VoIP Service Providers Lodi

Choosing between VoIP service providers in Lodi

Once, implementing a VoIP system in a business was considered a major, and somewhat risky, change. Now it’s seen as standard practice and a whole industry has developed around it. Competition between VoIP service providers helps to keep prices down, but it also means that businesses have to use a bit of strategy to find the right VoIP service provider for their needs. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to choosing between VoIP service providers in Lodi.

How To VoIP Service Providers?

Start by assessing your immediate needs

For most companies, your immediate need will be for a VoIP system that supports the same functions as your current telephone system. You may want to upgrade it to some extent, but you’re unlikely to want to downgrade it (unless it’s 100% clear that a particular function is simply unnecessary).

Think about where you want to go in the future and how quickly

It’s probably fair to say that many companies will be perfectly happy with mainstream VoIP functionality. This typically includes a fairly wide range of call-management tools, including call-recording plus conference-calling and video-calling. Many VoIP service providers will also support Fax over IP (efax) even though this is technically different from VoIP. If you want to work with one who doesn’t, you can use a specialist Fax over IP provider to bridge the gap.

Once you start going beyond this, then your pool of potential VoIP service providers is probably going to start to shrink. The further you want to go, the fewer VoIP service providers are likely to be able to meet your needs. In other words, the less competition there will be for your custom.

That being so, it can be helpful to think about how quickly you want to develop your VoIP service. If you’re not in a great rush, you could open up your vendor selection process to VoIP service providers who can meet your initial needs and then change to a new VoIP service provider if you outgrow them. This could give you access to a much wider range of deals and hence allow you to recoup your initial investment more quickly.

Decide if you need your VoIP service provider to manage your hosting

For most companies, a VoIP implementation is going to require a significant upgrade of their network infrastructure. If you want your VoIP service provider to take care of providing the necessary facilities, then this needs to be put into your list of vendor requirements. If you want to make other arrangements, then it’s generally best to get the process started as early as possible because your VoIP implementation will only happen once the necessary network infrastructure is in place.

Decide if you need your VoIP service provider to bundle equipment with your contract

Your main decision is whether to base your deployment around softphones or around VoIP handsets (or a combination of both). Softphones are provided by VoIP service vendors and are technically free (or made available at a nominal cost). In reality, however, there is a cost for them because you will generally need to buy headsets to use them and it’s advisable to invest in good-quality ones. It’s also advisable to use wired headsets as they are more dependable than wireless ones.

Softphones can save both money and space compared to VoIP handsets but their quality can be variable even on regular computers and even more so on mobile devices. This means that it’s a very good idea to test them thoroughly before you decide whether or not to commit to one. It also means that you might want to think about whether you have the flexibility to use VoIP handsets if you find you like a VoIP service provider’s general offering but aren’t thrilled by their softphone client.

If you can source your equipment yourself, you may get a better deal on price and you will have maximum flexibility with regards to negotiating your contract terms. On the other hand, having equipment bundled with your VoIP service contract allows you to spread the cost.

Decide what you want from a VoIP service contract

It’s advisable to define your minimum service standards before you even start looking at calling plans. These should cover call quality, customer service and support, and security and compliance. Once you’ve set these you have to stick to them.

You then need to assess calling plans based on how they fit into your predicted usage. Ideally, you will go through your previous telephone bills and see what patterns you can identify and then think about what, if anything, could be likely to change in the future.

If you’d like to speak to one of the best VoIP service providers in Lodi, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.