It takes a lot for a business to be successful. Some ingredients are well-known – for example people and technology. Others are underappreciated and underutilized like collaboration. Effective collaboration can improve productivity, inspire people, and build a sense of community. However, many businesses don’t emphasize this key ingredient to success. Read on to find out the 5 ways a VoIP phone service promotes collaboration.
Did you know that 86% of employees say a lack of communication and collaboration is a reason for failure? A recent study by Salesforce unearthed this nugget of information. Employers also know the importance of collaboration, at least in theory. Why else would 75% of employers rate collaboration and teamwork as highly important?
In spite of this, employers fail to provide reliable tools to help their employees collaborate. It results in delays, impacts productivity and also has an effect on the bottom line. Any business that is considering an upgrade to VoIP is mostly concerned with communication and costs. But you might be interested to know your phone service can promote collaboration between employees, teams, and the entire business.
Keep reading to find out five ways that a VoIP phone service promotes collaboration in a business environment.
A VoIP phone service is adaptable
One of the major benefits of any VoIP phone service is that it is adaptable and flexible. You may not think that your business changes on a regular basis but it does. Even as recently as 20 years ago, cloud services and smart technology were not ubiquitous. Almost all employees had to come to the office every day to work.
Today you would be hard-pressed to find a business that does not use smartphones and cloud services. You can hardly see an office where all employees have a desk at work. Working from home, telecommuting and working on the go is common. How can you ensure your teams stay connected in such an environment?
A VoIP phone service is exactly the solution you need. Employees can make calls from any device – it doesn’t have to be a traditional desk phone. Users can make audio or video calls from their computer, smartphone, or tablet. They may be sitting anywhere in the world and still stay connected with each other. A VoIP phone service adapts to any location, device, or working conditions.
A versatile VoIP phone service promotes collaboration by allowing your staff to communicate from wherever they are. How can this help your business? Employees can anticipate problems before they get bigger. They can stay in touch with clients even if they’re not at their desk for any reason. Teams can work together on finding creative solutions when they don’t face obstacles to collaboration.
A VoIP phone service offers faster communication
They say time is money. What if you could save both at the same time? A good VoIP service can help you do just that. With faster communication, collaboration is a breeze. Why limit yourself to slow methods of communication when faster tools exist? A VoIP service brings together instant messaging, texting, email, voicemail, audio calls, and many other channels. Use the fastest method available to contact others.
What if your colleague is busy? How would you even know if you’re disturbing them at a crucial client meeting? VoIP shows you their status so you know if they are available for a quick chat. Presence information can save a lot of time otherwise wasted in waiting. Check their status to see if they’re busy. If not, communicate and collaborate to your heart’s content!
Presence information can also boost productivity. As much as people like to communicate, sometimes you just need a couple of hours to work without interruptions. Show people when it’s ok to call by setting your status to available. Say goodbye to interruptions and distractions.
A VoIP phone service allows unlimited communication
What’s the one thing your staff hates about making calls? Expense reports and budgets! In many offices, staff hesitates to make long-distance calls due to cost. What if you cross the monthly budget?
A VoIP phone service can banish your worries. Calls between employees are often free. After all, these calls travel over your own networks most of the time. Encourage calls between team members, no matter where they are in the world. It’s all free!
What if you’re calling a client, partner or someone else in a foreign country? VoIP has it covered with low international call rates. Since VoIP technology uses existing data networks, long distance calls cost much less than before. Remember internal calls are free and external calls are inexpensive with VoIP.
With VoIP phone service, you’ve removed yet another obstacle to effective collaboration. In point of fact, you can even purchase unlimited calling bundles if your call volume justifies the expense.
A VoIP phone service means conference calls for all
Do your workers struggle to hold meetings because it’s so hard to get everyone in the same room? Now they don’t have to be in the same office for meetings. You can arrange meetings and conferences for employees in multiple countries at the same time. All you have to do is set a time that works for all attendees across time zones.
Holding a virtual meeting requires just a video or audio conference call with VoIP. No need to buy extra hardware or software services from yet another vendor. Use your existing equipment to set up meetings, with or without video.
VoIP gives you more options than ever for your virtual meetings. Set them up in advance for training or learning purposes. Users can create virtual conference rooms on the fly where members can join and leave at their convenience. Some may choose to turn on video. Others may just listen while they’re coming to work on the train.
You can forget about travel expenses and disrupting work schedules just so a team can stay updated on a project. No more struggling to find place and time that suits everyone’s schedule. No more conflicts and delays while clients wait for status updates. Resolve issues quicker and find solutions faster.
Speed up processes and enable collaboration with VoIP conference calls. The possibilities really are endless.
A VoIP phone service offers integrations with other applications
Another huge advantage of a VoIP service is the way it integrates with other applications. Have you ever wished that all your different tools could talk to each other? A note you saved in your phone shows up on your computer and vice versa. Why shouldn’t phone calls behave the same way? With VoIP, they can.
There are many ways phone calls can integrate with other enterprise tools.
1. For example, imagine a button on your site that allows customers to call your business without picking up a phone. It’s possible, thanks to the integration between VoIP and WebRTC (an internet protocol for browser based calls).
2. Imagine if your sales teams could automatically record calls when closing contracts with clients? Now they can. You can enable or disable call recording for business calls through the dashboard. In some industries and countries, legislation even requires you to do so. Now you can stay compliant without having to add paperwork or another service.
3. Similarly, offer staff the ability to send and receive faxes from the comfort of their email inbox. With visual voicemail, the inbox becomes the hub of communication. Make sure no one misses an important call or message ever again!
4. VoIP services can also integrate with CRM/sales tools. Allow salespeople to call clients from within the CRM app. Once the call is complete, the timestamp and call duration is automatically added to the call log. Analyze detailed reports at the end of the month to monitor and improve performance.
Why not offer a rich collaboration experience that doesn’t depend on a hodgepodge of different tools? With a VoIP phone service, users can switch between tools seamlessly. Go from instant messaging with a colleague to an impromptu virtual meeting. Turn on video while talking to a client for an effective sales call. Create a conference call simply by adding another member to your 2-person audio call.
At VoIPstudio, integrations with other applications are a top priority for our development team. We are always striving to offer even more ways for our clients to communicate. Rest assured if there’s an integration you want we don’t have, it will become reality quickly enough!
So what are you waiting for? Sign up today for a free 30 day trial to test our service. You don’t even need a credit card on file. Take VoIPstudio for a spin and see how VoIP performs in the real world. Promote collaboration and faster communication between your staff. See the miracles they can perform when you remove obstacles and unshackle their creativity!
