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6 Reasons Going VoIP Can Save You Time and Money

 “Time is money.” Never has that old adage been truer than the modern day. At a time when a matter of minutes can mean the difference between making a deal and missing an opportunity, instant connectivity matters more now than ever. Fortunately, business VoIP phone service is helping small business owners remain competitive, not just in cost savings but also in redeeming and reclaiming time. Let’s look at a few other ways your company can save and benefit by switching to business VoIP phone service.

1. Save Commute Times with Remote Access

In the days of landlines, you had to be physically in the office to take a call or return a call. (How many business opportunities were lost because business owners couldn’t be in two places at once?) With business VoIP phone service, remote access is a breeze, meaning you can answer important phone calls anywhere you have Internet access, whether at your home office or on your smartphone while you’re on the road. The simple ability to take or return a call now can add up to many hours of saved productive time—not to mention possibly thousands of dollars in sales.

2. Save Employee Productivity with Instant Connectivity

Digium compiled some interesting numbers regarding employee productivity and VoIP service as part of a unified communications (UC) strategy. According to its data, the average employee saves 40 minutes per day by having one interface for email, voicemail and fax, as well as 30 minutes a day by having remote access to communications. In fact, all told, the average company of 100 employees can reclaim nearly 50,000 work hours per year just by using integrated cloud-based communications services like VoIP business phone services.

3. Save Downtime on Maintenance, Servicing and Upgrades

With landline service, almost any phone trouble, maintenance need or change in configuration requires a visit from a phone technician, often resulting in hours of downtime while changes are made. With business VoIP phone service, configurations are virtual and upgrades are software-based, meaning an IT professional can make changes in minutes.

4. Long-Distance Fees Reduced or Eliminated

Conventional phone carriers must typically charge long distance or interstate fees for out-of-area calls, and even more for international long distance. With VoIP services, there are typically no long distance fees for calls in the U.S., and international calls cost a fraction of what they would via landlines. If your company transacts a lot of business overseas, you can easily save thousands of dollars per year by replacing wired phone service with VoIP phone system.

5. Save on Hardware Costs and Maintenance

Setting up a conventional business telephone usually means installing and maintaining expensive PBX boxes configured to the company’s phone and fax needs. With Internet-based business VoIP phone systems, these costs are essentially eliminated because your PBX is handled virtually. Instead of installing separate hardware systems for Internet and phone networks, your phone and Internet are integrated into one setup, potentially cutting your network maintenance costs by half or more.

6. Save on Upgrades

Anytime a landline phone system requires servicing or upgrades, you must pay for a technician to come on site to repair or replace hardware and reconfigure your system. With cloud-based business VoIP phone service, these upgrades are typically software-based and can be handled virtually, at little or no cost to you.

In today’s digital age, many small businesses need VoIP phone service in order to remain competitive—and given the ways VoIP Phone Service can save you time and money in the process, you have ever fewer reasons not to make the switch. To learn how we can set you up with high quality, reliable business VoIP phone service, call 1-877-NetServ today.

How Enterprise Companies Use VoIP Service Differently than Your Small Business

These days, more and more businesses are seeing the advantage of switching out their traditional phone systems for Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems. In fact, nearly one-third of all companies now use VoIP phone service for business. While the majority of these are small businesses, the fact is that VoIP is a great tool for businesses of any size. As more enterprise companies discover VoIP, they’re figuring out how to use it more efficiently and profitably than their small-business counterparts. Let’s talk about what your larger competitors are doing with VoIP that you probably aren’t—and what you can do to become more competitive. 

Large Businesses Make the Most of VoIP Features 

Perhaps the most important way enterprise companies use VoIP better is that they utilize many features that you probably do not. Features like call forwarding, call park, auto-attendant, call screening, on-hold music, queue callback, and many other VoIP features are affordable and easy to use once you learn them. Chances are your larger competitors are making the most of these services, making themselves more productive and profitable. 

Large Businesses Integrate VoIP with Other Applications 

Another huge benefit of VoIP systems is how well they integrate with other applications. Your larger competition has most likely integrated their VoIP with their CRM and other applications, allowing them to take and process calls without ever leaving their CRM interface. They probably have also utilized a Unified Communications system which allows them to combine their phone, videoconferencing, and messaging seamlessly–all of which saves time and money and helps boost revenues. 

Large Companies Have a Full-Time IT Staff 

Whether they’re using cloud computing services or on-site servers, large enterprise companies take their IT networks seriously, including their VoIP service. Many of them keep a full-time IT staff on hand to maintain, troubleshoot, and scale their network as they grow. This should come as no surprise to smaller businesses who can’t necessarily afford full-time IT, but the end result is that large companies experience very little downtime–and therefore can be more present for their customers. 

How You Can Use VoIP to Be More Competitive 

If you feel overwhelmed and demoralized by the advantages we’ve described above, take heart. Even if your business is small, you can use VoIP in many of the same ways as your larger counterparts to give yourself a more competitive edge. Here’s how: 

• Utilize more features. Even VoIP systems for small businesses offer extensive features at an affordable price, and these systems are easily scalable. Start learning and taking advantage of these features, and you’ll be able to function with the same level of professionality as your larger competitors. 

• Integrate VoIP with your other business systems. You can develop an elegant integration between VoIP and CRM, accounting programs like QuickBooks, email platforms like Gmail, and more. Integrations are easy to create–especially with cloud computing services that don’t require any programming skills at all. 

• Hire a managed IT service. You can’t afford a full-time IT staff, but the fact is you don’t need one to be competitive. A managed IT service can be your own 24-7 help desk, monitoring, troubleshooting, and maintaining your network in the background at very affordable rates. 

If you’re an Orange County small business looking for ways to utilize business VoIP to become more competitive, NetServ can help. To learn more about our VoIP service for business and managed IT services, call 1-877-NetServ today. 

A Short and To-the-Point Small Business VoIP Buyers Guide

So you’ve decided that a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system is the best move for your small business—but now the real decision making begins. In recent years, VoIP has become so popular that carriers and vendors have flooded the marketplace, offering a huge array of plans, equipment, accessories, etc. How can you figure out the best solution for your company’s needs?

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How Bad Guys Use VoIP—and How to Protect Yourself from VoIP Scams

With every new technology that thrills us with its possibilities, there is also the accompanying fear that the same new tech can be hijacked to exploit the unsuspecting consumer. VoIP has become a mainstay for small business communications for many good reasons—but it’s also become a breeding ground for bad guys to create new scams and hacking techniques to steal personal information, and ultimately money. Let’s look at some ways these new cybercriminals misuse VoIP and how you can safeguard your business from them.

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3 Reasons Going VoIP Can Save You That Most Precious of All Commodities—Time

“Time is money.” Never has that old adage been truer than the modern day. At a time when a matter of minutes can mean the difference between making a deal and missing an opportunity, instant connectivity matters more now than ever. Fortunately, Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology is helping small business owners remain competitive, not just in cost savings but also in redeeming and reclaiming time. Let’s look at three ways going VoIP can save precious time, which you can turn into actual money.

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Here’s How Switching to VoIP Can Save Your Small Business Money

Small businesses are switching from traditional landlines to VoIP at an incredible clip these days. In fact, according to data compiled by The VoIP Report, 70 percent of businesses now report using cloud-based unified communications (including VoIP services), while standard telecommunications services are losing about 700,000 customers a month. Aside from the many benefits of mobility and instant communication options VoIP provides, one of the biggest reasons to make the switch from landlines is the cost savings, which The VoIP Report estimates as about 45 percent for the average small business. Let’s look at some specific ways your small business can save money by switching to VoIP services.

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