VoIP phone numbers for business are a must-have necessity. Workplaces have converted themselves into hybrid culture, and the importance of maintaining a smooth flow of communication is necessary. So, choosing a VoIP business phone service is not only beneficial to the company, but at the same time finding a VoIP phone system acts as a connection point between your team and customers. But it is always a matter of concern to decide which VoIP phone providers should be chosen according to your business requirements.
In this blog, we will discuss the 7 important features to look for in a VoIP business phone that enables a smooth workflow and facilitates your business growth.
Important features in VoIP phone numbers for business
AI-Powered Auto-Attendant & Multi-Level IVR
When a customer dials your virtual phone number for business, they shouldn’t be met with busy lines and long waiting queues. An auto-attendant resolves this problem by acting as a digital receptionist welcoming each and every caller. But with the updates in features, a smart IVR (Interactive Voice Response), can take further steps ahead that are necessary for running the system in a smooth flow. With the intervention of AI in IVR, the system can now:
1.Route calls according to the caller’s intent
2. Provide recorded answers to general queries
3. Provide self-service options to ensure employee welfare
This helps the caller to get redirected to available agents and resolve their queries faster, thereby ensuring a good customer experience for them and increasing employee retention.
Mobile & Desktop App Integration
A VoIP phone system will help you restrict yourself from sticking to the same place. The real advantage of a great virtual phone system for small businesses is the freedom and flexibility it provides. You get to pick up calls even if you are not at your desk. With this feature you can:
1. Check whether your agent is free, on call or in a meeting to pass on the leads
2. You can easily switch from your desktop to mobile phone without any obstacle in communication flow
Advanced Call Routing
Through a basic call routing system, we can handle all the calls without getting anything missed. But advanced call routing systems add an intelligent layer to this process by passing the call to the appropriate agent who deals with the specific section of the query. This system definitely impacts the efficiency of your business by increasing your first call resolution rate.
Intelligent call routing ensures that it uses its predefined logic to transfer the call to match the customer’s needs with the agent’s capability. Imagine an IT firm, where a call related to a software issue is directed to x and a call related to network setup is directed to y. This ensures skill-based routing thereby reducing customers’ frustration and ensuring their ease of use. Also, this feature allows the queries after your working hours to be routed to an on-call manager or a voicemail box, thereby ensuring every call is answered, and customers’ expectations are met.
HD Voice Quality & Reliability
Call clarity used to be an issue earlier. Many businesses lost sales due to latency and jitter. But now every VoIP business phone service must offer HD call clarity. But before enabling this you need to ensure that your business has set up the basics ready, like:
1. Wired connection
2. Quality of service implementation
3. Network equipment upgrade
4. Performance monitoring
Seamless CRM & Business Tool Integration
For every business platform, a smooth workflow needs to be ensured. To achieve it, the seamless flow of information removes confusion and chaos, especially in a workplace with several employees working on different sections. For example, in the case of a call center or a sales team, whenever a customer calls, with the use of CRM, a screen pops up with the customer’s history of purchase, tickets, and behavior. This helps the employee handle the calls smoothly and improve their first call resolution rates. Also, this allows them to use the average handle time and improve time efficiency.
In the case of VoIP CRM integration, connecting your phone system to CRM allows you to automatically log calls, records, etc… so the employees can reduce their workload because they won’t need to do manual entries anymore.
SMS/MMS Business Messaging
The modern customer bunch might not be available via calls every time. But if the VoIP phone number for business can send them text messages, you might stand up for a chance. By using your number for SMS, you can:
1. Send appointment reminders or shipping updates.
2. Keep personal and professional texts strictly separate on your mobile device.
3. Centralize all communications so your team can see the full history of a customer’s journey across both voice and text.
Analytics & Real-Time Reporting
The difference in using a simple traditional landline system and a budget friendly call management system is in the data it provides. This helps small business enterprises make data driven decisions and strategize accordingly.
What does call data reveal?
Your phone system provides you with continuous and real time market data that you might have been overlooking. Basic call analytics and reporting provide insights like:
1. Missed calls: the data of time and duration it took.
2. Peak hours: shows data of when customers are trying to reach your service often.
3. Call duration shows data of what kind of calls or what issue related calls took more time.
4. Agent performance: Measures the average handle time and first call resolution period of each employee.
Analysis of this data helps you move beyond merely reacting to calls and strategizing your business efficiently.
With a basic analysis you can stop guessing and start optimizing:
1. Identify peak call times to adjust staff: if you see a churn of customers via missed calls in a certain hour of the day repeatedly, you can use this data to employ more staff to this time of the hour thereby reducing the problem.
2. Track which marketing campaigns generate major leads: by assigning a certain unique number to specific marketing campaigns you will be able to identify your marketing fund to the specific area of customer interest.
Adopting this call analytics feature enables you to scale your business in future according to the growth. You can easily implement and add new features such as CRM, etc… to efficiently handle the proceedings. This feature will provide you with foundational metrics to track profitability and scale operations smoothly.
Selecting a reputable service provider
With the necessary requirements checklist in mind, you need to select the right service provider who fits all your business requirements. Bonvoice is a cloud telephony service provider who ticks all the boxes in your checklist. But at the same time, you need to ensure the service whichever business phone system provider you select provides:
- Reliability
- Pricing
- Scalability
- Customer support
Conclusion
The decision to upgrade the old and outdated private branch exchange or PBX to a cloud-based business phone system is a critical step in business growth for small businesses. But taking it forward hastily often leads the management to overlook the critical foundation steps. A failed business phone system of migration can swiftly erode all the expected outcomes.
If it happens, the short-term effect will be like a poorly executed switch that can lead to prolonged downtime, resulting in missed calls, frustrated clients, and lost sales. While in the long term, employees are left with a confusing, half-implemented new phone system, leading to employee frustration and potential customer churn due to poor call quality.
Bonvoice specializes in guiding small and medium-sized businesses to migrate from traditional PBX phone systems for small business to reliable VoIP business phone systems for small business. These mistakes are the predictable, high-impact pitfalls we help companies avoid every day with our expertise.
Ready to implement the best VoIP phone number for business? Visit our website or book a demo with us.
Footnotes:
Buesing, Eric, and Daphne Luchtenberg. “The Hidden Value of Voice Conversations: Part 1, Trends and Technologies.” McKinsey & Company, 14 Sept. 2022, https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/the-hidden-value-of-voice-conversations-part-1-trends-and-technologies.
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