With residential households dumping their landline phone service in favor of their cell service in ever increasing numbers, business leaders are also evaluating their options for phone service. However, there are several areas of consideration before making this decision, and simply dumping one for the other isn't always the best solution. It’s important to weigh all the factors before choosing either VoIP service or a slew of cell phones. Things to take into account include:
Cost Considerations - Certainly, cost favorability would be a reason businesses would even consider dumping their landline for a cell phone. However, even the smallest of businesses find value in what a phone system can do, especially a feature-rich VoIP system. It’s important to consider the shelf-life of cell phones versus that of business phone systems, and the frequency with which cell phone are damaged, stolen or lost.
Caller Experience - When a customer is calling your business, they need to be directed to the individual who can best handle their needs. Deploying handsets with individual phone numbers to each employee would work for callers who call direct to those associates, but cell phones aren't designed to work together. Transferring calls, establishing hunt groups, knowing if others are on the phone or not and dialing by extension are all functions that go away with cell phone only deployments. Simply put, if call handling is not efficient for your staff, it certainly won’t be efficient for the caller.
Call Quality - Face it, you know when you're talking with someone on their cell phone. The call simply isn't as clear as when you're talking on a landline or a quality VoIP connection. It is subject to drops as well. Further, if an associate needs to be working at a computer, a blue tooth or headset device for the cell phone would be necessary. These tools for those type of phones can degrade the call quality even further. This is probably not what most business would want as a reflection of their brand.
Using Cell Phones and VoIP Phones in Tandem
You don’t necessarily have to choose one or the other, as you can incorporate cell phones into the mix to enhance the caller experience. Your staff can have a simultaneous ring of their desk phone and cell phone to improve the chance that they're available to take a call. Or, the cell phones of certain associates can be provided an extension on the system to allow for easy transfer to that individual. Finally, smart phones can download an application that will allow for their phone to have a direct dial / extension on the system. When calling from the application, the phone delivers the company caller ID, not the cell phone caller ID.
Businesses deploying a hosted VoIP service can get all of the features of an enterprise level phone system, but at a very affordable cost. The initial investment only includes the VoIP phones, as the system is hosted by the provider. The monthly service cost can be less than traditional phone service as well. And as noted above, there’s always an option to layer in cell phone service for added ease of use and off-hours availability. Unfortunately, there are too many flaws in cell phone only deployments for business to consider it a viable alternative to a business phone system and the service that comes with it. Hosted VoIP service offers a savings opportunity and features your staff (and customers) will love.
About the author: Mark Greim is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at sipVine, a provider of a variety of VoIP phone solutions and services. Mark has extensive experience working for start-up or entrepreneurial organizations and has a passion for affordable, reliable, and purposeful technology solutions in those environments.
