Thinking of making a change, but not sure VoIP is for you?  Companies of all sizes, from start-up to Fortune 500, are reaping the benefits of one of the fastest growing technologies running on corporate networks. The Cloud isn’t just home automation or connected vehicles, businesses are investing in this new universe too with telecommunications, fleet management, and asset protection technologies. This modernization isn’t just in the technology itself, but how businesses are deploying it to increase employee productivity and increased customer satisfaction. Like them, you can also benefit from VoIP communications with more than just cost savings.

Businesses of all sizes are using VoIP to increase worker productivity and mobility, but the Cloud can also assist in a quicker recovery from natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, etc.  No matter what size your company is you should have a disaster recovery plan.  An employee can either take their desk phone with them or their calls can be rerouted to a phone number at their temporary location. The auto attendant feature can be used to keep employees informed of company alerts and customers updated on the current status of the recovery process.

If your business is small to medium, you could see an approximately monthly cost savings of 45% – 50% by using VoIP over traditional phone platforms. Savings are gained by not needing to purchase the actual phone system and add-on costs such as long distance. The ongoing support costs for the traditional platform are included in VoIP per extension pricing. This allows lower operational costs without sacrificing customer service or employee work-life balance.

As VoIP technology continues to mature, businesses gain advantages due to the flexible nature of the service such as allowing you to scale your phone system up or down as needed, interconnecting multiple offices or allowing employee mobility.  Don’t be swayed by earlier experiences with poor quality, as internet speeds and Quality of Service (QoS) have improved, call quality has followed.

 A Few Stats and Facts to Consider

• 59% of respondents in a 2017 Employee Benefits report conducted by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) ranked work-life balance and flexibility as very important aspect of job satisfaction
• There is expected to be over 1 billion VoIP users by end of 2017 according to Juniper Research
• Gartner predicts there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2020
• By 2020, hosted VoIP and unified communications (UC) seats are forecasted to reach 74 million according to HIS Markit’s 2016 Business Cloud VoIP and UC Services Annual Market Report

Trend to Watch

 As competition for the VoIP market space heats up so will your choices of providers and options. Competition between service providers will benefit your business by driving competitive pricing, offerings and innovation.  For example, today you may have individual service providers such as video conferencing and webinars, however, you may be able to combine it all into one service in the near future.