When you investigate Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions for your business’s communications, you will find many benefits. VoIP often costs far less than an on-premise phone system. It offers easy number portability. You can connect many distant offices or remote employees behind a single phone number and system, making it easy for your clients to reach you and for your people to talk to each other. Contrary to the hype, however, this extremely flexible solution cannot do everything to create breakthrough results for your business.
Here is a partial list of the things VoIP cannot do when you are trying to move the dial.
Help you win Brewster’s Millions
In the film “Brewster’s Millions,” a minor league baseball pitcher finds that he’s the sole heir of a very wealthy man. As part of the will, the wealthy man offers Brewster a challenge: To accept an inheritance of one million dollars or triple his money by spending $30 million in 30 days. If Brewster can spend the money without having anything to show for it, he will inherit $300 million. Of course, VoIP isn’t giving you a cash challenge from deep pockets.
However, a VoIP solution often saves money when compared to Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) or expensive on-premise switching solutions. So if you want to spend money as fast as possible, VoIP is probably not for you. This also applies to businesses designed to lose money as a tax write-off. If that’s your goal, invest in a several Private Branch Exchange (PBX) machines for your company.
Communicate with the other side
Although many VoIP plans come with long distance calling, you still cannot call the spirit world with them. So if someone within your company with vital business knowledge gets hit by a bus (heaven forbid!), you’ll have to use storefront mediums to reach across the great divide and pick their brain. Or you can use your VoIP solution to call 1-900 astrologers and clairvoyants, but toll charges might apply.
If you actually want to connect and collaborate with living, breathing team members and customers, VoIP is all over that – whether you are in the office, on the road or working from your branch or home office. A VoIP solution gives you flexibility, functionality and portability that allows your work to follow you in a much less creepy way than that wayward spirit who’s just trying to get your attention with all those open cabinets in the kitchen.
Convince your competitors that their businesses are haunted
Some business plans may approach gaining advantage by convincing competitors that their businesses or premises are haunted so as to pick up their assets (and frightened employees) cheaply and edge out the alternative options tempting prospects. However, although a VoIP solution provides flexible ways to transmit voice from place to place, it cannot covertly play spooky moans from your competitor’s supply closet. If your business plan requires fake haunting, you will probably still need to learn ventriloquism and dress up in a horrific mask.
VoIP may also be able to help you improve your customer service and satisfaction, not to mention your cost structure so you can deliver better solutions to your own customers for a results-based advantage over the competition. But either way, a VoIP system will help you coordinate both well-intentioned and mischievous deeds with your associates more efficiently.
Make you smarter
Sure, VoIP is probably a wise choice for your voice communications and more, but there’s no guarantee it will actually make you more intelligent. It only demonstrates your existing wisdom. With voice communications that offer better quality than many cell phone calls, VoIP can deliver your ideas and enthusiasm more clearly and reliably to your co-workers, however savvy you happen to be already. So don’t zero out the training budget.
Bear in mind, this is only a partial list of things VoIP cannot do for you. But what it can do – the cost savings, the portability and the extensibility – it does very well indeed. We look forward to helping you find out how to make the most of its strengths to maximize yours for greater business results.
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