If you can remember a time before the Internet, phone calls traveled from an onsite phone to a phone switch to another line and another phone switch. “They were all proprietary phone lines,” says Ann Arbor, MI-based IT consultant Harvey Juster. “The Internet was never involved.” Today, businesses large and small are cutting their landline connections and opting for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which offers additional capabilities to traditional landlines.
“You can see more, do things faster, do things on the go,” says Bill McCormick II, vice president of Ideacom Midwest, a St. Louis, MO-based telecommunications company. Following are six of the best features available today.
Increased Functionality
The new breed of VoIP includes a desktop call control feature that allows you to manipulate call traffic from your desktop. “You can drag and drop your contact and you can tell if that person is on the phone, or what state they are in, or if in a meeting,” says McCormick. “You can tell all that before you even make the call.”
Increased Efficiency
The same VoIP interaction client software includes a call transfer feature that allows you to “drag” a caller using your computer mouse to anyone who appears in your company directory. “You don’t have to call and then transfer,” says McCormick. “It makes the (communications) flow easier and quicker.”
A unified messaging feature brings the ability for your voicemail to be delivered to an email client. “It gives notification options for when you’re not in the office,” says McCormick. “And if you delete a message from your outlook or email, depending on the system, you can delete the message from the voicemail system all at once.”
Increased Mobility
With VoIP, you can basically take your desktop with you when you’re not in the office. “Mobility clients are extensions of your desktop,” says McCormick. “When I leave the office, I take my extension with me. I can control from my cellphone what I can control from my office.”
Indeed, VoIP offers a mobility feature that can move any phone to any person. It can do extremely complicated routing that may come into place if you had a sales force, for example. “In the office, at home and on the road—you get every call coming,” says Juster. Callers may never have to leave another message. “If you’re not in the office, then the call is routed to your home phone, then to your cell phone—all this can be done with VoIP.”
VoIP also offers single number reachability and number display regardless of which phone someone is using. For example, if you are a physician and want to return a call using your cellphone, your only option was to use *69 to block caller ID. Some people won’t accept a blocked caller ID call. With a single number VoIP feature, a doctor can make a call and show the office phone number if returning a call from their cell phone.
Increased Tracking
Finally, unlike cell phone numbers that often belong to employees, businesses can own VoIP numbers. In an industry like real estate, for example, this impacts the bottom line because if an agent leaves, they often take their cell number and clients with them. This way, phone numbers stay with the business.
Businesses can also track all call activity—whether calling from desktop or cell phone. Moreover, tracking features can be integrated with existing software applications already in use by your business.
Of course, any VoIP features depend on the hosting carrier you choose. But the good news is that most software subscriptions now include free updates. “So instead of having a 5-year-old phone system that’s five years old,” says Juster. “(With VoIP), it’s like having a brand new system all the time.”
SooJi Min is a freelance writer and nonprofit executive based in Ann Arbor, MI. She has written on small business topics for Crain’s, Imagination Publishing and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.