How Will VOIP For Business Benefit My Company in 2020?

The single biggest reason why so many businesses are making the switch to VOIP these days is a very simple one – it costs less. But just how does it do that and how much can you save?

After all, your current traditional PBX system provider seems to have been offering some decent deals recently. But can those deals match VOIP? Maybe not. Here are some examples of what we mean.

Monthly Cost Savings

If you were to call a phone company about getting new traditional PSTN phone service for your business right now these days, they will probably give you a flat rate for your monthly service.

However, after the salesperson has finished giving you the big spiel they are required to add (probably in a much quieter voice) that the figure they have just quoted you does not include a number of mandatory fees.

The FCC lets phone companies charge you a monthly amount for the privilege of accessing their telephone lines and every phone company takes advantage of that fact. There are usually also line maintenance fees and international calls will cost extra as well. VOIP does not come with any of these charges attached.

Then there are the additional services. Usually, that flat monthly rate will not include services like call waiting, caller ID and conference calling and you can expect to pay quite a lot extra if you want a good voice mail service. All of these things have a straight cost in the case of most VOIP business services – 0 dollars.

Per Call Savings

The days of being charged extra for a call that is out of your local calling area by your local phone company are admittedly pretty much gone, most of them not offer and unlimited local and long distance calling plan for X dollars a month. But X dollars actually tends to be quite a lot, certainly more than the monthly fees that most VOIP providers charge.

Where traditional phone companies still make themselves quite a nice profit is on international calling. If you have a reason to call overseas, and because of the growing global nature of business in general, even small businesses that is likely, those charges can really rack up.

Many small business owners find themselves missing out on international opportunities just because the cost of talking with potential clients or customers is so prohibitive.

VOIP offers very low rates on international calls and many providers even offer a certain number of them free every month.

No More Taxes

If you have a look at your current phone bill you will notice you are charged a number of different taxes every month. It is actually not the phone company’s fault, the federal, state and local governments are the ones collecting that money. And you have to give them all their cut. VOIP providers are not mandated to charge those taxes so this too offers savings that will vary depending upon where your business is located but can be anything from a nice little bit of of extra change every month to a significant dollar amount.

No Repair Call Out Fees

If you have ever had to call your traditional phone company about a problem, you are having with your service you probably know the drill by now. Yes, they will send a technician out, but they cannot quite tell you when. Maybe sometime between 9 am and 5 pm tomorrow. Or the next day.

And if the problem turns out to be on your end, not theirs they will happily charge you a hefty fee for their technician’s time. And if you want a new phone line installed? That is really quite an undertaking both in terms of expense and time.

If you have a hosted VOIP service all of the equipment needed for your phones to function is located at your provider’s premises, not yours. Repairs are made there and there is no physical equipment at your business that needs to be maintained.

Should you opt for an in-house IP PBX that may require onsite repair and or maintenance, so that is something you should ensure you discuss with your VOIP company in advance. These fees are still usually less than a traditional phone company will charge you though and not high enough to put a VOIP system out of reach for almost any company.

VOIP and Remote Workers

The fact is that lots of companies are not even operating from their physical offices right now due to COVID-19 restrictions. But they are still operating, which means employees – and management – need to be able to field phone calls from their home office.

VOIP makes doing so a lot easier. No one has to venture into the office to forward phones. Calls can be routed anywhere in seconds, so if one of your employees has decided to ride out the pandemic in another state they can still get all their work done, and answer calls made to them. And if something does go wrong it can usually be remedied remotely, another big advantage for everyone.

To learn more about VOIP for Business for your company, contact us here.