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By Joe Scotto
Strategic Benefits of VoIP for SMBs
The overriding strategic benefit of VoIP is that it allows companies to stay close to customers and provide them with better service. Among the most direct competitive advantages are:
Seamless connectivity: Organizations today must provide customers and employees with instant access to real-time information and customer service. The ability to seamlessly connect to customers and business processes from anywhere is essential for growing businesses. VoIP extends mobility and productivity by providing employees and business owners with the business tools they need to work more effectively and efficiently wherever they happen to be.
Increased productivity: VoIP enhances employee productivity in a variety of ways. Solutions from vendors such as Avaya enable SMB employees to have a single number (incoming calls follow them to cell phones, for instance) and a single mailbox to listen to both voice and email. These platforms allow employees to retrieve and manage voice messages with e-mail or e-mail messages by phone. They can listen to messages using text-to-speech conversion and convert attachments for printing on a fax machine.
Improved customer service: VoIP allows SMBs to handle customer calls 24/7 and to quickly route incoming calls to the appropriate person. Headsets.com, which also has an Avaya VoIP system, now answers 98 percent of customer service calls within four rings and has increased employee productivity from $500K to $700K per employee.
Reduced costs: VoIP enables SMBs to lower their overall communication costs. They can reduce long distance fees, eliminate conference fees and “expensed” phone bills from home. For example, CAP Ventures, a strategic consulting firm headquartered in Norwell, Mass. cut long distance and teleconferencing costs by up to $30,000 a year and improved its business analysts’ productivity.
These are just a few of the ways SMBs are using VoIP to provide superior customer service, improve business operations and maintain their competitive edge. SMBs increasingly are making the choice to migrate to VoIP as they recognize the inherent advantages of embedding communications technology into the fabric of their business.
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