VoIP Integrations – The Future of VoIP

VoIP is easy to set up, inexpensive to purchase and offers immense flexibility. What’s not to love if your business – like many others – relies on the phones to work everyday? These benefits are some of the most important reasons for the popularity and continued growth of VoIP in the enterprise space. But the VoIP journey doesn’t end here. It has the potential to do so much more for organizations over the next decade.

VoIP Today

The VoIP services we see today bear little resemblance to the first generation solutions that kicked off this communication revolution. Those solutions were basic and couldn’t begin to compete against the traditional PSTN. The situation is completely different today. Businesses that haven’t already switched to VoIP have become a rarity. If you purchase or deploy a VoIP solution now, here’s what you can expect:

• Considerable savings in both upfront investment and monthly bills
• Convenience of accessing configuration and management features through an online dashboard
• Flexibility of adding or removing resources (lines, numbers, devices) as and when you need them
• Advanced features like digital faxing, IVR, auto attendant etc.
• The ability to use any device (computer, mobile phones, tablets etc.) to make and receive calls anywhere, at anytime

The Future of VoIP

VoIP already provides so much more than a traditional enterprise phone connection from a carrier. So what lies ahead for this technology? VoIP is based on IP standards and formats. This offers an ideal base for VoIP to expand in directions not possible by analog telephony. As VoIP becomes ubiquitous, vendors are scaling up their infrastructure to keep up with demand. they’re also innovating at a furious pace to bring even more features to their clients.

One area that looks promising is VoIP integrations with other enterprise systems. Quite a few vendors have already made inroads in this field. For instance, a business can integrate their phones with their CRM or ERP software with their phones. Such an integration allows sales teams to automatically call clients from their back end software without needing to switch devices. Users can log calls automatically instead of manually entering information after the fact.

So what other Integrations are possible with VoIP in the future?

Combine VoIP with Texting/SMS

The rapid rise of mobile devices has changed the way we work. Bringing together VoIP and SMS can open up new opportunities for organizations. Salespeople can reply to customer queries through SMS from within core business apps. Keep in touch with suppliers or vendors through secure SMS instead of using separate applications for each. This method offers security and convenience in one package. Since VoIP accounts already have authentication protocols in place including passwords, you can be sure that your messages are reaching the right person.

VoIP Integration with Social Media

More businesses are starting to engage customers over social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook. Businesses can extend chatbot functionality by combining it with their VoIP/CRM integrations. What if a customer could initiate a conversation with your business chatbot on Facebook? Depending on the context, a service rep can call or message them to continue the conversation. That service rep would already have the details of the chat in their CRM app, so the customer doesn’t have to repeat the same information twice. They don’t even have to pick up a phone or dial a number. The whole process becomes seamless and more enjoyable for customers thus enhancing your brand.

VoIP and the Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet started off with just networked computers. Slowly we added mobile phones and then tablets to the mix. Today millions of more devices are communicating via the Internet. Appliances like ovens, pacemakers and thermostats are online and the trend is set to continue. Imagine what we can achieve if we bring together VoIP and IoT for business processes.

Today users have to manually set their VoIP status on phones. What if GPS sensors could automatically set your status to busy based on where you are? Employees could program their mobile devices to send text messages to their VoIP mailbox. If a customer’s device fails, sensors could automatically trigger a message to your service team. The possibilities are endless really.

VoIP and WebRTC

Companies are already offering click to call functionality on their corporate websites. This is only possible by integrating VoIP with WebRTC technology. WebRTC lets you make a call without having to download and install an app. All you need is a browser and an internet connection. Once you add video calling into the mix, this feature could easily become another service or sales channel for a company. We are just beginning to explore these opportunities to integrate VoIP with other business systems. What seems impossible today could become reality tomorrow!