VoIP Service Yuba City

What you need to know about switching to a VoIP service in Yuba City

VoIP has now matured to the point where it is not just a safe option for businesses, it is often the best overall option for businesses. Here is what you need to know about switching to a VoIP service in Yuba City.

It’s important to understand your current usage 

Your first priority should be to maintain the level of functionality you have now and preferably to lower running costs. This means looking at your usage statistics and making sure that you can implement VoIP infrastructure of a standard to cope with them. When considering this, it’s important to think not just about the overall volume and duration of calls (and their geographical coverage), but also about how many people use the phone system at the same time. Remember, the quality of VoIP calls depends mostly on the availability of bandwidth.

Be prepared to upgrade your network significantly 

Unless you have substantial excess capacity in your current network, you are going to need to upgrade it. How much you will need to upgrade it will depend on the gap between the capacity in your current network and the capacity needed to use VoIP equivalently. If you then want to build up this to make the most of what VoIP can do, then you will need to invest in the bandwidth to support it.

You’re also going to need to decide if you’re happy to use softphones, basically VoIP apps, or if you want stand-alone VoIP handsets. You may want to test this in the real world before you commit as the space-saving aspect of softphones only really works in practice if you can display them on a decent-sized screen.

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For many companies, especially SMBs, this is a strong argument in favor of starting with a fairly limited implementation of VoIP and then building on it in stages. This not only allows you more time to find the necessary budget but also allows you to benefit from the cost reductions made possible at each stage of the process.

Remember that more network traffic means more network security 

The reason you will (probably) need to upgrade your network infrastructure is that implementing a VoIP service will increase your network traffic. This increases your level of exposure to the usual cybersecurity threats and hence increases the demands on your security solution. It’s important to keep this in mind when setting out your budget for the project.

Video-calling is probably the most bandwidth-intensive application in use today, at least in the business world. It also brings a range of security issues, including opening up a door to social-engineering attacks which make use of the extra information provided by being able to see a person and their background.

Although video-calling certainly has a range of business uses, there’s a very strong case for arguing that there is only a limited range of situations in which it is actually necessary. In most cases, having the video element is, at best, a nice extra and some people do not like it.

Reduced calling costs are only part of the opportunity for savings 

Implementing VoIP does make it possible to save on calling costs, however, businesses need to be realistic about the fact that they are still going to be paying more than consumers. The reason for this is that consumers tend to use VoIP to call personal contacts. This means that they are often prepared to live with some call-quality issues (such as disconnects and stuttering due to buffering issues) in exchange for super-cheap or even free calls. Businesses cannot do that. They, therefore, need to be prepared for quality of service and security.

That said, businesses have much more scope to take advantage of the fact that VoIP treats audio as regular data. This means that it can be analyzed like regular data and also integrated into other systems in the same way as existing sources of data. In the business world, this can be where VoIP really comes into its own.

For example, with VoIP, you can add a “click-to-call” button on your website, potentially with a dynamic number that allows you to trace each customer lead. You can then segment this call to ensure it goes straight to the best agent with minimal wait time and potentially have the customer’s details (or other relevant information) pop up on screen so the agent can get off to a flying start.

This sort of end-to-end functionality is usually well within both the capability and the budget of SMBs, but, as previously mentioned, you generally want to build up to it rather than diving in headfirst.

If you’d like to speak to a reputable and experienced VoIP service partner in Yuba City, please click here now to contact Salient IT.