It is essential for any company to be able to communicate with customers, clients and other businesses. Missed calls, wrong numbers and unanswered voicemails can lead to losing valuable business connections and potential customers. So, having a phone service that doesn’t have those challenges, and doesn’t need a huge budget every month, is a big plus to any business. That’s why using a VOIP phone system is a great choice for any business, whether it’s a small ‘mom and pop’ garage or a multi-national corporation.  You get all the benefits of being available to customers, but without the hassle or expensive of a traditional landline. Plus, customers can reach you anytime, anywhere. And, even conferencing within the company has never been easier with VOIP technology. There are a lot of great reasons to make the switch to VOIP phone services beyond just the cost. Below are just seven great features available only with a VOIP phone service.

No Setup Fees

Unlike a traditional landline, there aren’t setup fees when switching to VOIP. Many phone companies have a lot of hardware that has to be installed and when your company has several offices with several phone lines, this can add up very quickly. Because a VOIP phone uses the internet and can utilize existing office phones, there’s very little hardware involved in setup. Many users don’t even need a service provider or business technology company to come in and install the hardware needed for a VOIP phone. This allows a company to avoid costly startup fees that they’d incur with a traditional landline.

Low cost per call

With traditional landlines, two users communicate over a dedicated line. Only so many lines are available, and only a certain number of lines can be installed. For long distance calls this can get very expensive and if your company makes a lot of calls to clients and customers that aren’t local, this can quickly become an expensive problem. The solution is simple: VOIP phone. With VOIP phone calls are placed over the internet. Communication is sent in data packets over the internet. With this technology solution, many local and long distance phone calls in the continental United States are actually free.

Service mobility

Many people have ditched landlines in favor of a mobile phone for good reason. With landlines, moving becomes a hassle of transferring phone numbers and services, waiting for it to be completed and risking missing important calls. The same thing can be said for businesses. With VOIP the phone service goes with you no matter where you go. This is especially beneficial for companies such as those that provide IT technical services to residential and business clients. Clients can get in touch with service technicians at any time because the VOIP phone is available virtually everywhere. All that you need is an internet connection.

Simple conference calls

Conference calls are a part of most businesses and with VOIP phone, it’s a lot easier. With landline telephone services customers have to pay extra in order for the company to host multiple phone lines for a conference. With VOIP phone services, this feature comes included with most VOIP companies. Data is sent over the internet instead of dedicated phone lines, so it’s simply a matter of having internet service that can handle the conference call. Plus with VOIP, video conferences are an option as well due to how VOIP operates versus a traditional landline.

Efficient client interaction- automatic call forwarding and e-faxing

With traditional land lines a phone can ring several times until it eventually goes to voicemail. This potentially leads to losing a potential customer or at the very least, a dissatisfied one. With VOIP, that’s not an issue. For example, if a client calls your office and you don’t pick up after two rings, you can have it set up so that the call automatically goes to your mobile device. If someone doesn’t pick up there, it can go to a laptop or another location. Though doing away with voicemail isn’t appropriate for all companies, it is a technology solution for larger companies.

A range of call features

Traditional landlines are pretty straight forward. There aren’t too many bells and whistles that make them special beyond working when the power goes out, but with VOIP a company can enjoy a lot of other benefits. One such benefit is voicemail-to-text. This very handy feature is great when waiting to speak to clients, customers or business associates. Because of this feature, a business technology company can use time efficiently. Along that same line, employees can also forward urgent and important voice messages to other employees so that an issue can be addressed quickly. Some VOIP services can even use instant messaging, online status and social networking applications.

Supports older technology

Many companies, organizations and even local government still use fax machines. Despite this being an older technology, VOIP can still work with it. Though many companies may opt for a dedicated fax line, a simple ATA (analog telephony adapter) can enable traditional faxes to be sent over VOIP thanks to a T38 protocol. It does require a few extra things, like a specific audio codec, but many companies can enjoy the benefit of a traditional fax machine before using IT technical services to change to an e-fax setup.

There are a few benefits to a landline, namely typically good audio quality, but the few benefits that traditional landlines have are outnumbered by the features of VOIP. And, in many cases, a VOIP phone offers the same benefits for a much lower price. With VOIP all that’s needed is a stable internet connection and that can be achieved virtually anywhere in the modern world. VOIP phone services are a great solution when it comes to saving money and making your company accessible at any time. An IT service company can help setup a VOIP service that leads to savings and more connectivity in any business.