You know that VoIP technology can enhance your enterprise's telecommunications infrastructure while slashing costs. But perhaps you're still wondering if the VoIP benefits are worth the cost and effort of a full-scale VoIP migration.
What is VoIP Migration?
VoIP migration typically refers to migrating to VoIP from a traditional phone system but now it can also mean upgrading your existing VoIP system to a cloud-based VoIP phone system to promote collaboration between teams.
Your IT and operations team will have improved daily workflows with VoIP, making your VoIP migration a success.
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How Do I Migrate to VoIP?
Before embarking on a VoIP migration, there are several steps your company would have to complete.
Planning
VoIP migration is a big undertaking by any company. Hence, it is important to plan thoroughly to avoid any hiccups during VoIP migration. This step will include taking a proper toll on your IT infrastructure to see if a VoIP migration is a viable option for your company
Network Assessment
Since VoIP migration requires that you will make calls over the internet, you will have to invest in a top-tier internet connection. If you already have an internet connection, you will have to conduct a network assessment to account for the increased VoIP bandwidth requirements that come with VoIP migration. There needs to be built-in flexibility for increased network traffic, and this can be done via load balancing to ensure that peak-level network traffic can be handled by your current internet provider. This is to ensure the highest quality of calls within your network and to avoid any lags and interruptions that can disrupt your VoIP migration efforts.
Partner Vendor for VoIP Migration
To make your VoIP migration a success, it is crucial that you select the right VoIP telephony provider for your business. Since most current vendors provide robust cloud VoIP migration options, you will have to spend extra time on this step to ensure that you select a VoIP vendor with the right type of technology and aftercare to support your VoIP migration ventures. Hence, it is crucial to consider the reviews for VoIP vendors and to see if they have handled VoIP migration in other businesses similar to yours.
Phone Hardware
If your company is doing a VoIP migration from a traditional phone system, you may have to replace your phone lines with ethernet connections. Since VoIP phone systems work exclusively via an internet connection, your VoIP routers and anything concerned with connecting you to the internet are crucial to VoIP migration.
VoIP softphones are an easier mode of VoIP migration because it can work with your existing computers and mobile devices without having to invest in separate phones.
Phone Number Porting
You will have to transfer your phone numbers to your new VoIP migration provider. This is called ‘porting’ and usually takes a minimum of 2 weeks and VoIP migration can be scheduled with your selected VoIP vendor to reduce downtime.
VoIP Migration Strategy
With your interdepartmental VoIP migration team in place, it is important to be strategic about your VoIP migration. This will require a lot of preplanning to ensure that VoIP migration will go without a hitch. Some key factors to consider here are the expenses involved in VoIP migration, personnel allocated for the VoIP migration, and the targeted deadline to deploy your VoIP system.
Well-known VoIP telephony providers can guide your step by step during this process and help you come up with a call center disaster recovery strategy in case your internet network fail during VoIP migration.
Training
Your employees and network managers are key players in VoIP migration. Selecting user-friendly VoIP migration tactics is the rule of thumb when embarking on VoIP migration. Most renowned VoIP vendors will conduct proper training sessions to ensure that your staff is prepared well for the VoIP migration and subsequent VoIP use.
VoIP Security
Since VoIP calls will be made via the internet, it is important to ensure the safety of these calls from eavesdroppers and other cybersecurity threats. Any attack on your VoIP network can compromise your other office systems that are also connected to the internet. You may want to explore VoIP security options such as firewall options and call encryption options with your selected VoIP telephony provider.
VoIP Migration Test Run
After all of the steps above are completed and your VoIP migration is almost complete, it is important to do a test run to ensure that there are no errors in the VoIP phone system deployment. This test run will also help your employees familiarize themselves with VoIP migration. Any challenges encountered during the test run can be addressed during the test run and steps can be taken to avoid such issues in the future.
Why Would a Business Want to Use VoIP?
Here are five reasons for making the switch to enterprise VoIP:
VoIP lets you do new things.
VoIP lets businesses shape voice applications to meet their needs, a capability that simply isn't possible with traditional phone systems. VoIP doesn't just replace a traditional phone system feature for feature, it augments and surpasses the old system by adding new features and capabilities, such as call monitoring and recording, integration with back office systems, audio/video conferencing, and advanced call management.
VoIP is stable and secure.
If you have a qualified consultant or engineer design, deploy and maintain your VoIP system, it can be at least as stable and secure as an old-fashioned PBX, and perhaps more so.
VoIP is the future.
The entire phone industry is headed to VoIP technology. The cost of VoIP-only equipment is dropping, and, within the next decade, IP telephony will displace traditional telephony. When this happens, VoIP vs. PBX will become the mainstream phone technology.
VoIP is affordable.
Although an enterprise VoIP migration can be costly, long-term adopters will experience clear economic and management advantages.
VoIP can be deployed smoothly.
A VoIP migration doesn't have to disrupt ongoing business operations. Converged voice and data solutions can be introduced slowly, site-by-site, office-by-office, or even user-by-user.
To help you select the best VoIP telephony vendor for your business’s needs, consult with our phone systems buyer’s guide and compare the top VoIP phone system providers on the market to select the best option for your unique needs.
