8 tips for IT teams when choosing a VoIP service.

Choosing a VoIP phone service is an important business decision. Since VoIP technology has many features and long-term benefits, heads of IT have many considerations to review when switching to VoIP. Answer these questions to inform your decision-making:

1. How scalable is the VoIP provider?

In 2021, the Great Resignation—a major increase in employee turnover—is changing the workplace. This trend is one reason it is important to have a VoIP service that can scale up and down with your employee base.

Ask the following questions to understand a VoIP provider’s scalability.

• How long does it take to add a new VoIP user?
• What is involved in removing a VoIP user?
• How does pricing change as you add and remove users? 

2. Will it be easy to manage your service?

As an information technology decision-maker, you need the ability to monitor technology services, including VoIP, regularly. The specific management tools and reports you need will vary depending on the size and complexity of your company. 

Consider the following factors to better understand a VoIP provider’s management tools.

• Is there a single cloud-based management portal or tool to make changes?
• Can you make updates, changes or customizations from essentially anywhere? 
• What types of reports are available (e.g., calling reports, VoIP call quality)?

3. Does the VoIP provider offer all the features your business needs?

VoIP providers vary on their features and capabilities. Beyond making calls, your company may need additional features, such as a mobile app, chat and video conferencing. 

To decide which VoIP features are most important for your business, seek insight from other people in your company. For example, talk to the employees who make the most phone calls like sales, marketing and customer service reps. Once you have a list of must-have features, you can better choose the VoIP provider and plan that meets your needs.

4. How is the voice quality?

Voice quality is an important factor in choosing a VoIP provider. It’s important to know all the technology variables that impact voice quality. For example, if employees have inadequate bandwidth, they may have problems during business calls. Or if a provider routes calls through a data center that is far from where the call originated, that could impact voice quality.

To assess voice quality, ask the following questions:

• Does the VoIP provider offer HD voice? HD voice quality can make it easier to understand people on conference calls.
• Does the VoIP service offer handsets? The hardware in VoIP phones affects the ease of access for many features. Some employees might find it more comfortable to make calls with headsets. If headsets are important to your employees, ask the VoIP provider what devices they support.

5. How easy is it to set up the service?

As an information technology decision-maker, you have to manage limited resources. Multiple departments may ask IT for help in setting up new technologies each year. Therefore, it is important to evaluate how easy it is to set up the VoIP service.

Use the following tips to check if the VoIP provider offers easy setup.

• Do you have to buy additional hardware? Ask if you can use the VoIP service with your current hardware (e.g., desk phones, employee laptops and smartphones) to simplify setup.
• Review the VoIP provider’s documentation. Check to see if the VoIP provider has up-to-date manuals, videos and other online resources to make setup easy.
• Can you install the service by yourself or does it require a technician?

6. Does the VoIP service support remote work?

Remote work (i.e., working from home or on the go) is much more widespread in the wake of the pandemic and should be fully supported by your new VoIP provider.

VoIP providers can support remote working in a variety of ways. Look for the following elements.

• Does the provider offer mobile apps? Apps make it easy for employees to place and receive calls from their preferred devices.
• Does the provider offer advanced features like video conferencing? Ooma Office Pro, for example, offers video conferencing with up to 25 participants.
• Can the provider reduce robocalls? Robocalls make it more difficult for employees to stay focused on their work. Ooma Office Pro automatically blocks more than two million known robocalling numbers.

7. What is the total cost of ownership?

The total cost of ownership (TCO) means considering the up-front cost to purchase and ongoing costs of using an asset. Focusing on the total cost of ownership, rather than monthly charges alone, is helpful in VoIP selection. 

To illustrate the total cost of ownership concept, consider two examples. 

Total cost of ownership for the mobile sales teams.

Let’s say an information technology decision-maker decided to offer VoIP to a small five-employee team with Ooma. These five employees travel a lot for work. Therefore, the team manager said they do not need handsets. Instead, they will use their existing smartphones and download the Ooma mobile app. Finally, the team does need video conferencing to stay in touch with customers. In this scenario, the team would want to use the feature set provided in Ooma Office Pro.

Total cost of ownership for a customer service call center.

Setting up a call center requires a slightly greater investment, but it pays off in terms of how quickly you can respond to customers and resolve their questions or issues. In that scenario, purchasing VoIP phones for each customer service representative may make sense. With Ooma Enterprise, a company gets the benefit of traditional VoIP, chat, video conferencing and VoIP phones and headsets, along with call center capabilities including real-time reporting. Ooma’s unique MyDay dashboard provides manager and agent views so each can see stats on call answer and resolution time, the number of calls, and so on, to help improve performance, customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

8. Does the VoIP provider have a good reputation?

Identify industry leaders by looking for high ratings from publications like PC Magazine to create your shortlist of VoIP providers. PCMag annually surveys readers and awards Business Choice Awards. Ooma Office has won PCMag’s prestigious Business Choice Award for Best VoIP System nine years in a row. In 2021, PCMag readers gave Ooma a 9 out of 10 score for overall satisfaction and high scores in all categories.

Check your cost savings potential.

You’ll likely reduce telecommunications costs by switching to a VoIP provider. To find out how much you can save by moving to Ooma, use our VoIP savings calculator.

To learn more about features and total cost of ownership benefits with Ooma, call 877-618-5987 for a demo and customized quote.