It is truly fascinating to look at how technology has evolved over the years. Every day, we are being presented with solutions to assist us in our daily lives, making tasks just a little bit easier to handle. While detractors will say we have become too dependent on technology, the positives certainly outweigh negatives. Businesses arguably benefit the most from advancements as they can leverage the internet and several other solutions to grow bigger than ever. One of the most important tools that a lot of businesses have been using is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and it’s been steadily rising in popularity over the years. Here are some of the features that can greatly benefit businesses.
Call Routing
Routing is one of the cool features of business phone VoIP, and it can greatly benefit businesses, especially those who rely heavily on phone calls. Using this feature, you can create a list of numbers that the caller will be diverted to before finally going to voicemail. So, how exactly does this work? You could set this feature to ring twice on the office number, after that it moves to your mobile phone on the third, and then a couple of rings later it moves to your home number. If that last option doesn’t work, then the caller will be sent to voicemail. So, in short, the call will follow you around to a list of different numbers that you set in advance.
Bigger Reach
Another very important way in which VoIP can help businesses, particularly smaller ones, is how it can give your company a bigger reach than it actually has. You don’t need to have offices in every city, but you can still connect to your customers there using a programmable virtual number that can deliver calls to any location. You even have the option to change the destination based on certain hours every day. This helps show your customers that you do have a presence in the area since you can use a local area number.
Sophisticated Call Management
Using VoIP, you can control your calls however you see fit. You get to prioritize your calls depending on the business needs, and you can also hold or block numbers if you want. This is a very important feature to help your customer service and front desk agents since it makes it easier to deal with incoming calls, helping you avoid customer frustration and dissatisfaction with the service.
Music Selection on Hold
Ever called a company and they put you on hold? Happens to just about everyone. The problem is you usually get a chilling silence while waiting, or worse, ridiculous tunes you’d only hear in an elevator. VoIP gives you the option to customize the music you play your customers while they wait, which is infinitely better since you can choose good music.
Rejecting Anonymous Calls
If there is one thing a call center agent hates, it’s getting pointless calls that serve to waste their time and energy. With VoIP, you have an anonymous call rejection option. The system rejects any calls coming from anonymous callers or those who have blocked their caller ID, using this feature. This makes it easier for your employees to help customers who really need something.
Call Monitoring
One of the biggest challenges that a lot of business owners face is training their agents to properly deal with customers on the phone, which can cause quite a few problems. With VoIP, you can actually listen in on the conversations to monitor employee performance. It gets better; you can even coach the agent while they are still on the line with the customers, without the latter knowing. So, you can give them tips instead of waiting for the call to end.
Virtual Assistant
Also known as an auto-attendant, this is one of the best features in VoIP that can help a lot of businesses. This feature allows you to direct customers to the next action using automated menus. So, this attendant reroutes and answers calls without you having to put an agent on it. This means agents can avoid having to answer routine calls only to redirect them to another person, which helps them keep their energy throughout the day. It also makes your business look professional and saves you hiring costs as well.
VoIP can take your business to the next level. It comes with a ton of features that will help your company look a lot more professional while optimizing performance and making it easier to streamline calls and deal with them more professionally. Even your agents will find it much easier to take customer calls using VoIP. Most importantly, it will also save you costs in the long run.