High-quality phone systems are a necessity in any business because their efficiency dictates how the relationship with potential and existing clients will go. A company needs to guarantee continuous service to customers, or else they run the risk of losing them.
Phone systems haven't been around for too long, but they've become the leading voice of businesses looking to provide their services non-stop. They're also crucial for keeping employees in touch with each other when there's a long-distance connection between offices and teams.
Cloud-based unified communications can elevate a phone system to a whole new level, something that was very needed in the industry. These solutions strengthen and expand a company's control and provide better functionality over their business phones.
Innovation breeds progress, and we've seen a new type of phone system appear that's quickly becoming the best in class support thanks to its increased flexibility, advanced features, and cost-efficient services.
That phone system is called 'managed voice services.' This article will explore the intricacies of managed voice services and analyze their usefulness as a voice service benefiting a business.
Managed voice systems are the latest phone system technology where hardware, internet connection, and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) are combined into a single package. This package is managed by a service provider who also oversees your phones for you.
Small and even medium-sized businesses that don't have IT staff to handle their phone network needs will benefit significantly from the use of managed voice solutions. A managed voice service combines data and voice into one network with integration for both.
Voice and data traffic is a breeze for managed voice solutions since it doesn't differentiate between five or fifty lines; it can handle even more than that. As for the costs, they are adjusted according to what your business requires, specifically the number of phone lines it's utilizing.
The methodology behind the inner workings of a managed voice system isn't complicated. If anything, it's a fairly straightforward process that requires the bare minimum involvement from a client business.
Once a business hires a managed voice services company, the system setup is immediate and relatively quick. The managed voice services company will first implement and deploy a VoIP system at your business's location.
This is done by analyzing the client's existing internet connection and equipment to determine what kind of VoIP system is needed. After installation, the managed voice and data company will oversee and manage the newly-installed VoIP service to keep its performance at a consistently high level.
These managed services need to be active 24/7, and it's the job of the managed voice company to guarantee that. After all, you want all data traffic to be free-flowing and without any potential interruptions that could damage the relationship between business and customer.
Voice and data traffic is prevalent in numerous industries, so these cloud-based solutions are often present in businesses. Specifically, if a business communicates using telephone services, chances are that they're using some form of managed voice solutions.
However, companies who make calls often (such as those in customer support, customer services, and sales) will benefit from cloud-based unified communications the most. Remember that the cost of said solutions scales with phone usage, so smaller businesses can also improve their entire system with an affordable and efficient option.
Having unified communications and a 'third-party' monitoring incoming calls is an excellent choice for both small and large businesses. Larger businesses may choose this low maintenance solution to free up time for their IT staff, while smaller ones usually pick it because they lack the funds to employ IT staff in the first place.
In any case, managed voice services have many benefits, with the most prominent being lessening the company's responsibility to manage its own calls and communication.
Managed voice solutions are packed with features of all kinds; standard features such as delayed call forwarding, voicemail, call pickup, and advanced features that weren't previously available to medium-sized or small businesses.
On top of that, one platform that's cloud-based is much smaller in size than traditional communication networks and generally doesn't take up any space (unless new phone lines need to be installed).
As part of the benefits, a managed voice system's versatility and upgradeability mean that the equipment (predominantly software) can be kept up to date at all times. Upgrading is as simple as doing it to one phone, and the rest will follow since everything is connected through the cloud.
Additionally, managed voice systems used a private distributed network, not a public one. This makes such systems highly secure and private. Managed voice systems prioritize voice traffic to provide a high-quality, consistent connection for all calls on one platform or network.
Advanced VoIP technology covers a wide range of solutions to prominent communication issues that a single IP circuit wouldn't be able to handle. Its advanced calling features make it a comprehensive, easy to use, easy to upgrade, secure, and highly customizable system.
You wouldn't find such a powerful voice service with any other communications system, not even instant messaging, which has become the norm in today's world.
A traditional hosted PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is susceptible to communication blackouts in the event of a single internal failure or damage to the system.
Compared to them, managed voice solutions feature redundancies in case of any failures. The staff will overlook all operations and deal with any network problems swiftly, preventing communication loss from happening. This way, you'll continue to have constant contact with clients and won't have to worry about any issues whatsoever.
This type of communication solution is very cost-effective and efficient due to how it is conceptualized. For starters, these systems rarely use equipment in the form of hardware which makes them already cheaper than traditional communication systems.
The lack of physical equipment also means that you won't have to spend money and time training new staff; the company that installed your managed voice solution will take care of everything, minimizing the loss of capital for your business.
As said previously, such a solution to communication between employees and clients is easily upgraded depending on the business's needs. This can also lower costs, especially if the business uses traditional PBX systems.
Whether you want more features or a better overall experience, managed communication systems are highly scalable and upgradeable.
Larger companies that hire local IT talent generally don't want to waste their potential by putting them on phone duty. There are numerous activities and work to be done by IT staff within a company, with some being more important than the topic of this article.
Managed communication systems allow companies to move said staff onto other projects while essentially 'automating' the communication process by using managed voice platforms.
There are even more positive sides to using said platforms, but these are the main ones. Overall, it's safe to say that instant messaging and traditional contact systems are slowly being replaced by newer, more efficient technology.