VoIP for Small and Home Businesses
In spite of the popularity of VoIP, there are still a couple of business owners who are reluctant to adopt it. Usually, these are small and home business owners who believe they don’t have enough financial resources to run a VoIP network. Others charge the apprehension to lack of technological experience.
VoIP isn’t a perfect system. It has its own loopholes and glitches. In fact, it may not be as cheap as others would like to think. However, the benefits small and home business owners can take advantage are way more than the cons:
It helps you cut back on communication expenses. As mentioned, not all VoIP systems are cheap; that’s why you need to compare packages. In general, however, VoIP allows you to pay monthly fixed fees or per-minute charges for your long-distance phone calls. You can also find reasonably priced plans with unlimited overseas telephone calls.
For the equipment, plenty of providers can already give them in exchange for a lock-in contract. If you don’t want to be tied down to one provider, you can purchase them both online and offline. Because of stiff competition among suppliers, VoIP phone costs can be as low as $30.
It’s easy to expand your business. Almost always, VoIP upgrades are completely for free. You will simply be notified whenever new updates are available. Moreover, when you need to add additional phones or change your network, you can do so through a GUI. You don’t have to request for a technician, which is additional cost for you.
You don’t have to miss out any calls. You can now configure VoIP to redirect calls not only to another landline number but also to your mobile phone. You can also activate your voice mail and access messages anytime and anywhere.
You can run your business like a huge enterprise. VoIP offers auto-attendant, which provides a professional-sounding system to your network (it’s the one that says, “Press 1 for customer service,” etc.). You can also set up limited conference calls.