Many small to medium businesses have found that a Hosted VoIP Phone Service has improved their customer service. Due to the fact that the entry cost of a hosted phone service platform is very low, these businesses have been able to take advantage of programmatic features that simply were not available through their previous analog phones or PBX. A few of the specific features that have improved their customer service are as follows:
- Advanced Call Routing – Many businesses want their incoming phone calls answered by a person, and not via an auto attendant or receive a recording. Digital VoIP platforms can create ring patterns where the phone can ring a primary, secondary, and additional groups of people to ensure that the call will be answered. If there is a receptionist, the individual can also transfer a call into a ring group for a common function, giving multiple people the chance address a customer need. Your hosted VoIP service provider should be able to consult with you on a variety of different ways your call flow can be programmed to best meet the needs of your customers and your business.
- Auto Attendant – Even if your company prefers a “live” answer, it is helpful to have an auto attendant serving as a back-up. If your receptionist is juggling too many calls or secondary ring groups are unavailable or busy, and auto attendant can kick in and serve as a traffic cop. Thus, the auto attendant can be deployed with an hours of operation message, with instructions to have the customer select certain departments (which would route to a ring group), corporate directories, and other customizable options. Of course, this model, if well designed, can also sit on the front end for effective call routing and by-pass a reception function all together.
It is always recommended to have an auto attendant for after-hours routing. You may have an emergency service line to have customers select. Sometimes there are simply after-hours calls that can be routed via an extension dial or directory listing to an employee’s extension or voicemail.
- Improved Access to Mobile Employees – Many businesses have sales associates, service personnel or other functions that are mobile and out of the office frequently. Hosted VoIP service provides a number of options to meet the demands of your callers to these types of associates. You could choose to have the employee’s office phone and cell phone ring simultaneously for calls made to the employee’s extension. Of course, the office phone could be forwarded to the cell phone when the employee is out of the office. Additionally, through unified communication features, remote employees can receive their voicemails to their email so they can be alerted to messages when received on their smart cell phone. Faxes can be delivered to email as well, so the remote employee will know when that important fax came in.
Small and medium business can receive these advanced features and not have to invest in an expensive phone system. Hosted providers basically provide the phone system via the internet and your digital office phones are literally connected to that phone system via the office LAN.
Finally, with the entry costs being fairly low (price of phones and potentially some other minor connectivity equipment), users of a hosted VoIP phone service many times see lower monthly service fees when compared to their previous analog service. So, these businesses experience low entry costs, monthly savings, AND an improvement in customer service. Why not at least explore a hosted voip phone service for your business?
About the author: Mark Greim is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at sipVine, a provider of a variety of digital phone solutions and services. Mark has extensive experience working for start-up or entrepreneurial organizations and a passion for affordable, reliable, and purposeful technology solutions in those environments.
