How to Use Hosted VoIP Solutions for Your Small Business

What if you could have a phone system that makes your customer service more effective and allows your employees to work remotely anywhere they are?

What if this phone system requires you to build no infrastructure or upgrade existing infrastructure? What if it’s cheaper and provides even more features than a traditional PBX phone system could?

Interestingly, according to a survey report, 17.4% of small and medium-sized businesses are switching to VoIP because it’s more reliable.

Then you’ll have to use a hosted VoIP solution for your small business to reap these benefits. But first of all, what is a hosted VoIP and how can it change your business for better?

Hosted VoIP: A Quick Look

Hosted VoIP is a Voice over Internet Protocol service for businesses that are usually cloud-based. The service is hosted by an external company to allow companies make and receive phone calls, engage in web meetings, and other activities over the Internet.

For a small business in this Internet age, you want to be able to serve customers from anywhere in the world. This would likely require that you make and receive many international calls. The cost of international calls is expensive for both you and your customers.

This is why you need a hosted VoIP that offers you better quality calls at cheaper prices. But that is not its only benefit.

For every small business, there’s always an aim to expand your business to other states and other countries if possible. This requires a lot of money.

You set up more employees in your branch office and other costs. But if you use a hosted VoIP system, one thing you won’t be thinking of is the cost of new infrastructure for your phone system.

A hosted VoIP solution allows you to create as many branches of your business as possible without having issues with your phone system. It also allows your workers to work remotely while still having access to all the important information they need to have from customers and coworkers.

With hosted VoIP, it’s easy to analyze the data of your calls to your customers and you can also integrate these data with other software packages, for instance, a CRM software.

 

Benefits of a Hosted VoIP

What are the reasons you should embrace a cloud-based VoIP for your small business to provide better customer service?

1. There’s no need for infrastructure as your calls are hosted in the cloud

In the past, companies used on-premise PBX hardware which was expensive for a small business and less effective. Now, with the cloud-based hosted VoIP solutions, this service can be enjoyed by small businesses without having to install equipment at extra cost.

According to Network World, the average lifespan of a PBX is 8.5 years. It means if you install one today, you’ll be looking to replace it in 8 years time.

It is possible to see PBX systems that are 10 or even 15 years old today because it requires considerable costs and works to replace it. This is eliminated in your hosted phone system.

Without this need, there is a faster setup and you don’t need to think about maintenance or management of the hardware.

When Zehnder’s support contract expired on its PBX system, it needed a new system that would allow for flexibility and reduce cost for its over 500 employees making more than 2,000 calls daily. It had to migrate to a hosted VoIP to achieve this.

2. It scales to your needs

When your needs increase as a business, a hosted VoIP service adapts to your need accordingly. With PBX systems, you’ll have to upgrade, which will require modules at extra cost.

A cloud-based VoIP will allow you to scale easily as you can add more staffs to your telephone system without thinking of buying new hardware.

3. It allows your workers to work remotely without losing productivity

You can transfer a call to a staff somewhere else without the caller experiencing a break in transmission. With a PBX system, you’ll have to install equipment at every location of your branch where you want to use the phone system.

Using the cloud-based solution means your workers can work remotely while they are still able to use the telephone system, at no additional cost to your business.

You can have workers in other countries and they’ll be able to maintain the effectiveness of those in the office. Your customers can easily connect with these workers, which makes your business more efficient.

It also gives workers greater flexibility as they can use devices like desk phones, smartphones, tablets (with a mobile app), or computer to connect with customers and their managers at work.

You can carry out web meetings, online faxing and audio conference. This ensures there is an efficient flow of information between workers and everyone has clear instructions about what they need to do.

It also allows for rapid expansion of your business as you can expand at low cost while maintaining the effectiveness of your workplace.

Kate Bendix, the owner of My Itchy Dog, with the use of hosted VoIP, never misses a business call. When she leaves her office, she forwards her calls to her mobile phone.

4. It offers more functionality

With the cloud-based VoIP system, you have access to advanced features like video conferencing and connect centers. You can also integrate your phone systems with a customer relationship management (CRM) software.

This makes information about your customers available in a single place and makes your sales process more effective.

The Hosted VoIP solution for your business

There are many hosted VoIP solutions you can find today. But with Nextiva hosted VoIP, you have all your business needs when it comes to having a phone system that brings out the best for your team.

Nextiva Office VoIP

Nextiva offers 3 plans:

• Office Pro
• Office Pro Plus
• Office Enterprise

Prices for the plan could vary from $19.95 per user per month to $44.95 per user per month. Prices could also be determined by whether you’re going for a 3-year contract or not.

Nextiva allows you to pay on a monthly basis for the service and you can terminate any time. The prices you pay for Nextiva are also flexible depending on the number of users for your business with large number cheaper.

Office Pro Plan

This plan comes with unlimited calling, voicemail-to-email, unlimited virtual faxing, shared call appearance, HD music on hold, and the barge-in tool. You also have access to advanced call management, free toll-free number, free number porting, and free local number.

If you have one to four users, the office pro plan goes for $34.95 per user per month without a contract and $32.95 if you’re going for a 3-year deal. This reduces as the users increase.

If you have 5 to 19 users on the platform, you pay $29.95 which is $5 less than the initial price. From 21 to 99 users, you pay $24.95 per user which is $10 less than the initial fee. You get the best price at $21.95 which is $13 less per user if your business has more than 100 users.

Office Pro Plus Plan

This plan offers everything in pro plan and one professional recorded greeting, conference calling, team presence, and access to the mobile app. The mobile app is available on both Android and iOS to make the features available even when you’re on the move.

For one to four users, it costs $37.95 per user per month without a contract and $35.95 with a 3-year contract. From 5 to 19 users, you pay $5 less per user than the initial price and $10 less when you register 21 to 99 users.

You get the best deal at $13 less than the initial price when you register more than 100 users.

Office Enterprise Plan

This plan offers everything in office pro plus plan and three professional recorded greetings, call recording, and the Nextiva Anywhere feature. This feature allows your calls to be routed to any device of your choice.

This means you can communicate with coworkers and customers while you’re out of office.

Its conference call option allows up to 9 people on a call. However, if you need to have more people on your conference call, you can connect to a conference calling service which allows up to hundred or even more callers on each conference call.

For one to four users, it costs $44.95 per user per month without a contract and $42.95 with a 3-year contract. If you register 5 to 19 users, you get a $5 reduction per user and $10 if you register 21 to 99 users. At over 100 users, you pay $13 less per user.

 

Nextiva also offers contact center solutions which features call queuing, call recording, advanced interactive voice-response (IVR) system. It also offers a remote agent support which allows phone setup for agents who don’t work from the office.

Nextiva offers business intelligence and calls analytics to give you the important information you need to know about your interactions with your customers.

Nextiva provides integrations to services like Oracle, Outlook, Salesforce, SugarCRM, Zendesk, and OneDrive.

Nextiva runs the entire system through its online portal, unlike other services that may still need hardware installation to function.

Through this online portal, you can add employees, assign phone numbers and user IDs, create call queue routes and priorities. You can also assign which features are accessible to each employee.

For any business, uptime of its phone system is important. When your phone system is down, you miss many calls that could lead to loss of business and consequently revenue.

You also don’t want your customers to spread negative word of mouth about your customer support being awful. To prevent all these, Nextiva provides a 99.999% uptime.

If you ever have a challenge with your phone system, Nextiva’s award-winning customer support is available through email, instant chat, and in-house support. You also have access to their FAQs, video tutorials, and e-guides where you can get answers to your questions without reaching the customer support staff.

One thing that is not yet available Nextiva though, is that the pro plan has no access to the mobile app. Nextiva offers a 30-day free trial if you want to try it before making a commitment.

Factors to consider in choosing a VoIP plan for your business

i). Features: This will depend largely on the type of customers you serve and your employee needs. Even if you have a small business but serve high-end clients, you may have to settle for a solution that will offer important features without much regards for penny-pinching.

For a small business though, you may still be able to do without some high-end features which a big business will need. If your business serves a locality, you may have different needs than a business that serves international clients.

ii). Cost: In another case, the cost can be a factor in picking a platform. As a small business, you need to check your accounts before making such a major decision. There are cheap plans that provide all the standard options you may need for your small business.

When your business becomes bigger, you can always upgrade your plan to get more features your business need as a result of this boom.

iii). Plan for expansion: If you plan to expand in the future and you plan to have workers who work from home or at least away from your central office, you need to take this into consideration before choosing a plan.

For some businesses, they prefer having their workers in their office. Even when they plan on expanding, they prefer to build branch offices. Some businesses, however, allow their workers to work remotely if their circumstances require it.

Apart from that, a small business may need to hire freelancers for some tasks that only need to be done once in a while. This would affect the plan you choose as you may need to communicate with them while they work for you.

Conclusion

Using a hosted VoIP solution for your business is a necessity. First, it makes your business more effective at a cheaper cost.

Second, it’s the technology for the future as it allows for easier expansion of your business.

It is important to make the best choice for your business today as you can make your employees more effective and serve your customers better.

Happy employees and happy customers are two set of people every small business needs to thrive in this competitive marketing environment.

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