Hosted Voice for Businesses

Five Reasons to Upgrade to a Hosted Voice Plan for Businesses

As a business owner, you must’ve heard of a hosted Voice or VoIP phone system; Voice over Internet Protocol uses a broadband internet connection for receiving and making calls. Many small to medium-sized businesses have already made the switch to hosted voice, and they recognize hosted voice as an internet-based and cloud-based voice solution. It not only cuts costs but is more reliable and productive when compared to traditional landline phones or analog phones.

What is Hosted VoIP for businesses?

As the name indicates, hosted voice is transmitting voice calls over the network, by converting phone calls into data packets that transmit over the internet. PBX and traditional landlines use on-premise hardware that is maintained by an IT team. PBX or private branch exchange connects all phones within a business location. This dedicated business line has essential call features such as call transfer, call conferencing, etc. So many phones can be connected to a single line. PBX phone systems can be updated to hosted VoIP.

What are the benefits of using Hosted Voice?

Hosted Voice plan comes with many benefits; hosted voice is hosted or owned by an off-site VoIP provider, and different providers offer different features and services – it also varies with location. A hosted phone plan is a paid service and is also known as a hosted PBX solution. Here are the top five benefits of having Hosted Voice for businesses:

As the calls are being made over an internet connection, hosted voice is considered cheap, and overall costs come down to the provider and the features they offer. It makes sense that your business phone should make you money not cost you money, therefore, having no upfront costs and a pay-as-you-go system benefits many businesses in the long run. Your business can also make money with added features such as advertising on hold, and call recording.
No need for hardware maintenance with a hosted VoIP phone; all the maintenance and upgrades are handled off-site by a trusted VoIP provider. Thus your internal IT resources can focus on business projects and other IT-related high-value jobs. Phone line downtime can also be handled by the VoIP provider, and fix times are drastically decreased. Any downtime means losing potential customers and revenues.
The most important factor for businesses today is having offshore contractors; for any business that has a team consisting of off-site workers, and offshore contractors, mobility of the phone system comes in handy. Remote workers can easily connect with a cloud-based VoIP phone system. By connecting your mobile with the hosted VoIP you can take meetings and conferences on the go, and keep connected with your employees with instant messaging.
Hosted VoIP can be scaled at will; as your business grows you can add more communication features. Hosted VoIP providers do this job very well, they scale up your plan according to your business needs. You can customize your phone system to add the features you and your team need. Features can be tailored to an individual or a department, you will have to keep track of all the latest features and updates offered in your plan.
Your hosted VoIP plan will always stay up-to-date; you will always be updated on all the latest features and plans. With a hosted VoIP there is more consistency, and it doesn’t matter if you have moved to a newer office location, your phone system based in the cloud will remain the same. Adding more employees to your team or having more business sites become easier. More consistency means better and smoother business operations and customer interactions.

Is switching to Hosted Voice right for my business?

We have discussed why businesses may benefit from Hosted Voice; there are many good reasons to do so. We know there are many reasons for switching to hosted VoIP. We have mentioned the top benefits above, and many small businesses are benefiting from them. As it is managed by a third party such as Nextiva or RingCentral, it comes with minimal hassle and no maintenance. It is the right choice for your business if you’re looking for an inexpensive, yet secure, and unified communication platform for your business.

Hosted VoIP is secure and straightforward; it offers advanced encryption for all your communication. Long-distance and international calls have also become significantly cheaper on VoIP. There are many VoIP providers out there; you should choose a company that has a fixed monthly rate, no hidden charges, and offers the features you and your team are looking for. For example, if you use a lot of Google products, and are dependent on Google Suite, then Google Voice should work best for you.

VoIP providers also come with free trials, so if you’re unsure, you can sign up for a free trial – whatever plan you choose should mesh well with your business needs. Another feature to look for is customer service; do they offer 24/7 support if something goes wrong? VoIP doesn’t work well with slow internet speeds, so make sure the internet has enough speed for seamless voice communication. Outages and dropped calls are usually not common with hosted VoIP.

Nextiva is one of the best-rated companies for hosted VoIP; they offer essential as well as enterprise-level programs with many features. If you’re a freelancer or a small company the essential program will work best for you. It gives you unlimited voice calling, toll-free numbers, customer support, and more for an affordable monthly fee per user. Other plans include team collaboration tools and important software integrations. The smartphone APP lets you take business calls on the go.

Therefore, make sure to sign up for a plan that works for your business needs, and lies within your budget, also look for other tools and scalability that can be added later on. Want to lease VoIP phones? Not a problem, Nextiva, and many other providers have devices on rent, such as VoIP phones, conference phones, headsets, and more. You can choose a month-to-month payment plan with no contracts.