How to Choose the Best VoIP for Your Business

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The best VoIP provider for your business will not only offer flexible, affordable telephony over the internet, but also support your organization’s growth. Companies switching from landlines or opening a contact center for the first time need to pay special attention to their VoIP installation.

VoIP allows your business to make and receive calls using the internet. This makes telephony more widely accessible from any location. It also makes it programmable – you can set up call routing, forwarding, queues, and more using VoIP software.

This article explains the steps involved in choosing the best VoIP for your business needs. You’ll learn about the different factors that contribute to VoIP’s success and how to manage calling costs for your organization.

Identify Your Business’ VoIP Needs

VoIP replaces classic wired telephony with a digital phone system that’s useful in various business operations. Evaluate which operations you are looking to support and estimate your future telephony needs. Here are the key factors to consider.

1. The Size of Your Business

The solution you choose will vary based on the size of your business. Some companies, such as Nextiva, offer volume discounts that get you a business-grade VoIP app for a relatively low cost. Others assign a dedicated account manager, offer free installation, and more if you go in for an enterprise package.

Bear in mind that VoIP isn’t just for large enterprises. Companies like Vonage offer a basic, smartphone-based VoIP service that costs only $13.99/user/month, which includes unlimited domestic calling and SMS. Solopreneurs and small businesses, too, can benefit from VoIP.

Conduct detailed research on which VoIP companies cater to businesses of your size. Discuss with the vendor if they have worked with businesses like yours in the past (solopreneur, startup, small business, medium-sized organization, or large enterprise).

2. The Nature of Your Business

What your business does will also determine which VoIP service is best for you. For example, the telephony needs of an e-commerce company will be very different from a non-profit.

VoIP services are often bundled with other business solutions like customer experience tools, contact center platforms, collaboration apps, and telephony hardware. Once you define the precise nature of your business and how it uses telephone calls, you’ll know the end-to-end communication services you need.

If you’re a mid-sized to large business, undertake a detailed audit of your telephony landscape – the type of callers and their expectations, call volumes, call locations, and the business outcomes from calls. Then, look for a vendor who has worked with clients in your industry before.

You may also find service providers like Vonage, which offer tailored solutions for fields such as healthcare, education, retail, finance, manufacturing, logistics, and the public sector.

3. The Scope of VoIP Communication

As a follow-up to defining the nature of your business, you need to document the exact use cases for VoIP applicable to you. Typically, internet-based telephony is used in:

You can implement any of these use cases on a standalone basis or integrate two or more of them using the same solution.

Speak with your vendor to ensure they support the required use case. If you’re looking to build a unified landscape, discuss in detail how they plan to integrate the different components, if you need to put in any technical effort, and if the integrations will need maintenance.

4. Integration with Your App Environment

These integrations work in one of two ways. The VoIP vendor could build the integration for you and make it available via a publicly available marketplace. Vonage, for example, offers 100+ integrations with marketing apps, remote working tools, productivity software, and much more.

The second integration option is through application programming interfaces (APIs). APIs are code snippets that enable data flow between two apps. You need technical skills and effort to set up VoIP APIs, but they give also you more flexibility than pre-built integrations.

No matter the size of your business, choose a VoIP solution that integrates with CRM apps such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, and Freshdesk. Most leading platforms will support these options, including Ooma, which is one of the most affordable VoIP solutions available today.

5. Future Forecasting

Future forecasting is an essential part of identifying your needs before you can choose the best VoIP services for your business.

Remember, VoIP adoption involves a degree of vendor lock-in. You’ll likely opt for a long-term contract to avail of volume discounts. Switching your numbers from one provider to another (while possible) is also a time-consuming process.

Therefore, choose a business-grade VoIP company that can meet your needs for several years to come. Not only should it be able to support 50+ users, but it should also come with multiple features such as toll-free numbers, affordable international rates, and communication APIs.

Even if you don’t need these features, they are essential to most business-to-customer (B2C) companies, and switching providers later on can be a hassle.

As part of future forecasting, check how licensing and plan tiers will change when you add more users. Also, ask the vendor where the VoIP platform is hosted so that its underlying cloud infrastructure can keep up with your growing needs.

Checklist for Business Needs Assessment When Choosing the Best VoIP

To sum up, consider the following factors when you analyze your business environment, ongoing operations, and future requirements:

What to Look for In a VoIP for Your Business

Once you have analyzed your company’s needs, you’re ready to start researching VoIP providers best suited to your requirements. Consider the following must-have features during the research stage.

1. Call Forwarding, Transfer, and Queues

VoIP can help you minimize wait times and provide callers with the best possible customer experience. Look for software that lets you transfer calls to a team member, manager, or different department based on predefined rules. It should also automatically forward calls if no one is available to answer them.

Queues help you manage multiple customers as they wait to be attended by a contact center agent. VoIP queueing features can help you program routing rules, assign queue numbers, play a prerecorded message, or even schedule a callback.

2. Interactive Voice Response and Virtual Receptionist

Interactive voice response (IVR) is a VoIP feature that lets callers choose how the conversation will be routed. For instance, someone calling a bank may press 1 to reach the credit card department, 2 for their checking account details, and 3 to apply for a mortgage.

IVR provides customers with self-service, reducing the burden on your call queues. Some VoIP providers even offer conversational IVR, where an artificial intelligence (AI) engine listens to the customer and routes the call based on keywords.

A virtual receptionist is a simpler version of an IVR. It has fewer navigation options and lets you make different announcements and share different messages depending on the time of day. VoIP providers like Vonage offer a virtual receptionist to simplify call flows.

3. Call Monitoring and Recording

Call monitoring and recording assist in quality assurance and allow you to intervene if a call isn’t going in the right direction. Monitoring features can be of various types – for instance, ‘whispering’ lets the manager guide an employee without the customer’s knowledge, while ‘barging’ lets them jump onto the call.

Recording is also a crucial feature when choosing a business-grade VoIP service. You can analyze call recordings later for compliance, training, or to study customer behavior. Check recording limits before adoption. For example, Ooma supports recordings of up to 3 hours in length with 90 days of storage.

4. Toll-Free Numbers, Vanity Numbers, and Porting

Toll-free numbers can be extremely useful; they can encourage customers to call you for sales inquiries or lodge a complaint instead of posting negative reviews online. Most VoIP providers will help you obtain a toll-free number with prefixes like 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, and 833.

A vanity number is a business phone number that’s easy to remember, with a strong brand recall. For instance, 1-800-FLOWERS is associated with a NASDAQ-traded, New York-based florist.

Look for a VoIP provider who will help you easily obtain toll-free and vanity numbers. Also, try to choose a company with an easy porting process. That way, you’ll be able to retain your current numbers (with minimum hassle) while benefiting from a new VoIP service.

5. Caller ID, DND, and Voicemail

The caller ID feature allows you to see who’s calling, whether it’s another employee or an external customer. You should be able to connect the VoIP app with the CRM to get the complete details of customers when they call.

Do not disturb (DND) is another useful screening feature. You can configure the VoIP software to reject calls during certain hours and route them to voicemail instead.

The best VoIP providers will let you customize voicemail greetings so you can continue to deliver superior experiences even outside of business hours. Some will even transcribe the voicemail and email it to you so you can refer to it when you need it.

6. Call Bridging, Call Flip, SMS, and Fax

Bridging allows callers from multiple locations to participate in the same conversation. It’s a handy feature for remote and hybrid teams as they can dial the business phone number from anywhere in the world. Call flip, too, helps in remote and hybrid work by letting you switch devices during a VoIP call.

SMS and MMS features can complement VoIP calls. They allow your employees to reach out to customers in bulk and share important notifications like shipping updates, T&C changes, and promos/discounts.

If you’re going to use your VoIP provider primarily for internal collaboration, look for a provider like Nextiva that offers internet-based fax in addition to calling and SMS.

7. Call Reports and Analytics

Call reports and analytics are essential VoIP features for growing businesses. They give you the data you need to train your employees and allocate your resources.

Ideally, the data should be available as visual dashboards and not just tables and spreadsheets. You should be able to view real-time call data as well as historical trends.

All these core features are supported by the best VoIP providers today.

Apart from this, make sure the VoIP app works with internet protocol (IP) phone hardware like Poly and Yealink. If IP hardware is part of your VoIP adoption plan, you could choose a company like Ooma, which offers its own branded phone and accessories.

How to Ensure VoIP Quality and Reliability

No matter which VoIP provider you choose, ensuring quality and reliability is paramount for your business. That’s why you need to ensure a strong internet connection at your end and robust infrastructure from your vendor.

Is Your Internet VoIP Ready?

Adopting VoIP can be a major change for your business if you are graduating from a plain old telephone system (POTS). Therefore, you want to make sure you’re ready for the transformation and that your network infrastructure can support VoIP.

Fortunately, the bandwidth requirements of VoIP are quite low. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), VoIP calls need a minimum download speed of less than 0.5 Mbps. For comparison, the average download speed in the US in 2023 is a staggering 256.03 Mbps.

Bear in mind that video calls require a minimum speed of 1 Mbps, and HD video teleconferencing needs 6 Mbps at least. So, if you’re planning to use your VoIP solution for anything besides calls, make sure to check your network speeds.
In addition to speed, data consumption is also an important factor for VoIP quality. As Nextiva explains, different VoIP compression and decompression systems (codecs) consume data at different rates, which could add to your costs.

Businesses using VoIP need unlimited data, which eliminates the issue of data caps. Solopreneurs and small businesses adopting internet telephony for the first time may need to switch data plans for a faster, more cost-effective service.

Consider providers like Ooma, which offers bundled internet (Ooma Connect) with its business phone product. If your employees work from home regularly, you may want to subsidize their home internet plan for uninterrupted VoIP use, especially if you run a contact center.

Once you have shortlisted a few VoIP providers, you should be able to visit their websites to run network tests. For instance, Nextiva lets you evaluate the quality of your network infrastructure and its VoIP readiness directly from your office PC.

Which Type of VoIP Should You Choose?

Most companies will give you all four options and you can choose which one to use, depending on your use case. For example, a short video call between colleagues may require a computer-to-computer connection, while a call center agent may use a computer to reach customers on their phones.

A landline-to-VoIP adapter is a physical device that converts analog signals from a landline into digital signals that can pass through your VoIP provider’s infrastructure. You simply plug your analog phone into the adapter, and the adapter has a built-in router to enable internet connectivity.

Softphone apps, which you can access from any internet-connected device or browser, enable calling, SMS, video, and voicemail capabilities. They are easy to configure and all VoIP services come with a softphone option, in case you don’t want to invest in an IP phone.

Computer-to-phone connections allow users to dial analog or VoIP numbers from their computer and the recipient can take the call on a traditional, physical device. In contrast, computer-to-computer connections are restricted to app-based calling.

For example, when you place a WhatsApp call, the recipient doesn’t have the option of responding on a traditional landline. It’s ideal to choose a vendor that offers all four options, or, at least, the last three (softphone, computer-to-phone, and computer-to-computer).

What is the Quality of Your Vendor Infrastructure?

Your VoIP provider’s infrastructure will also determine the calling experience and reliability. Since VoIP is internet-based, the software, its features, and all its calling services are hosted on the cloud (remote data centers).

Some VoIP providers use public clouds like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Google Cloud, while others use their own data centers. Vonage business phone solutions, for instance, are hosted on AWS with data centers in the US, EU, and APAC.

When choosing the best VoIP for your business, thoroughly evaluate the vendor’s infrastructure. You may need to submit a request for proposal (RFP) to find out the exact hosting details.

Also, enquire about the vendor’s uptime, which is the percentage of time the system will be operable. The maximum you can get is 99.999% or 5 nines uptime, which means that it will be unavailable for less than six minutes a year.

For perspective, an uptime of 99.9% means you lose nearly nine hours of operational time, which can be costly for your business. So, check this metric carefully before making a selection.

Also, ask the vendor about system status checks and if the data is publicly available. For instance, Vonage has a dedicated portal for checking system status in real-time, which is a great help when you face VoIP issues during business hours.

VoIP Security and Compliance

Security and compliance are two of the key challenges with VoIP technology. If you use analog telephone lines like POTS, hackers can’t break their way into the system through malicious programming. However, the digital nature of VoIP makes it essential to protect against VoIP hacking.

Here are some of the steps you can take to ensure VoIP security:

Another best practice for VoIP security is to work only with regulatory-compliant vendors, particularly if you operate in industries like healthcare and financial services.

If you’re going to exchange medical data over VoIP lines, the software must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Most VoIP providers, including Vonage and Nextiva, offer HIPAA-compliant communications solutions to address patient privacy requirements.

Companies transmitting financial data over VoIP need to ensure compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards, which mandate OS updates, penetration testing, and secure virtual lands. PCI compliance is mandatory for the ecommerce sector, among other industries.

Also, check for ISO and SOC certifications, which indicate that the VoIP provider has taken steps to maintain information security, integrity, and privacy.

How to Forecast Your VoIP Costs

When choosing a provider, you need to calculate your projected VoIP costs, which will include much more than the service plan itself. Businesses must factor in the cost of hardware, acquiring new phone numbers, the cost of integrations, and international calling rates.

Typically, your VoIP provider plan will cost you between $15 and $50/month/user, with pricing on the higher side if you opt for a contact center solution. Additional phone numbers will cost between $5 and $10, depending on the location and whether you’re choosing a vanity number.

VoIP works well with smartphones and PCs, which means you don’t need to purchase additional hardware. However, IP phones start at around $40 and go up to several hundred dollars, a one-time, upfront cost.

Finally, remember to factor in the cost of your business internet connection with unlimited data. This will cost you around $50 to $100/month – of course, the connection will also be useful for operations other than VoIP.

Tips for How to Choose the Best VoIP for Your Business

The best VoIP for your business will depend on your unique communication requirements, budget, and technical proficiency within the organization. That said, there are a few tips you can follow to make the right call.

1. Be Practical About the Cost vs. Feature Trade-Off

It can be tempting to try and find the most affordable VoIP provider for your business, especially if you are switching to internet telephony for the first time. However, remember that cheaper products may cut corners on the feature set.

For instance, Vonage Basic starts at $13.99/month/user but doesn’t support integrations or IP phones. Similarly, Nextiva starts at $16.72/month/user but doesn’t include SMS/MMS.

Be upfront about your feature requirements and find a solution that fits. You can save more by opting for longer contracts and a greater number of users.

2. Understand the Difference Between Collaboration and Contact Centers

While internet business communication and customer calls both rely on VoIP, the software technology and workflows are very different. The former will include features like video calls and chat, while the latter will support advanced call routing and CRM integrations.

Even if you choose a VoIP provider that does both, clarify your intended use cases at the very outset. This will help you negotiate a better price for the features you need.

3. Ask About the Company’s Porting Services

Phone number porting is the process of porting your old VoIP or POTS numbers to the new provider. The VoIP company you choose may charge a small fee for completing the porting services. Or, it may offer a POTS replacement solution from scratch, such as Ooma AirDial.

Planning for number porting beforehand can reduce your costs later on and minimize business interruptions. It will also prevent unpleasant surprises, such as the new VoIP company not providing coverage for a local phone number in a particular region.

4. Don’t Ignore the User Interface

Regardless of the cost and feature set, your VoIP adoption numbers will be low if the user interface is difficult to navigate. Consider the user experience for three roles – the IT manager or admin, the manager or team leader, and the employee or contact center agent.

The software should be easy to set up and configure. Managers must be able to choose their preferred integrations, start conversations, assign tasks, and view analytics. Agents or employees must be able to use the VoIP app across different devices to stay productive.

5. Include Customer Support in Your Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Phone calls are an essential service for any business, and you want to be able to ask your vendor for support for even the most minor issues. This calls for prompt customer support on various channels, including chat, email, and phone calls.

Prioritize support when short-listing your preferred vendors. Nextiva, for example, includes 24/7 email, chat, and phone support on all its plans, no matter the size of your business. Ooma, too, offers phone support for free.

Choose the Best VoIP for Your Organization – Takeaways

Choosing the best VoIP services for your business can seem daunting, but a good decision will pay rich dividends for years to come. Fortunately, there are several leading VoIP providers that offer secure, powerful, and competitively-priced solutions.

Start by identifying your business’ VoIP needs, including your workforce size, business operations, app environment, and future plans. Next, evaluate your short-listed vendors to ensure they offer core VoIP features like call management, monitoring, IVR, analytics, and voicemail.

Security and ease of use are also important factors to consider, as these will determine VoIP adoption rates in your company and the returns you earn. With a well-thought-out selection and implementation process, you can simplify your VoIP transformation with minimal hassles.

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