Customer service is important. And, having the right communications set-up is vital if you want to provide a good service to your customers. Nobody wants to be kept waiting on hold for lengthy periods of time because you don’t have enough phone lines to support the number of calls that your company is receiving. However, setting up and maintaining an infrastructure that is adequate can be costly. But, there are ways of keeping the cost down if you’re savvy. If you think that you may be paying too much for your business telephone lines, then read on to find out how you could dramatically cut your bills and save your company a fortune.
Considered switching to VoIP?
For businesses that make a lot of calls, VoIP can be a huge money saver. If you want to drastically reduce your phone bills, then this is definitely an option worth exploring. With VoIP telephone systems, SIP trunks are used instead of traditional business telephone lines. This allows calls to be made over your internet connection, which substantially lowers the cost of calls. It also allows you to make savings on the cost of the line rental. By using the internet to make calls, distance becomes insignificant and this means that even international calls can be made cheaply – at no additional cost, in fact. If you want to switch to VoIP and make huge savings on your business phone bills, you have two options: option one is to buy a VoIP phone system and have it installed in your premises. This option is generally better suited to larger companies with a high number of users. Option two is a hosted VoIP phone system. This means that that the phone system is not on your premises, but instead you connect to the service provided by a third party. You pay monthly, per user for the service, which is managed by the provider. This option is great for SMEs because there is no initial capital investment and the cost is relatively low as smaller businesses have fewer employees. It’s also low maintenance and includes support, so further cost savings can be made here too.
If you’re not convinced that VoIP is right for you, consider switching to a cheaper provider…
If you want to stick with your conventional business telephone lines and system, but are fed up the rising cost of your phone bills, then you should be looking to switch to a cheaper company. It’s common for people to stick with the same provider for years, despite being able to save money by switching, because they think that switching will be a hassle. It won’t. Switching telecoms providers is easier these days than ever before. Because of this, the market is extremely competitive and this is good news for you because it means that you can get great deals. It’s definitely worth taking a few moments to compare costs between different providers. You may find that you could save hundreds of pounds per month by switching! But, what if you’re currently locked into a contract with your existing provider? The good news is that this doesn’t have to prevent you from saving money on your phone bills. You can benefit from a service called CPS (Carrier Pre Selection), or least cost routing. CPS allows your calls to be routed to a cheaper provider, whilst still keeping your existing lines and not having to exit your current contract. It’s not like the call routing technologies of the past; CPS is a reliable and effective service that is simply designed to save you money.