No matter what phone system an enterprise presently employs—whether a critical strategy, private branch exchange (PBX), or a PBX with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) capability—several features and techniques should be employed to maximize the VoIP usage and efficiency of such telephony devices. Standard practices related to policies for VoIP usage, integration with IT systems, and proper techniques for handling high call volumes may all be used to increase productivity and generate more business.
If you’re searching for a new VoIP system, comparing cloud-based VoIP vendors can reveal which vendors have the features you need, depending on your budget and other parameters, such as company size. Such a side-by-side comparison can significantly contribute toward strategies on how to be cost-efficient in the long-term, while also identifying the best approaches towards scalability to accommodate changing circumstances in the future.
Quick Tips to Improve VoIP Usage
- Review your current system’s VoIP usage, features and capabilities. Make sure you get the most out of your existing VoIP system by utilizing all the available features that can help increase productivity and efficiency.
- Depending on your organization’s VoIP usage data, evaluate whether your VoIP system is proficiently integrated with your other business systems. Is it possible to streamline processes by integrating your phone system with your CRM or ERP system? Doing so can save time and increase efficiency.
- Develop policies and procedures related to VoIP usage. Establishing guidelines for how employees should use the phone system can help ensure that calls are handled professionally and efficiently.
- Be prepared for high call volumes in VoIP usage. Have a plan in place for how to handle times when call volume is increased. This may include using call queuing, call routing or predictive dialing.
- Take advantage of all the VoIP features that your vendor offers. If your phone system has VoIP usage tracking, ensure you use these tools monitor performance, and improve as needed.
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VoIP Usage: Benefits and Factors to Consider
Irrespective of how old your phone system is, considering the below factors shall significantly contribute towards efficiently tracking VoIP usage, while helping your business save costs, time, and effort both in the short and long term.
If you are moving to VoIP for the first time, consider the below VoIP usage factors to determine how much money you can save, in due course of digitizing your communication systems and empowering your workforce.
In due course, we have also included some valuable tips on searching for the right VoIP solution, so you and your team can consider applying the latest VoIP innovations to enhance overall communication pipelines across your organization.
VoIP usage policy
A VoIP usage policy can ensure consistent brand positioning and professionalism as a protocol for employees who engage with multiple external stakeholders such as customers, vendors, and board members. Therefore, it is essential to mandate a formal greeting that should be used by all live agents, as well as in IVRs for customer experience. A VoIP usage policy can also assist with training purposes, as it can help teams track problems and loopholes in existing strategies. As companies monitor calls for training and quality control, incorporating a VoIP usage policy can ensure all guidelines are being adhered to, as agents attend to various stakeholders over the phone.
If your organization operates remote work environments, tracking VoIP usage with the right tools can help detect many factors that affect VoIP quality, such as bandwidth bottlenecks. If part of a Unified Communications (UC) system, tracking VoIP usage can help identify how often customers are using live calls to get in touch with sales and service teams, so marketing campaigns can be tailored to suit customers’ preferred communication channels for increased engagement.
VoIP and IT integrations
Often, it is of immense benefit to an organization to integrate its VoIP usage statistics with existing IT technology—whether a typical computer database or a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. Subsequently, integrating Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) with other interdepartmental software based on VoIP usage statistics offers a variety of benefits to businesses, irrespective of size. Some of the most valued VoIP benefits include dialing numbers directly through a computer or presenting customer history to representatives while accepting calls.
Other prudent applications of CTI include the consolidation of fax, phone, voicemail, and email messages into one inbox and the ability to make outward calls over the internet. Depending on which phone system is used and the insights that your VoIP usage statistics offer, additional hardware and software may be required for networking components. Based on your VoIP usage data, if your customers are reaching out via communication channels that go beyond voice, consider adopting an enterprise Unified Communications solution. This will offer a fully-fledged range of applications to combine VoIP, CRM, and conferencing solutions into a single platform.
The availability of omnichannel communication has also prompted top VoIP companies to progress beyond basic VoIP, by offering their customers holistic UCaaS solutions as convenient subscriptions, sans any upfront commitment. As a starting point, doing a VoIP vs UCaaS comparison enables you and your teams to identify how the latter exceeds the former, so an informed decision can be made before making any purchases.
Handling heavy call volumes efficiently
Overall production levels may increase during a period of heavy call volume if organizations utilize a few features designed explicitly for such situations, to handle customers better. One such component is IVR (Interactive Voice Response), which offers voice-based menus to automatically assist and direct customers to the correct department without the need for a human agent. When combined with a comprehensive VoIP usage policy, IVR helps improve customer experience by further integrating with other capabilities that facilitate workflow automation, such as Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) and conversational AI.
As a result, it becomes possible to enhance both First Call Resolution (FCR) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores. When ACD is used in tandem with IVR, it becomes easier for organizations to distribute calls via an automated process across a group of agents rather than having a single agent field all the calls. By tracking VoIP usage data and putting derived insights into action, your organization can therefore execute the most valuable qualities of customer service, so you can build trust and loyalty with both new and existing customers.
