Business VoIP: Your Phone in the Cloud
The Cloud Advantage:
How does VoIP work? A customer calls your number, just as they would if you had a traditional land line. The call is routed via your VoIP company to the phones of your choosing. Your VoIP provider does all the routing, sending your calls to you via your Internet connections.
It's not just a cheaper way to communicate; it's better. You can think of your business VoIP service a bit like a webmail provider: a communication tool accessible from anywhere you have Internet access. This is something often referred to as service in the cloud. An Internet-based phone service is no longer in the office, it's wherever you are. Because your telecommunications are not limited to a certain location, you can take advantage of these could-based voice technologies wherever you go.
Taking the pain out of voicemail:
Ask anyone who's used a traditional office phone setup and they'll tell you that voicemail is the bane of their office existence. Checking a message is an archaic, multi-step process that involves listening to counter-intuitive instructions ("press one to listen, press two to record..." with the one command you probably really want at the very end). Office workers frequently leave messages unlistened-to and undeleted because, well, it's just too much trouble. Phones were meant for calling, not managing messages.
VoIP saves you the voicemail headaches by offering multiple, user-friendly ways to retrieve and delete your messages. Voice messages can arrive in your email box or be accessed via the web; some VoIP providers even have smart phone apps that allow you to check your voicemail with a simple, intuitive menu system. Also, many VoIP companies offer voice-to-text transcriptions, making every message read just like email. So you spend much less time on the phone, and more time handling your business.
Miss the old way? You can do that too, from your office phone, or any phone around the world.
Receive and make calls, anywhere you go:
Call forwarding allows you to set your office extension to forward calls to any number: home, mobile, hotel, or a remote office. And because your call control is handled online, you can change these settings by simply visiting the website of your business VoIP service provider and logging into your account.
Many business VoIP providers also give you the flexibility to make calls remotely using the unlimited calling minutes they provide, via smart phone apps or virtual calling cards.
Freedom from the fax machine:
Just as you no longer have to be near a phone to manage your voicemail, you don't have to be near a fax machine to send or receive a fax. VoIP handles more than just voice, it handles data too. Not only does this save paper, toner, and ink, it allows you to send and receive faxes from the comfort of your own computer.
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