10 Reasons Why A VoIP Business Phone System Saves Money

As a business owner or manager, you are constantly looking to cut costs or improve revenues. Most technologies let you do one or the other but VoIP enables both. With VoIP, a business phone system doesn’t have to be a luxury. 

Getting started with it is as simple as signing up for a VoIP plan from a vendor, buying a VoIP number, and that’s pretty much it! Landlines and PBX systems have served businesses for decades. But the time has come for a complete upgrade. If you have ever considered VoIP, you might have been surprised by VoIP pricing plans offered by providers. How can vendors offer VoIP plans at such a low cost?

How does VoIP work?

The answer lies in the technology that business VoIP service providers use. VoIP relies on data networks to route calls. It doesn’t need a separate network or dedicated infrastructure. In other words, your voice calls travel the same way your email and documents do! Organizations that opted for cloud VoIP or hosted VoIP don’t have to purchase any hardware or software either. Your vendor will deliver phone services through your data network. 

And that’s just the start of the many ways VoIP can help your company cut costs. You could find new benefits even years after switching. Here are 10 reasons why upgrading your business phone system to VoIP saves money:

1. Hardware

Think back to the last time you upgraded to the latest technology. Odds are you had to buy expensive hardware and equipment for the system. VoIP technology functions very differently. If you purchase cloud VoIP phone services from a vendor, you don’t have to buy any hardware at all.

It’s true. You can purchase adapters for your existing desk phones to use VoIP. However, most businesses invest in VoIP compatible phones to make and receive calls. These phones can range anywhere from $50 all the way to thousands for executive models. 

But you don’t have to buy phones for every employee. Users can make calls from their personal smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers, and many other devices with a data connection. The number of phones you have to buy will depend on your needs and number of users.

Just the hardware savings can easily cross several hundred dollars, even for a small business.

2. Software

In today’s digital world, no system is complete without the software to make it work. With traditional applications, you had to purchase licenses for various applications. Every time the vendor added a new feature, you had to pay for the next version. Thinking of opening a second office or location? Buy more licenses. 

Business software was usually priced on a per user basis. That meant you had to pay every time your business expanded. What about the other side of the coin? What if you lose employees for any reason? You still had to pay the same price.

With VoIP plans, you can forget about software costs. Vendors offer their own softphone apps to make calls from any device. If they don’t, you can use any app of your choice in the organization! Access your account and service features through an online dashboard. Control every aspect of the system instantly.

3. Call charges

This is perhaps the most obvious way in which a VoIP business phone system saves money. If you have ever looked closely at a VoIP plan, you’ll notice that call charges are very low. In fact, they sound too good to be true. 

Remember when we talked earlier about how VoIP works? Most calls don’t travel over the PSTN at all. You only pay for the portion of the call that travels over the regular network. Long-distance VoIP calls touch the PSTN for a short distance only. That means you pay a few cents per minute compared to the dollar fees charged by traditional carriers.

What about calls that don’t leave your data network? Here is where the bulk of your savings will come from. Calls made within your organization –  no matter where your employees sit – are completely free. An organization with multiple offices across the country doesn’t pay for calls made from one location to another.  Your employees could be sitting at home or at a coffee shop and still make free business calls!

4. Maintenance

This is a fairly obvious way how VoIP can save your business money. As you have no equipment to maintain, your ongoing costs are zero. You don’t have to worry about repairing hardware or replacing old wires. Each time you upgrade your network equipment (router, modem, switch etc.) you’re improving your phone system as well!

5. Upgrades

Providers of VoIP business phone systems don’t charge for upgrades and updates. Generally speaking, VoIP plans will include a wide array of standard business features. Some features may cost extra or require you to switch to a better plan. 

But you don’t have to pay a new license fee every time the vendor upgrades the system to a new version. Patches and updates are automatic. You won’t experience any interruption in phone service, which is crucial for businesses. VoIP vendors don’t have annual contracts for phone services or maintenance either. 

6. Security

An unfortunate side effect of moving voice calls to your data network is that they are susceptible to the same type of attacks as other computer systems. It means you have to take security seriously when it comes to your phone system. Hackers and criminals can break into your phones and make unauthorized calls. They can even hop from your phone system to your computer servers (if they’re on the same network).

Fortunately for your business, your provider will take care of security. A reputed vendor will implement multiple software measures to protect your phone system from unauthorized use. All you have to do is make sure to follow best practices with regard to user accounts and passwords. Which your employees should be doing anyway!

7. Personnel

Any VoIP business phone system is so easy to set up and maintained that you don’t need experts to do it. You don’t need a dedicated person or department to handle the phones.  Think of all the time your workers waste on administrative tasks with the phones. Now that you have eliminated those tedious workflows, they can focus on more important tasks. Consider how much you can save by not hiring another person or two just for the phones!

8. Unified communication

When it comes to business communication, VoIP is just the beginning. Many organizations have already upgraded to unified communication (UC) systems. It means bringing all your communication channels under one roof. Employees can easily switch between different channels like texting, instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls. 

For that to happen, you should invest in VoIP phones today. They serve as a foundation for most UC systems. You can add conferencing features or video calling to your system at any time when you need it. With useful add-ons like presence indication (users know if someone is busy or available for calls), productivity will go up. Upgrading to UC from VoIP will cost your business less than installing one from the ground up later on.

9. Mobility

Remember back when mobile phones were a rarity? Just a decade earlier, seeing someone at work with a mobile phone meant they were a high ranking executive. Not anymore. Smartphones are everywhere in offices now. 

What does this mean for your business? You need to support smartphones as well. It’s no longer sufficient to have a few desk phones and call it a day. Many VoIP business phone systems support mobility out of the box. All you have to do is download and install an app. You can make calls with your VoIP number instantly.

Allow employees to make and receive calls on the go. Enable them to stay in touch with customers and each other, no matter where they are. Never lose an important client or sale because someone was away for their desk!

10. Pay for what you use

VoIP phone systems allow you to pay only for the resources you use. It gives your business a tremendous amount of flexibility. With per-second billing, your calls are not rounded up to the nearest minute. If a call lasts for 2 minutes 16 seconds, that’s what you pay for.

This principle also applies to resources like phone numbers, lines, and users. You can add and remove them according to your requirements. You don’t have to pay for the entire month or commit to buying a minimum quantity. 

These are just a few ways VoIP can help you cut costs or increase revenue. Remember that some of these are one-time savings (no hardware purchases) but others are recurring (lower monthly bills!). Still unsure about switching to VoIP? Call VoIPstudio today to see how we can help your business stay competitive. Explore our VoIP pricing and extensive business features. You’ll wonder why you waited this long to upgrade!