Best VoIP Service Elk Grove

A quick guide to choosing the best VoIP service partner in Elk Grove

There are usually three key parts to a successful VoIP implementation. These are bandwidth, service quality, and end-user support. Your VoIP service provider can help with all three. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to choosing the best VoIP service partner in Elk Grove.

Organizing bandwidth 

When you switch to VoIP, you basically move your communications traffic from the traditional telephone system to your network/the internet. This means you need to make sure that there is sufficient, high-quality bandwidth. How much bandwidth you will need will depend on what VoIP services you plan to implement and how many people will be using them at the same time (at least potentially).

The requirements of VoIP mean the most, if not all companies, will need to upgrade their network capacity. Given that relatively few SMBs run their own networks entirely in-house, this generally means either updating a managed hosting arrangement and setting up a separate VoIP service contract or looking for a VoIP service vendor who can also offer hosting.

If you have an existing managed hosting arrangement and you’re happy with it, then you might just want to upgrade it and look for a separate VoIP service partner. Alternatively, or if you don’t already use (directly) managed hosting you could just look for a VoIP service partner who offers hosting.

Even if you’re planning to organize your own hosting, a VoIP service partner may be able to help by guiding you as to how much bandwidth you’re likely to need for the implementation you have planned.

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Ensuring service quality

Although bandwidth plays a huge role in the success of a VoIP service, it isn’t the only important factor. Call-routing also matters. Assuming you’re using your VoIP service as a like-for-like replacement of your existing telephone service (landline and/or cellular), you’re going to need to interface with your own VoIP system, other VoIP systems, landline networks, and cellular networks. Depending on your business needs, you may need these connections to be global rather than just local.

If this sounds extremely complicated, that’s because it is. This is one of the key reasons why you should take time to ensure that you’re not just working with a competent VoIP service vendor, but also that you’re working with a VoIP service vendor who prioritizes quality of service over cost. This is one of the main reasons why consumer-orientated VoIP service partners are unlikely to be suitable for even small SMBs. Consumers may be happy to put up with quality issues in exchange for super-low costs but businesses cannot tolerate this.

The other main reason why consumer-orientated VoIP service partners are unlikely to be suitable for businesses is that they may be unable to meet the necessary security standards and even if they can, they are highly unlikely to be able to give client businesses any meaningful assistance with regulatory compliance issues.

This last point could prove a major stumbling block for any business which wants to implement automatic call-recording. From a technical perspective, this is fairly straightforward. The challenge is that most calls will contain some elements of personal data, even if only the names of the participants, which means that call recordings will generally be subject to data privacy laws. These are getting stricter all the time and companies must stay on top of the legal requirements they must meet or face heavy sanctions.

Quality standards and security are so important that you should only consider working with a VoIP service vendor who is willing to incorporate guaranteed standards into a VoIP service contract. You should, however, remember that any contract only has meaning if it can be enforced in the real world. This is a strong argument in favor of sticking with VoIP service vendors in Elk Grove (or at least near Elk Grove), in other words, vendors who answer to the same legal system as you.

End-user support

From a VoIP service partner’s perspective, the end-user is your organization, so that includes everyone from those administering the VoIP service at your end to everyone who actually uses it. You should only ever consider working with a VoIP service partner who demonstrates a good attitude towards customer service and support.

Ideally, you’d like to see evidence that they have a good attitude towards SMBs (rather than having a preference for enterprise customers) and if at all possible some knowledge of your industry sector, especially if it’s regulated. Again, as much of this as possible should be written into a contract.

If you’d like to speak to one of the best VoIP service partners in Elk Grove, please click here now to contact Salient IT.