VoIP Business Suite
Phone and fax expenses usually consume a huge portion of any client service driven businesses bottom line. The Mortgage Brokerage is especially sensitive to these costs. There isn’t just long distance anymore, now there’s “extended-regional” and all sorts of other pricing tiers that send phone bills into the many thousands of dollars per month range, not to mention the cost to lease the equipment.
With the progressive development of Voice over Internet Protcol, or VoIP, the days of traditional phone services and their cost heavy revenue models are numbered. VoIP is basically telephone service via a broadband internet connection. The catchy commercials from Vonage that permeate the television is the most popular residential VoIP provider.
VoIP’s main value is the fixed fee pricing for unlimited usage models they employ. Call anywhere, anytime, as much as you want for one fixed cost every month. On a residential level this has been very well received for obvious reasons, but when you bridge these features into a business application, the rewards can be substantial.
Some quick opinions:
Complicated to install? Unplug the phone from the traditional jack, into a configured router with a broadband connection, and off you go.
Quality? Not 100%. Somewhere between cell phones and land-lines.
Why even consider sacrificing an ounce of quality? In our first month post conversion to a web-based VoIP suite from a conventional T-1 system ($20k to purchase..ouch), our phone/fax bill dropped by 70% while running the same amount of call volume.
Typical suites offer a web interface that allows our associates to track and distribute calls, messages, and faxes with ‘point and click’ ease. All the bells and whistles are there too: customized auto attendant, dial by name and extension, call waiting, call forwarding, ‘follow-me’ feature rings your multiple phone numbers in a variety of ways, and caller announce (caller-id 2.0) are just some of the features of a traditional VoIP suite. If you use a Blackberry, Treo, or other mobile e-mail aggregator, you can forward all communication types in such a fashion that being out of the office does not mean being out of touch. There’s nothing quite like the peace of mind knowing you wont miss an important call or document.
A VoIP suite also gives off a professional business presentation to call-ins typically only enjoyed by large corporations, regardless of actual size, down to the individual broker. Most vary by quality so shop around for the most reliable service that fits your needs, not just the cheapest available.
VoIP Review
Stack this tech upgrade with your Digital Rolodex and you’re well on your way to reduced cost and increased efficiency.
