Small to medium-sized business owners are often on the lookout for ways to cut costs in their everyday business activities. So it comes as no surprise that some are looking into migrating to VoIP as a potential solution to help bring down expenses, while maintaining reliable phone service. If you are one of these companies, here are some questions to ask when considering migration to VoIP.
Probably the most important element to consider is the level of call quality. If the parties involved in a phone call cannot understand each other, then certainly nothing was accomplished by moving your business to VoIP. Here at Whole I.T. Solutions, we can help you assess your specific environment, i.e. your routers, network traffic and the like, to determine what you can expect by switching to VoIP.
Another element to consider is the VoIP provider’s number of data centers. If they have only one, or if they have more but they are not geographically disbursed, if the vendor’s data center(s) go down, this means your company will be out of phone service until they are back online. Also ask potential VoIP vendors for documentation which proves their up time in recent years. Up time is their system’s ability to make and receive phone calls. If they cannot show you their up time was at least 99.999%, their ability to provide you with reliable phone service is questionable.
Another thing to determine is if the provider offers automatic failover. Their systems should constantly monitor phone call status and automatically failover to another predetermined destination when required. Otherwise your company might be temporarily without phone service.
In addition, if you have to be the one to alert them when issues arise, they are not providing reliable service. A good vendor will monitor your service 24/7/365 and take appropriate action when needed, without a phone call from you.
Lastly, any good VoIP provider will offer a money-back guarantee in writing. Before you sign on the dotted line, ask to see it and make sure you thoroughly understand the conditions where they would honor their money-back guarantee.
If you would like to know more about VoIP and what it can do for your company, please contact us.
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