VoIP: the business benefits
Article Date: Apr 17 2007Although it almost sounds like a too-good-to-be true offer barked out in an automated American accent, surely no-one – business buyer or housewife – would be crazy enough to turn down an offer of a product that provides more features at a lower cost?
Well, as that’s what you get with a voice-over-internet service, you’d think that every business would use it. In fact, of the 400 million-plus business phones in the world, around 370 million are still connected to the old wires.
For the uninitiated out there, VoIP stands for voice over internet protocol. Internet protocol basically just means ‘the internet’. Many VoIP virgins worry that the move will be painful or that verbal intercourse will be difficult, but the transition can simply involve the replacement of your traditional PBX box with an IP-enabled one, so you can still use your existing handsets.
And, despite allegations of echoing and scratchiness dogging some of the consumer VoIP providers, the quality of most VoIP – especially for businesses – is now very high, and generally better than the quality of a mobile service.
Alan Greensall, managing director of musical instrument distribution business Synergy Distribution, agrees: ‘The installation was easy – all we had to do was connect the box up to our broadband connection, and bingo, we could use our own phones with it.
‘We haven’t really had quality issues – we noticed that when we had 2Mb broadband some people said they could hear echoes, but now we’ve got an ADSL line no-one’s noticed any niggles at all.’
Evangelists and enthusiasts
After two years of use, Greensall is almost frothing with enthusiasm for VoIP: ‘It’s brilliant! VoIP means wherever we are – in the office, in the warehouse, out of the office, abroad – we can answer calls coming in to our main number. It means you don’t have to worry about how you can communicate with people when you’re out of the office, and it means the office is not as integral as it used to be.’
Synergy has now been using VoIP for two years, ever since having problems with a BT broadband connection at its previous, rural office. ‘When we decided to move to a new office we thought, “How can we be innovative?” I came to the conclusion that if we were getting broadband we could use VoIP,’ says Greensall.
With the provider chosen by Greensall, all Synergy’s calls are “free” for a fixed cost of £18.99 a month. What’s more, Greensall got two WiFi phones that he uses when off-site in WiFi hotspot areas, such as at events. ‘I was in Los Angeles in January and received calls on my WiFi phone for nothing, saving £160 in one week.’
Other extra features you can get bundled in include a “ring-around” service, which puts calls through to a succession of other numbers if not answered on the main line; a click-to-call feature, where you can make calls via the contacts on your PC; and storage of voicemail on your computer.
Conversion to VoIP
Kelvin Harrison, founder and CEO of fast-growing IT solutions player Maxima – where current communication costs are roughly £200,000 – is just in the process of migrating the company over to VoIP. The reason? ‘It’s free!’ he exclaims. ‘We had a trial at one of our offices and the call quality wasn’t a problem, so we’re moving all our offices over to it. All the calls, whether mobile or in the office, will be VoIP.’
Andrew Woolley, who runs a virtual law firm, has enthusiastically embraced VoIP. The company’s ten partners use VoIP to work from home. ‘What many small businesses don’t realise is that the benefits of making calls over the internet go far beyond cheap calls,’ explains Woolley. ‘Using VoIP allows my team to work from wherever they have a broadband connection. I can give clients one number and they can contact me wherever I am.’
BT, the UK’s biggest provider of VoIP, has breached the million-customer mark and recently decided to offer all its business broadband customers a free VoIP line on top of their data line. While the system is not quite rocketing, it is taking off and the coming years should see a turning point in the market.
