Best VoIP for Enterprises

You can send/receive faxes online and you have plenty of features and unlimited (inter)national calls for cost-friendly monthly prices. VoIP services are scalable, which means they grow with you – figuratively, as cloud phone systems don’t require any hardware to be placed in your office. Furthermore, you can switch to your new system and get rid of the extra, unnecessary cables without saying goodbye to your analog desk phones.

Why a cloud hosted phone system?

Indeed: why a cloud-hosted phone system when the same tasks can be performed by on-premise or hybrid systems? Granted, an on-premise system means complete ownership of every single part of your phone system, the system is tailored to your specific needs and you only have to pay a larger installation fee once. However, said installation is brutally expensive, the servers take up a significant amount of office space, you have to maintain the system (additional costs) and you can say goodbye to flexibility. But the worst of all is that your system will become outdated within five years to a decade tops, so you have to replace it again – costing you another fortune. A hybrid system has more or less the same pros and cons, but it already provides some of the benefits of a cloud-based system, mostly the inclusion of VoIP devices.

A cloud-hosted phone system gets rid of all cons of an on-place system. Installation is cheap as the system integrates with existing hardware via an adapter. Furthermore, calls run through the internet, therefore you don’t need to install new cables anymore. You can hook up every device to your network that can connect to the World Wide Web (mobile devices, softphones included), all data is stored in the cloud (so they are safe should your system be down), and you get continuous support and updates from your phone system provider. But the best thing of all is scalability: the bigger your enterprise grows, the bigger your cloud phone system grows with you.

Enterprise VoIP software and features

No matter which VoIP provider you choose, you will get the most crucial features necessary to successfully maintain a virtual phone system. Here is a non-exhaustive list of such features:

Auto-attendant

A virtual manifestation of a receptionist, this feature directs incoming calls to the right extension or, if you or the called colleague is out of office, to voicemail.

Call forwarding

By enabling call forwarding you can route calls to multiple devices, either ringing them simultaneously or sequentially, until you answer the call or the call is directed to voicemail.

Call parking

Usually available with devices that support this feature (with a physical button on said device) you can put a call on hold after you have answered it and allow for someone else to take over the conversation.

Call queuing

A less advanced form of call parking, this feature circulates the call within your phone system’s network to anyone who is free to receive the call.

Caller ID

No caller can hide his/her number from you, because it’s always displayed on your screen. As for you, you can place outbound calls using the phone number associated to your phone system.

Conferencing

By creating a separate extension, which can only be accessed by those who dial a specific access code, you are able to organize conference calls for up to 100 people.

Faxing

Your cloud phone system can entirely take up the role of a fax machine. This means that you can receive fax messages and turn them into emails, while more advanced systems are capable of sending faxes too.

Mobile apps

VoIP mobile apps have two purposes: the first one is to be a partial or full replacement of your online account. The second purpose is to be a softphone with which you can place calls like you were in the office.

Multiple phone lines

You can associate multiple phone lines with your network in order to completely eliminate busy phone lines.

Voicemails

You can have virtually endless voicemail boxes and each time you receive a new voicemail message you get notified thereof by push notifications or emails. Furthermore, this is one of the many features you can access via mobile devices.

Enterprise phone systems and routers

The beauty of a cloud phone system is that it basically doesn’t require new equipment at all. And should you want to purchase new phone equipment, it can be easily hooked up to your system after very little configuration.

Desktop phones

If you mostly rely on good old analog desk phones, you will need an adapter that transforms the analog signals into internet data. If you have VoIP phones that are already connected to your system via Ethernet cable, you only have to configure your phone in order to get it recognized by your new system. However, certain phones manufactured by Cisco, Polycom and Yealink are often auto-configured by the phone system provider itself. In fact, if you need an adapter with your analog phones, companies often offer Cisco’s solutions.

Routers & Bridges

Like in the case of desk phones, routers can also be integrated into your VoIP system (mostly the products of bigger companies such as Linksys, Netgear, Cisco and TP-Link), but only after they are configured to handle all the phones connected to the device and after you prioritize voice traffic in the router’s settings. The same is also true if you want to create a network bridge: you have to configure all devices to establish a connection between all networks you use.

Conference Phones

Basically the same rules apply to conference phones as for desk phones. The only difference is that not all conference phone manufacturers support VoIP: Polycom, Cisco and Yealink are three known conference phone brands.

Enterprise VoIP Providers

Even though there are plenty of VoIP companies offering quality services, enterprise-scale solutions are usually available with bigger companies like RingCentral, Nextiva (which also provides hardware under its name) and Goto Connect.