Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is changing the way businesses communicate. By converging traditional voice and data services on a single platform, VoIP lowers operating costs and provides greater efficiencies than traditional phone systems.
A good VoIP provider can build a customized system to meet your needs and is willing to let you test new features to see if it makes sense for your business.
“In the world of VoIP it is easy to try something on a trial basis to see if it will work for your organization,” says Alex Desberg, sales and marketing director at Ohio.net. “If your provider is unwilling to let you kick the tires without a long-term contract you might want to look at finding a new provider.”
Smart Business spoke with Desberg about VoIP, the importance of gathering employee feedback and the dangers of choosing flash over function.
How are companies wasting time and money using traditional phone systems?
We often hear clients utter the phrase, ‘We would like one throat to choke,’ meaning it would be nice to have one service provider handle everything. When you have multiple providers for services that work together like the Internet and phone, a lot of time can be wasted trying to track down the right person if a problem arises. We’ve also found that many organizations have taken on the responsibility of managing their phone system themselves. Because they are not experts in the field they tend to Band-Aid problems rather than having a telephone professional properly address options for improved customer service and long-term efficiencies.
How should a phone system serve a company and its customers?
A phone system must be a conduit of communication. It should be designed to deliver the customer to the solution they need. Any complication, ranging from difficulty dialing the number to being unable to speak to the person they are seeking, adversely impacts a customer’s experience. Whether it is a retail customer, a professional services company or a manufacturer, the idea is there should be one-call closure. Hosted phone systems have the ability to deliver the customer to directly what they need, if engineered properly.
Why should the correct personnel make decisions about hosted phone systems?
The role of managing phone systems is falling on two people these days: the office manager and the IT professional. The office manager doesn’t necessarily know much about technology, but they know how the business operates. IT professionals know how data works and what type of technologies work for a business, but they might not know how to apply phone technologies. By interfacing with office managers and IT personnel, we can quickly learn what works best for the organization and which features should be added to a new phone system.
If your customers are not reaching the right people on a regular basis it’s important to investigate. For example, I was with a prospective customer the other day and we talked for an hour about the advantages of changing their phone system. After the meeting I asked the receptionist about her thoughts. I discovered that if a customer called on the company’s second line, all of the lines rang busy. Nobody at the top level realized this because they never solicited information from their employees. Often businesses have meetings about cash flow and other financial principles, but they forget about discussing operations.
How important a role does technology play in communications?
It’s not necessarily the technology that’s important, it’s the function. You could have the most feature-rich, complicated phone system on the face of the earth, but if it doesn’t serve the needs of your customer then it has no value. There are a lot of bells and whistles and whiz-bang technologies out there that might not help your business. When choosing the right technology, start with what the company needs. It’s important that your provider uses a consumer-centric approach. After all, it’s impossible to tell a business what they should buy without knowing what they need.
