Are you looking for a VoIP solution, but feel unsure of what features you need? We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the most important VoIP requirements to make your software selection journey easier.
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If your company makes and receives a significant volume of phone calls annually, it’s imperative to find a good VoIP software – and even more important to find one that suits your unique business needs. Investing in a reliable business phone system ensures seamless communication and can significantly enhance your overall operational efficiency.
Read on to learn more!
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What Is VoIP?
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a phone technology that makes and receives calls using an internet connection, rather than a regular telephone or cellular network. It works by converting your voice into a compressed digital signal that’s sent over the internet. When it’s received, the signal is uncompressed, turning back into the audio you hear.
With VoIP, you can make calls using your laptop, desktop, smartphone or any other network device, without the need for a telephone service. You can use it at home, in your office or on the go. All you need is a strong internet connection.
A standard VoIP system includes a desk phone and a SIP (Session Initial Protocol) server that plugs directly into a router and connects to your service provider, establishing and maintaining your network of devices. A VoIP phone can also be forwarded to any landline or cellphone, reducing compatibility issues.
Making calls over the internet allows you to connect with employees and customers worldwide without the long-distance and international fees usually charged by telephone providers. VoIP also reduces costs associated with hardware, data storage and cellular network bandwidth. Its flexibility makes it an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes.
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Key Requirements
You know your business best. It’s important to consider which areas of your business need the most attention, and which capabilities are essential to your daily operations. Factors to take into account include your company size, your budget, any industry-specific needs and plans you may have to scale.
The following is a checklist of essential VoIP requirements:
1. Auto Attendant
A high call volume is overwhelming for any business to handle. Unanswered calls and long wait times for callers negatively impacts customer experience. 83% of customers expect to engage with someone immediately when contacting a company, but that isn’t always the case.
An auto attendant system can save the day. It prompts callers to respond to menu options using their phone keypad, and uses that information to automatically direct their calls to the appropriate person or department.
Creating an auto attendant. Source
Although it doesn’t completely replace agents, it can answer, sort and triage multiple calls simultaneously, allowing your employees to spend more time talking to your customers. Its 24/7 availability allows you to serve customers even when your agents are off the clock.
The system can also play pre-recorded greetings and company-related messages to callers while they’re on hold.
2. Call Routing
Customers get annoyed and impatient if they can’t get the help they need. Transferring calls to the wrong agents or departments wastes time for employees and leaves customers unsatisfied.
With a call routing or ACD system, you can queue and distribute incoming calls to the agents best-suited to answer them. This helps reduce call abandonment rates and hold times while increasing agent productivity and customer satisfaction.
To make the most of this feature, it’s best to research and identify the most common customer concerns and analyze your caller demographics. You can also choose from different types of call routing, depending on your needs. Common options include:
- Round-robin, which distributes calls equally among agents.
- Uniform, which sends calls to the employee who has been idle for the longest time.
- Regular, which sends calls to the next available agent on the team.
- Simultaneous, which sends calls to multiple team members at once.
3. Caller ID
As the name suggests, caller ID helps you see which person or business is calling. You can identify the caller in two ways: by number and by name. Some softwares provide it as a built-in feature, while others offer it as an additional service.
In a 2021 report by Hiya, 85% of respondents said they assume calls from unknown numbers are fraudulent. Identifying spam calls, telemarketers and robocalls helps your employees easily differentiate them from potential customers and clients.
VoIP allows you to set your outgoing caller ID too, so your company name and primary business number are displayed at all times.
4. Voicemail
What happens when someone calls your number and you can’t pick up? You not only miss their call — you may miss out on a potential customer.
Make sure customers can always reach out, even outside of business hours, with voicemail. Voicemail to email functionality forwards audio files and transcripts to agents’ email inboxes, ensuring that messages don’t get lost.
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5. Call Recording
Record and save audio conversations with vendors, clients and colleagues on the cloud with call recording. You can go back and access these files as needed, eliminating time spent taking notes and reducing the possibility of error from misremembered or misrecorded information.
This feature also provides transparency into employee performance, allowing you to listen to their conversations with callers and evaluate how to improve customer experience.
6. Business Text Messaging
Business text messaging centers mainly around SMS, but has recently evolved to include apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat too. It’s a quick and cost-effective feature that enables two-way communication for businesses, connecting them with customers, partners and vendors via convenient, popular platforms.
Creating marketing campaigns for consumers. Source
According to a report published by eMarketer, 70% of consumers think SMS texting is an excellent way for businesses to get their attention. In the age of social media, it’s more important than ever to reach your clientele through their favorite online spaces.
Easily run marketing campaigns and send automated messages announcing new offers, sales and promotional deals to potential and existing customers.
7. Voice Analytics
Voice analytics evaluates conversations to examine speech and identify the tone and emotion of speakers. A task like this is difficult to perform manually and virtually impossible for high-volume call centers. This feature reduces the burden by extracting the parts of conversations that are most relevant to your business, and organizing them for review.
Glimpse of analytics on the dashboard. Source
Most solutions record calls and provide scannable transcripts, allowing you to easily monitor call quality. This can also be useful in training new employees, or improving the performance of existing ones.
8. Video Conferencing
In the post-pandemic world, video conferencing has become fundamental to internal and external business interactions. This feature establishes an internet-based audio-visual connection between two or more parties, allowing participants to communicate face-to-face regardless of location.
Participants interacting during a video conference. Source
Some VoIP solutions offer this as a built-in feature, while others integrate with compatible video conferencing software. In addition to a stable internet connection, you’ll need some specific equipment, like a device to display video (laptop, computer or mobile phone) and peripherals, like a webcam, speaker and microphone.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve gained more clarity on what you’re looking for in a VoIP software, now that you know the most important requirements and features. Zeroing in on the best product is not a cakewalk. Check out our free requirements template for help taking the first step in your software selection journey.
Did you find our VoIP requirements checklist helpful? Did we miss anything? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!