Choosing the right provider

Multiple forms of communication are typically utilised within a business or organisation, but a reliable telephone system is often the most crucial. When switching over from a traditional PABX (Private Automatic Branch Exchange) system to a to a hosted VoIP service, there are many considerations to take into account.

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It’s important to determine just how flexible the service will be, and whether a provider has the capability to cope with the multiple strands of your business’s communication needs. The provider should have the manpower and technology in place that allows it to grow with your business over time.

When making ‘the switchover’, using one provider to manage all of your communications (telephony & business broadband) can significantly minimise disruption and cost. A provider should make the switchover process as stress-free as possible and deal with any initial teething problems quickly and efficiently.

The stability of your chosen provider is an essential consideration. This emerging market has attracted many fly-by-night providers who are destined to fail, mainly due to lack of industry experience. Be aware that if your provider goes down, so do your communications.

A big part of choosing a hosted telephony provider is the overall cost of the service, or to put it another way, the savings that can be made when compared to your current telephony system. However, like most things in life, the cheapest provider is rarely the best and you usually get what you pay for.

The growing market and the rising demand for hosted telephony services has also made many Hosted VoIP providers a prime target for venture capitalists. This isn’t always a problem but often these investors have no interest in the long-term success of a company and are simply looking to make a quick buck and move on. Ask prospective providers about long-term ambitions and future business plans and if they can’t tell you what they are, avoid these companies.

On the surface, investment from third parties may not appear to be a big issue. However, often when a business changes ownership, the new management can significantly change the operational structure of the business in an unforeseen way, potentially leaving you with reduced level of service or increased costs. With diligent research, this situation can be avoided, to some extent.

The entire reasoning behind investing in hosted telephony service is that it is an off-site service; reducing the workload of existing staff, cutting IT expenses and increasing service reliability. Meeting the external team who will be managing your system is always a wise idea. If they don’t seem like the type of people that you would employ in your own organisation, allowing them to run a pivotal part of your business would probably be poor judgement and could result in issues further down the line.

An unreliable provider can be a thorn in the side of a business, with unwanted downtime slowing down both internal and external communications and costing money in terms of lost working hours. On top of this, switching providers can be an expensive and disruptive process, so it pays to partner with a reliable provider from the outset.

Like any new service being introduced to a business, there is always potential for “snagging” with unforeseen issues possibly disrupting your service in the early stages, through no fault of you or your provider. Whereas minor issues are inevitable, it’s the way companies deal with them that sets a great company apart from the rest. Your provider should have the ability to resolve any issues efficiently without any fuss, no matter what time of day.

Consider the above issues, and you should find yourself with a cost-effective, friendly and, above all else, reliable provider.

Article submitted by Mark Palmer, Online Marketing Manager at InTechnology – UK pioneer in hosted IP Telephony (VoIP) services for businesses, offering a wide range of secure, integrated and cost-effective managed Cloud solutions.

To find out more about hosted VoIP, please visit http://www.intechnology.co.uk