Reasons to Buy Hosted VoIP

There is a reason that Hosted VoIP is the fastest growing element of telecommunications since the invention of the short-wave radio. It's cheap, it's high-tech and readily available. Hosted VoIP also works in a variety of verticals.

Small to medium businesses across the world are leveraging Hosted VoIP technology that has been used by enterprise corporations for years, thanks to the cost-effective, easy implementation of Hosted VoIP. Multiple verticals are leveraging the expandable/collapsible Hosted VoIP technology:

• Medical
• Industrial
• Commercial
• Retail
• Offices
• Call Centers/Contact Centers
• Education
• Financial Services
• B2B
• Consumer
• Insurance
• Telecommunications
• Transportation

Each company and vertical have its own plethora of reasons to buy hosted VoIP, which range from costs to implementation to skill to maintenance.

Costs

Let's start with the most decisive reason to buy Hosted VoIP: competitive cost. Hosted VoIP solutions have a low total cost of ownership, but more importantly have low-cost implementations (no need to buy an expensive IP-PBX), which allows businesses to get state-of-the-art technology without the upfront price tag.

Another selling point of Hosted VoIP price is the pay-as-you-grow model. The ability to pay for additional users as they join your Hosted VoIP network is a godsend. The expandable/collapsible services can grow or shrink with your business, without buying expensive trunk lines. Also, you don't have to spend so much money on manpower trying to track down who the mystery employees are making long-distance phone calls on the company dime using Hosted VoIP.

Apart from TCO, Hosted VoIP solutions also provide a steady, reliable cost structure that can be budgeted for.

Setup

Many small and medium businesses do not have the technical know-how to install their own services, not even mentioning the maintenance know-how (oops, too late). Hosted VoIP solutions require little setup, and it is all done for you. Poof, it is done. Usually in just a few days.

Space Saving

Despite the cheap real estate made available by the real estate market collapse post-recession—it is still expensive. Many offices have a small footprint which means you need technology with the same—so avoid the space-hogging PBXs and opt for hosted VoIP phone systems.

Easy Management

Of the differences that set apart a traditional phone system from a hosted VoIP, is also the ease of installation and management. Getting started with the former service for an office requires you to schedule an appointment with a service company technician and have the wiring specifically run, which can be quite a task especially when you need urgent installation. However, hosted VoIP is easy to set up and get started with. You only need softphones or handsets or both if they can share the switches and wiring with your LAN. Therefore, connecting your business with hosted VoIP services requires minimum skills and internal expertise and skills.

Maintenance

After setup comes maintenance. Maintaining your own phone system takes valuable resources, often causes unneeded downtime, and means delays in technology upgrades.

Contact Center Support

For businesses that conduct customer service via the phone, Hosted VoIP is designed to meet the needs of a contact center of any size, therefore, it is a great choice for businesses that provide customer support over the phone. Whether you have a customer support service with just a handful of representatives or a huge team of agents operating 24/7, a hosted VoIP is primed to meet your needs. With a hosted VoIP vendor supporting customer service, you will experience:

1. Reporting and monitoring: Several Hosted VoIP services that are designed for contact center solutions provide easy access to the metrics that enable making well-informed training and staffing decisions.
2. Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR): Calls are smartly routed to the right agent or department by understanding their queries and saving time.
3. Unified Communications (UC): This feature enables contact center representatives to communicate with customers via phone, email, chat, and more.
4. Flexible and smart call routing: With hosted VoIP’s smart and flexible routing, you can optimize how many calls are received depending on factors such as skill level and CSR training, etc. 

State-of-the-art-ness

Being on the cutting-edge of technology is critical, but who has the time to keep track of new and emerging technologies for your phones...and computers...and phones...and essentially everything else? Much simpler to leave Hosted VoIP to the experts.

Add-on Features

Hosted VoIP phone systems are scalable due to their flexibility, meaning your system can scale as your business grows. Different businesses have varying needs. While startups and some SMEs may need a hosted VoIP with minimal features, other well-established businesses prefer a system with top-notch features and a unified communications experience.  No matter whether you’re a small business just starting off or a well-established enterprise, partnering with a hosted VoIP vendor that offers a complete range of VoIP add-on features is a great way to transform your business communications. Some popular add-on features are: 

1. Automated Call Distribution is great for catering to high call volume needs such as those of customer contact centers.
2. Chat, video chat and teleconferencing could be integrated with your customer relationship management CRM tool and these enhance both internal and external communications with Hosted VoIP.
3. Data Integration enables the transcription of voicemail to email.
4. Interactive Voice Recognition makes use of artificial intelligence to allow smart routing of calls.
5. Remote Management enables web-based administration of Hosted VoIP to aid in the addition of phone lines.

Future Proof

Technologies grow exponentially. Many Hosted VoIP companies will not only keep you abreast of new technologies coming to market but will also automatically upgrade you. Hosted VoIP solutions insulate you from buying an expensive system, only to have to re-haul it a few years down the road—that's the hosted company's problem.

Furthermore, Hosted VoIP enables fast and easy addition of phone lines. Most users can directly add phone lines from their management portal with just a few clicks on the web browser. The convenience that Hosted VoIP offers with its scalability and flexibility makes it a great choice for businesses with consistently or seasonally growing staff.