enough

When you use your office landline, you are, for all intents and purposes, stuck behind your desk if you want to use your phone. This is the opposite of what you want to happen; you want your employees to have the freedom to do what they need to do without being tethered to a physical location, and a solution which allows for this means that your company will have more flexibility for remote work and operations.

Your Telephone System Adds Hidden Costs and Services

More likely than not, you’re paying more for your landline telephone than necessary, and it’s all because of bundled services that you have no need for. You might be paying for cable television in addition to your phone service, for example. A service that allows you to customize your services according to what you need is ideal for businesses, particularly small businesses that cannot afford to waste their valuable budget on unneeded services.

There’s No Reason to Suffer with Old Technology

Using your landline is just like using any other old frustrating technology; it’s completely unnecessary. If you rely on outdated technology for too long, you’ll fall behind your competitors, which is something that no business can afford. You can get ahead of the game with a VoIP solution that uses your current IT infrastructure and Internet connection, effectively replacing your company’s landline by turning all of your desktops, laptops, and smartphones into your telephone system.

VoIP Can Be the Solution to Your Communication Troubles

If you are ready to get started with VoIP, then Coleman Technologies can help you make the transition. All you have to do is pick up that old dusty handset and use it one last time to call us at (604) 513-9428.

What is VoIP?

At first glance, VoIP is almost indistinguishable from the telephone services you are used to using—in fact, you’ve likely used it before.

Basically, instead of using the network of telephone wires that stretches from your service provider to your location, VoIP uses your broadband connection to transmit your call data to and from the recipient. In doing so, you eliminate the need for a pricy telephone service, instead getting double duty from your Internet.

Like we said, you’ve likely used VoIP technology in some form. Skype, Facetime, and Facebook Messenger all operate as VoIP solutions, albeit more for the personal user than an organization. For the organization, many VoIP platforms are available that provide a hefty list of features and options, leading to greater advantages.

The Advantages of Using VoIP in a Business Setting

The benefits of using VoIP are straightforward for the business:

Cost

This is perhaps the most visible (and, for that matter, impactful) benefits that Voice over Internet Protocol offers. A POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) requires a sizable investment for the infrastructure alone, never mind the additional features that aren’t included by default. Comparatively, VoIP needs very little up-front investment, and these additional features are almost always included.

Simplicity

VoIP is a perfect example of a plug-in-and-play solution, with very little else involved in its setup besides signing into your solution and literally plugging in the device. Similarly, starting up and operating the additional features incorporated into VoIP is a very user-friendly experience as well. This ease of use helps to motivate your team to use the platform’s conferencing capabilities and mobile-friendly softphone, and for your part, adding users is a simple enough task.

Function

Finally, these additional features further support your business’ capacity to communicate effectively. Here’s a general idea of what VoIP solutions will offer:

• Call forwarding
• Personalized extensions
• Call routing
• Call recording
• Automated receptionist
• Call queues
• Instant messaging
• Text messaging
• Find me, follow me
• Audio and video conferencing
• Integrated voicemail
• Line-of-business integration

Depending on the VoIP solution implemented, many more features will likely be available in addition to these.

In short, VoIP makes your business communications better, benefitting both your internal collaboration and your outreach efforts. Find out more about what VoIP can do, and what’s involved in implementing it, by calling our professionals at Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428.

Voice over Internet Protocol, also known as VoIP, has revolutionized the way businesses manage their communications through the use of telephony. Employees who were once tethered to their landlines or their physical locations can now break free of these constraints, and it’s all thanks to VoIP and cloud-based communication tools. Here are some of the best features of VoIP solutions for small businesses.

More Cost Savings

If you want to save costs, then VoIP is the way to go. When you work with a traditional landline telephone provider, they are sure to bundle a bunch of services together that you don’t necessarily want or need for business purposes. Using VoIP means that you’re using an asset and service you already pay for—your Internet connection—so you aren’t paying for anything you don’t already use or need. Additionally, you likely already own all the hardware you need to make proper use of the VoIP solution, as it uses your desktops, laptops, and mobile devices to function. While you could go the route of acquiring more traditional handsets, the flexibility is there for those who want and need it.

Greater Scalability

Running a business comes with inevitable growing pains. Eventually, your business will outgrow its current communications infrastructure, which is a good problem to have, but not for your phone infrastructure. To add new lines or handsets, you might have to knock down walls or use other creative solutions to ensure the networking and routing of the phone infrastructure is sound, creating all kinds of disruptions to your operations and workflow in the process. VoIP is hosted in the cloud and run through a downloadable application, meaning that you are using your Internet connection and a program to access your phone line. This means adding new accounts or numbers is as simple as creating one and downloading the app.

Enhanced Flexibility and Mobility

With VoIP, you aren’t limited to your landline or even your desk. Thanks to the ability to download a hosted VoIP application on your smartphone, you can keep your work phone number on your mobile device for anytime, anywhere access to it. You can take work calls on your work phone number while out of the office, on business trips, or while working out of your home. With this kind of accessibility, imagine how much more work your organization can get accomplished. Your customers will also appreciate your team being more available than ever.

Ready to Implement VoIP?

If you want to commit to improving your business’ communications infrastructure, Coleman Technologies can help. We’ll work with your business to integrate VoIP with its technology and collaboration platforms in a way which makes sense for you. To learn more, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

VoIP Allows You to Do More

While at its core, a VoIP system is a telephone system, it allows for many more options. Since it uses an organization's available bandwidth rather than a dedicated RJ-11 connection, there are more dynamic options available. It may raise the cost of the solution a bit, but VoIP can come with instant messaging, conferencing, and call archival built in.  

VoIP is More Secure

VoIP is far more secure to use than the traditional landline because it is easier to secure a digital connection than it is to secure an analog one. The use of encryption protects all information transmitted through the system.

VoIP is More Portable

This is a big benefit. VoIP solutions can be linked to mobile applications. This means that any smartphone can become a work phone, and can be linked to the same number as the user’s business phone. This allows people to get calls on their phone without having to give over their personal number. This is either done through forwarding or by installing a simple app on the phone.

VoIP Offers Automated Client Interaction

A VoIP system can be configured to support an entire business. There are integrated automated menus that can offer a lot of value by directing calls to voicemails, alternative members of your team, and allowing employees to avoid distractions and not neglecting their incoming calls. Call forwarding, parking, and many more options can be tied to a VoIP account for additional costs.

VoIP is a technology solution for all of your business’ calling needs. Call Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428 for more information about VoIP and you can get the telephone system you’ve always wanted for your business.

It goes without saying that having a comprehensive communications strategy is critical for the functionality of your business. Many businesses use traditional phone systems, and they pay handsomely for them. VoIP is a great way to utilize the bandwidth you already pay for to facilitate a business phone solution.

A VoIP system works by transferring sounds into data packets and then transferring them in real-time over an Internet connection. The sound is simply unpacking the data packets. The reason so many small businesses are switching to a VoIP system is that it allows an organization to manage their telephone system cost more effectively.

Nowadays there are hosted VoIP options that present companies with a virtual call center of sorts. Essentially, instead of hosting a stand-alone server at your place of business, the telephone system is hosted in the cloud and accessed through a web client.

Before you can consider either VoIP platform, you’ll have to determine what type of control you need over the technology. If you are someone that wants to play with settings and configurations, hosting your own PBX phone server may be the way to go, but if you are someone that doesn’t mind spending a little more per month to have these systems managed for you, a cloud-based VoIP solution should be right for you.

Your average VoIP solution provides your business with a path to cut the often-substantial capital costs of buying, housing, and maintaining an onsite telephony server. Since the provider will absorb the costs of maintenance and the outward reliability of the platform, you can spend less time focusing on managing your telephone system and more time relying on it.

Since VoIP downtime is not an option for the average business, you’ll want to consult with Coleman Technologies IT professionals to help you find the right solution to fit your business’ needs. Our staff are experts at designing, implementing, and managing computing networks that work for the modern business, so relying on us to help you deploy the right communications platform makes a lot of sense.

For more information about hosted VoIP or any other communication used to improve employee productivity and customer satisfaction, call Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

Everyone knows that a telephone system is a core component of a well-functioning business. Unfortunately, many businesses’ telephone systems haven’t advanced, but the way people do business has. If your business is paying a premium for its telephone system and isn’t getting the collaboration benefits needed to stay competitive, the answer might be VoIP.

What is VoIP?

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, a telephone system that runs on your organization’s Internet connection, not the antiquated phone lines. It can be run off a dedicated server in your business, but it is often run by a cloud-based server. Using the cloud model, you pay per line, and the service provider assumes the responsibility of hosting your business’ telephone system and maintaining the underlying infrastructure (as well as providing support). 

What Are the Benefits of VoIP?

Beyond separating yourself from the phone company, having a communications platform that uses the Internet can benefit an organization. Firstly, switching to a VoIP platform eliminates the antiquated landline system businesses have used for decades; we’ll explain how this benefits businesses later in the article.

Another massive benefit for businesses is the flexibility of a VoIP solution, especially with hosted VoIP. Since a business pays a small monthly fee per line, it can add and subtract features to better manage costs and provide communication and collaboration tools to fit every individual employee’s needs. 

Finally, VoIP call quality is often on par with or superior to traditional landlines, especially considering that many VoIP systems provide mobile support. Through an app, every worker can have their business phone number routed to their personal smartphone. This feature ensures that all employees have access to a telephone number regardless of location, making it an essential tool for companies that use remote teams. 

What Are Some of the Features You Can Get with Hosted VoIP?

As we mentioned earlier, VoIP is a feature-rich platform. It’s also extremely customizable. In all, dozens of features can be available with a VoIP platform. Let’s look at some of the most important features a VoIP platform can provide.

• Auto attendant - This feature is a system that answers your calls and gives callers options to route calls properly.
• Text messaging - Giving your staff the ability to send work-related texts is a godsend in many situations. It’s an essential feature for organizations that want to unify their communications platform.
• Call forwarding - This feature allows organizations to redirect calls, reducing the likelihood of missed calls.
• Call recording - Being able to record calls can have many benefits, but most importantly, to enhance customer satisfaction.
• Video conferencing - Being able to communicate with multiple people via video successfully is a huge benefit.

This is only a taste of what is available through a VoIP platform. If you would like to learn more about VoIP and how it can significantly benefit your business, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.