The Most Common Mistakes People Make With VoIP Phones

For the goal of cost reductions, switching to VoIP shouldn’t be too difficult or result in a significant drop in call quality. IP-based telephones have a simple technology behind them. Here you’ll discover the most typical blunders organizations make when choosing a VoIP phone vendor and technology. You can shield your company from a rocky deployment or VoIP unhappiness by understanding why these errors occur and how to avoid them.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes People Make With VoIP Phones?

So many businesses worldwide are now paying for the mistakes that they’ve made with VoIP phones. If they’re aware of those factors, they might not get into them. Therefore, if you’re up to switching to VoIP for your company, read this article till the end and know the factors that you should concern about.

Not Completing The Assessment Self-Hosted Vs Hosted VoIP

Cost and a variety of other criteria distinguish in-house and hosted VoIP. However, the most important consideration for businesses is how much non-financial resources they can devote to a new phone system:

• Your service and setup will be managed by a vendor if you choose the hosted option.
• You’ll be responsible for procuring, executing, and maintaining your VoIP technology if you host it in-house.

Now, there are some things that you’ve to consider. 

You can go for In-House VoIP if –

• You’ve experienced employees who have expertise in VoIP or business voice communication.
• You’re pretty confident about choosing your VoIP technology.
• You’re capable of handling your bandwidth assessment yourself to ensure improvement in data service.
• You predict slower growth or changes in the employee gradually. 

On the other hand, you can go for a hosted VoIP if –

• You’re fascinated by hardware selection and technology.
• You’ve planned for increasing remote work policies and got a large number of remote employees.
• You urge additional support to optimize your VoIP data connection.
• You expect outstanding progress in the voice needs.
• You need help to execute a data traffic prioritization and assessment. 

So, decide according to your preference.

Inaccurate Bandwidth Estimation

Sometimes companies overestimate or underestimate the necessary amount of bandwidth that VoIP requires, particularly if their call volume is volatile. Having too much bandwidth might lead to wasteful spending, yet not having enough bandwidth can lead to –

• Incompatible phone service
• Degradation of voice call quality 
• Slower Internet speeds 

When you have less bandwidth than the requirement, even the finest vendor will fail to offer a better quality of service. Therefore, either ensure sufficient bandwidth. You can make use of fiber optic connectivity.

Choosing A Vendor Without Considering Business Continuity

If a company doesn’t choose an appropriate VoIP vendor that can efficiently provide business continuity planning and service level agreements, they won’t maintain the availability and may face the consequences. Poor availability or uptime can cause significant hidden costs concerning employee productivity, revenue, and public perception. 

Business continuity should be a key component of your vendor’s customer services. If your primary phone lines somehow go down, your VoIP service should allow for a rapid switchover to staff mobile devices.

Not Taking Information Security Into Account

Although VoIP internet security and information security are quite related, they aren’t similar. Phreaking or phone call hacking has a long history, dating back to the 1960s or before. If a business doesn’t take security under deep consideration during the vendor selection and implementation phases; there can be criminal and malicious attacks on voice communications might be focused on VoIP.

Not Working With People Who Have Worked In The Industry Not Working With Industry Experienced Vendors

You can find enormous affordable and quality VoIP providers. A hosted voice services provider should have comprehensive experience and client satisfaction achievement. Additionally, it’s important to extend the period for support. While business communications are available 24/7, voice calls are only from 9 am to 5 pm. 

That’s why you need to make sure that your vendor will be available for dedicated hours if there’s any need. 

Failure To Select The Correct Handsets

Among VoIP-compatible phone handsets, there are major variances. There are name-brand and generic phones out there. They’re ranging from the most basic to the most complex. Your company can select from them. 

The characteristics chosen should be dictated by the business requirements and the line’s intended use. Most firms choose a variety of handset models to meet a variety of needs, ranging from basic business users to conference room models.

There are some handset features that you need to prior –

• Call transfer 
• Call forwarding 
• Call hold 
• Speed dial
• Call waiting 
• Outside or inside ringing 
• Automatic callback
• Intercom as a handset function
• 3-Way Calling

That’s it!

Failure In Purchasing Add-On Features

There are lots of VoIP vendors that offer suitable features for standard business voice service packs. But unfortunately, companies fail to hire such vendors and as a result, fail to purchase those add-on features. 

If you successfully purchase these add-on services, you can cut costs over other software purchases and several vendor agreements. Some of the common features are –

• Remote management 
• Automatic call distribution
• Data integration
• Video chat, etc.

Not Evaluating Hidden Charges

Choosing the cheapest vendor leads to difficulties such as the risk of poor service and ignoring the hidden cost factor of VoIP adoption. The hidden costs basically remain in –

• Security measures
• Software Integration
• Software licensing
• Handsets

Therefore, it’s a must to evaluate these costs including the estimated entire cost of ownership, before establishing self-hosting VoIP or hiring a vendor.

Poor Optimization of the IVR System

The IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) system is the most important part of a company, especially if they’re enriched with enormous inbound client service calls. Poorly optimized IVR system results in acute client frustration. The highly common IVR mistakes are –

• Dead-ends of voicemail
• Unable to use streamlining or shallow menus
• Utilizing robotic voice
• Counter-intuitive prompts
• Providing unnecessary marketing messages 

So, you need to go for a VoIP vendor who assures vast customization options to ensure a fruitful IVR client experience. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What causes VoIP call quality issues?

The most common causes to blame for occurring VoIP call quality issues are – circuit flapping or full circuit failure, increased network latency, utilizing legacy equipment by the carrier, etc.

What are the vulnerabilities of VoIP?

The significant vulnerabilities of VoIP are – network attacks, remote eavesdropping, VoIP over WiFi and default security settings. Therefore, if you seek VoIP technology, consider these vulnerabilities.

What happens to VoIP if the network fails?

If the corresponding ISP become incapable to support VoIP, the system most likely will spontaneously connect to another ISP to assure interruption-free call service.

Conclusion

As you’ve read this far, hopefully, the whole concept of the most common mistakes organizations make regarding VoIP phones should be clear to you. If you’re up to applying VoIP phones for your business, keep these factors in mind. Still, if you’ve any confusion or further queries, don’t hesitate to knock us in the comment section.