VOIP Solution

Why a Hosted VoIP Solution May Not Be Right for Your Company

You’ve probably heard all about why switching to a hosted VoIP solution is great for your business: lower maintenance costs, easy and fast integration, access to great VoIP features, and so on. And while both the cost and the features offered by switching to VoIP are vast improvements over traditional landline phones, a hosted deployment may not be the best fit for your company. Here are some things to consider:
Company Size and Projected Growth
Depending on the provider, large to enterprise-sized businesses may find that a hosted VoIP solution is not the best option for their phone systems. While hosted VoIP systems are capable of handling hundreds of lines, the pricing model usually includes a flat monthly rate per line. When compared to an on-premise deployment, in which the company buys and maintains their own infrastructure and hardware, the subscription model sometimes works out to be more expensive in the long run. The same is true for mid-sized businesses that find themselves growing and expanding; in terms of hardware, the only cost of expansion is the physical phone, but with a hosted system, more lines will need to be added.

However, the maintenance aspect of hosted VoIP systems may keep large businesses on board. Phone systems all require maintenance, and IP telephony has the added issue of data security that requires technical attention. For companies with limited IT support, or those that want to keep their specialists’ attention on other company goals, the maintenance and security …

How a Hosted VoIP Solution Can Increase Revenue

If you’re considering hosted VoIP for your business, you’ve probably heard all about how it can save you money. With little hardware and no maintenance, the lower cost is a major selling point. But what about all the ways that a hosted VoIP solution can help you earn money? In this blog we’ll take a look at some VoIP features that drive better sales, customer service, and more.
 
1. Better Routing Means Better Customer Service
There are so many reasons why customers call businesses: sales, questions, complaints, order or account inquiries, and more. And depending on the size of your company, you might have different people addressing different calls. When a customer needs to be rerouted several times to answer his or her question, it can be frustrating for both the customer and the representatives. Hosted VoIP solutions have highly customizable and intuitive routing features that make it easier to get the right person straight from the start. If a customer receives fast, knowledgeable support, they’re more likely to stay happy and come back for more business.

 
2. Multiple Phone Numbers Give Customers Options
Companies that do any amount of business outside their local area know the importance of a phone number. If all they have is a local number, are they deterring potential long distance and international customers because they don’t want to pay hefty phone bills? With VoIP, in most cases you can keep the number that people are already familiar with, while adding features such as …

Upgrade Your Phone System to Go Green

For businesses today, going green is more than a trend. With a wide range of benefits, including increased consumer support and reduced energy costs, making a conscious effort to reduce negative environmental impact is just good business. What’s more, becoming an environmentally friendly business is no longer difficult or expensive to achieve. By simply making green changes to your everyday practices, you can achieve a smaller footprint without disrupting operations. For example, choosing to upgrade your phone system can have a huge impact. Here’s how:

You may not realize it, but your desktop phones are horrible for the environment. Implementing Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Unified Communications (UC) in your business can simultaneously improve both efficiency and environmentalism, meaning double the benefits.
VoIP Requires Less Hardware
Your plain old telephone system (POTS) requires a lot of stuff. From the plastic used to make handsets, to underground copper cable systems, to switchboards and satellites, a lot of material and energy goes into communication that we take for granted. POTS require upgrades every two years or less, on average, which results in a lot of hardware being dumped in landfills. In comparison, VoIP requires much less investment in physical devices. Because it uses your existing internet connection, and doesn’t require a dedicated handset — your telephone hardware could consist of as little as just one VoIP router. With options such as softphones on desktops or laptops, or integration with employees’ personal mobile phones with a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, you can say goodbye …

Comparing Hosted VoIP Solutions

Businesses are turning to VoIP solutions for their communication to increase the effectiveness of their voice systems and save money. But with increased demand comes increased supply, and it can be difficult to wade through the many companies and services offering VoIP to find the best fit for your company. When looking for your hosted VoIP solution, you should be able to find one that fits your current needs and budget, as well as offers new opportunities to increase productivity. In this blog, we’ll discuss a few key things to consider when shopping for VoIP services.
Reliability
One of the benefits of a hosted VoIP system is its mobility, enabling users to make and receive business calls wherever and whenever they need to. This makes it all the more important that your phone system is working when you are. Outages can happen, so make sure that any VoIP provider you are considering has procedures to prevent them. Read reviews and references to see how good they are at responding to incidents, and determine from there whether or not the provider seems reliable. Remember: reviewers are more likely to comment on negative experiences than positive, so no news might be good news!
Included Features
To stay competitive, VoIP providers offer a variety of features that could significantly boost your phone system’s effectiveness. Features like the ability to migrate your current phone numbers, enhanced voicemail, and auto attendant are included free-of-charge in some plans, available at a …

What a Local VoIP Vendor Can Offer

VoIP (Voice Over IP) can offer huge advantages to modern businesses. However, buying a VoIP phone system for your organization can prove to be a challenge. In addition to choosing between an on-premise and cloud-based VoIP solution, you also have to find the right vendor for the job.

Regardless of which VoIP service provider you decide to hire, having local support from them can make a big difference. It’s always a better idea to hire a local VoIP Michigan provider because of the following reasons:
1. On-site support from qualified technicians
When you buy VoIP services from a local vendor, you can count on getting the assistance of trained professionals on the spot. They will not only answer all your queries regarding system implementation but also suggest which solution (on-premise or cloud-hosted) would be better for your needs.

Great technicians will be able to guide you every step of the way so that you know exactly what you’re signing up for.
2. Work alongside your IT department
Working with a local VoIP means no more going back and forth questioning who is doing what to your systems. The skilled members of the VoIP team will work closely with your IT department so that everything goes smoothly.

The team will do their best to ensure that no outages or downtimes occur, and every part of your communication technology functions exactly as it should. Good things happen when the expertise of a local vendor and the experience of IT …

The Don’ts of Hosted VoIP Solutions

The VoIP industry has been on expansion mode for quite a long time now and is expected to grow even further. With the rise of smartphones, giving the desktop computer and laptops a run for their money, mobile VoIP has also made a profound impact on the corporate environment.

In fact, recent reports suggest that the global VoIP market will grow to $136.76 billion by 2020 from $70.9 billion, which was in 2013. While there are many reasons for you to be excited about the idea of implementing VoIP within your organization, there are a few things that you must avoid doing.

In this article, we’re going to talk about some of the absolute DONT’s of hosted VoIP technology. So, keep on reading!

1. Don’t ignore default passwords

Hosted VoIP solutions might be efficient, cost-effective, and secure, but it cannot protect your systems if you do not take the least bit of care. A lot of people don’t bother to change the default passwords that the manufacturer uses to quickly login and run tests.

These passwords, which are no more complex than “password” or “root,” can be found in the hardware documents publicly. Before the systems are put in their places, make sure you have changed these passwords to your liking. Otherwise, you run the risk of hackers getting access to mobile VoIP and stealing your data.

2. Don’t ignore outdated infrastructure

Very often, the cause of failing VoIP can be traced back to leaks in …

Why VoIP and Credit Unions Work So Well Together

The credit union industry is rapidly expanding, which brings them to the need of being increasingly dependent on technology. VoIP can now offer remarkable features, and thus credit unions and the financial industry are starting to see how they stand to benefit by its utility.

No, it’s not just about better prices, scalability, and improved resiliency; it’s about many other features that VoIP brings to the plate that can truly make a business take off. So, what are the benefits of introducing a VoIP solution to credit unions?

Why VoIP solutions and credit unions work so well together

VoIP is maturing, and most of its initial problems have been rectified, making this technology ideal to implement for various industries. Businesses, like credit unions, require a high level of security and additional features apart from just regular phone calls at cheap rates.

Here are some of the excellent features that VoIP telephony offers

1. Voice to text: There can literally be dozens of instances where you may benefit from transcribing voicemails into text. Just think about it; a loud office environment, lack of time, and need for greater efficiency can all be reasons why one should prefer voice to text service. Luckily with VoIP solution, Voice to Text comes as a built-in feature.

Thanks to this technology, all your voicemails can be transcribed into text automatically and sent directly to your mail inbox. It can even help you save time by reading you the voicemails left on …

Why Successful Businesses Commit to Cloud VoIP Solutions

More so than at any time in history, successful companies are dependent on their phone systems. Your first contact with your first customer will likely take place over the phone; the first order placed with a vendor, the first customer concern that’s answered by a customer service rep. The quandary for the new business owner today is although he knows exactly how many phones or lines he needs on day one, he cannot be certain how many he will need on day #365 and beyond. He hopes and believes his company will flourish and expand, but he doesn’t want to waste money on phone lines that may never be used. Yet the first question a traditional phone company sales rep will ask is, “How many lines will we be installing?”

Savvy business start-ups avoid this question by committing to Cloud VoIP solutions.
Cloud VoIP Systems Save Money
Unlike traditional phone companies, cloud service providers require no initial outlay of large sums of money on hardware and installation since the server and all equipment is located and maintained at the provider’s data center. A fledgling business need only purchase IP phones and software that plugs into their broadband internet connection and they’re ready for business. The money saved on equipment can go towards other must-haves like advertising, recruitment, or inventory building. As for the service, it will be billed on a monthly basis. VoIP phone systems are also highly scalable, so as the company grows and the day comes when …

VoIP Michigan Options: Why Work with a Michigan-Based Mitel Provider?

Small business leaders understand that just because an integrated system is easier to use doesn’t mean there’s lower quality technology backing up the system. In fact, the opposite is true. The highest technology available today is applied to fully integrate computer and communications technology for a user-friendly and comprehensive communications experience.

For an example, what if you wanted to only be contacted by email messages after 9 pm every night? When using Millennia and Mitel Michigan’s unified communications technologies, you can have everything from faxes to voice mail converted to email communications. This system uniquely unites your VoIP and computer systems in a simple format, where you can decide to switch to all text messages on your cell when you take the family out to the park, and you’ll never miss an urgent client email again.
Expand the Advantages
Just some of the features available allow you to communicate directly from their address books, receive client, customer, or patient history or updates on their PC screens just as a call from that person is coming in. It might be surprising how quickly the magic of that convenience becomes routine.

This unified communications system also assists your clients by finding you wherever you are – when you want them to – a feature that truly enhances the entire company’s ability respond and communicate effectively.

Cost efficiency is improved as well. When a small business has to upgrade by installing a new phone system, the initial upfront cost …

What do You Really Know About Low Rate VOIP? And is it Right for You?

Believe it or not, Voice Over Internet Protocol (or, ‘VoIP’ as it is more commonly referred to) is now 20-years-old. However, despite it’s two-decade presence in the market, many business owners are still confused as to what it does and how it can save them money and increase productivity.

In a survey conducted by Hello Operator, they found that nearly 71% of consumers couldn’t define what VoIP is without getting a contextual cue. And surprisingly enough, even though younger users are thought to be more “tech-savvy” than older users, the report indicates they aren’t any more knowledgeable about VoIP than their older coworkers.

Since it’s clear more people need to understand the wide-spread benefits of wholesale VoIP for business, let’s point out some important facts about the service:
What exactly is VoIP?
According to dictionary.com, they define VoIP as:

A technology or set of standards for delivery of telephone calls and other voice communications over the Internet, involving the conversion of analog voice signals to digital form.

Because calls are made over the Internet rather than traditional analog phone lines, this provides a great deal of opportunity for a reduction in IT and phone company costs as well as the ability to provide more enhanced communication features that were costly additions for the traditional, analog services.
Is it reliable?
According to the same Hello Operator study, the main concerns with implementing a low rate VoIP solution are reliability during a power outage and call quality.

As for power outages, the …

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Millennia Technologies is a full-service voice and data solutions company for midsize to enterprise customers. Specializing in UCaaS , CCaaS , Cybersecurity , IoT , Voice , Cloud , and more. Our passion is firmly rooted in showing clients how well-designed data solutions can significantly accelerate business operations, and then celebrating their goal-shattering successes.