Voice over Internet Protocol Creates Solutions

  VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is hyped as the next big thing, but what is VoIP, and why should businesses care? The answers are simple: VoIP means using the computer network, often the existing one, to carry voice conversations, and any business whose primary client contact is by phone and who wants to save money is going to love it. But if VoIP is just a different method of carrying the conversation, what’s the hype about? What can you do with VoIP that traditional telephony can’t do? How does VoIP save enough money to make it worthwhile? To answer these questions, here are five real life solutions where VoIP paid off:

• An outside sales person likes to get up early and start making phone calls to the East Coast, but her home is on Albuquerque’s West Side and the office is in Uptown. If she wants to use the office phones to start calling prospects at 8:00 am East Coast time, without VoIP she would have to roll out the door at about 5:15 am to be at the office and ready to make calls by 6:00 am. With a VoIP phone in her home she can move into her home office with the morning coffee and be productive within five minutes of sitting down.  By the time the other sales people come into the office, this mobile worker has already been productive for two hours.
  Savings with VoIP: The extra productivity comes at no additional charge.
  
• A real estate company has offices in Rio Rancho, Los Lunas, and plans for an office in Belen. Normally, all three offices would need their own expensive digital phone connection to serve their agents. With VoIP, a single high capacity line can provide inbound and outbound calling to all three offices, saving the monthly cost of two circuits while giving identical service.
  Savings with VoIP: $3K per month, $36K annually.
  
• A logistics company with offices in Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas, El Paso, and Miami had long distance charges that were off the chart with their old system. 40% of their phone usage is between the offices, and 55% of the phone usage is calls to customers in the individual service areas. However, operations are all handled in Albuquerque, and customer service calls originate from there out to customers in the remote cities.  VoIP allows them to maintain local presence in all locations, and eliminates all long distance and toll charges – in essence, there is no longer any long distance for this company.
  Savings with VoIP: $10K annually or more.
  
• A title company has constant shuffling of people from desk to desk, and agents moving between offices. Adds, moves and changes typically total about 10% of the system cost per year. With VoIP, moving a person means just unplugging the phone and taking it to the new desk.  Because they have a centralized VoIP network, even if the agent moves to a different branch, they just need to move the phone.
  Savings with VoIP: $5K annually or more.
  
• A CPA firm wants to outsource processing of its simpler tax returns to an agency in India. While the Indian companies are willing to work when the contracting company is working, prime-time toll charges to India are astronomical with traditional telephony. With VoIP, there are no toll charges. The contract employees in India are just intercom extensions away.
  Savings with VoIP: $8K annually or more.