Business with multiple locations? – VoIP can help

 

Running a business can be very challenging. Many businesses are competing over the same market, using the latest technologies and tools to reach more leads and customers. This becomes even more complicated when your business has multiple locations. While this expansion indicates that your business is growing and reaching new markets, it also means that you need more advanced tools to enhance and facilitate the communication between your teams. Helping them to perform as one unit even if they are located in different offices. One of the most cost-effective tools to help you achieve this goal is a VoIP system, and here’s why:

 

Save money

 

Many companies nowadays have a broadband subscription and use the internet for their daily work tasks, such as sending and receiving emails, checking websites, researching or dealing with their customers. The internet-based nature of VoIP makes it the ideal solution for businesses with multiple locations, which usually end up with a high phone bill due to increased communication between team members. When you switch to VoIP, you can make as many calls as you want and you’ll only pay the usual fee of your broadband monthly subscription plus a very small fee for your VoIP subscription. This can save up to 40% on local calls, and up to 90% on international calls.

 

Transfer calls between offices

 

There’s nothing more frustrating than calling the wrong office and been given a new phone number to call because the person or service that you want is located or been handled in a different office. This is particularly annoying if you are in a hurry, driving, or walking in the street and have no pen to write the new number with or even time to go through the same “waiting on hold” process. VoIP can simply solve this issue for both your clients and your workers by allowing you to connect all the different offices no matter where they are located to one unified network. This means you can transfer a call between an office in Exeter, for example, and another one in Exmouth with the simple press of a button.

 

Another benefit of having a VoIP is that you can automatically transfer incoming calls to different offices if all the lines at the first location were busy. This will allow offices in different areas to interact effectively and enhance the company’s overall level of communication.

 

No need for multiple lines at each office location

 

How many phone lines do you need in your office? The answer was complicated with the old antiquated landlines. The number of lines you need to install is based on a perceived maximum amount of phone calls. This means that if you might have 10 people calling at once, then you need to install 10 lines, and you’ll be restricted to the number of physical lines you’ve installed at each office site. You also need to install an expensive on-site hardware to get some features like call transferring and extension directories. This can be a very expensive solution for businesses with multiple offices, not to mention the costs of periodical maintenance to the phone system at each location.

 

The hosted nature of VoIP can solve this issue and save over 50% on your phone setup and maintenance costs. Hosted VoIP does not require you to install any physical wiring and offers you a consolidated set of lines regardless of the number of locations. This feature will allow you to easily increase the number of lines in your company any time you want and at any location. As well as these benefits, the cloud-based nature of VoIP means that you also don’t have to worry about maintenance costs any more, except to your phones. Your VoIP provider will be doing all the necessary maintenance and upgrades that your system needs.

 

Hot desking or “Hoteling” feature

 

One of the useful features of VoIP is the ability to log in to any phone connected on your system and push your user profile and settings onto that phone. This is called the hot desking or “Hoteling” service and it’s particularly useful for businesses with multiple offices or workers who are required by the nature of their jobs to work frequently in different offices, such as field monitoring officers and lawyers.

 

The hot desking feature allows you to stay connected to your customers and co-workers and access your voicemails, contact list and messages regardless of your location. This flexibility is not only convenient for you but also to your customers who can call your usual extension and still get an answer even if you are not physically located in the office.

 

Instant and easy administration

 

VoIP gives you full control over the communication system in your company through an easy online administration portal that you can access from anywhere. There are many features, you can forward incoming calls to a new number or voicemail, change the greeting message to inform customers with any urgent changes in your working hours or services, updating phone users, or monitoring the performance of your system and many more. You won’t waste time calling your phone carrier to make any changes in your system and you can edit or add any service you want with ease whenever you want.