Your Guide to Enterprise VoIP Services: Top Systems for 2022

Get Enterprise VoIP for Your Company Today

Big businesses are making the switch to Enterprise VoIP to satisfy their communications needs. Enterprise VoIP providers give your business phone system an incredible upgrade, with features that your local telephone company can’t even comprehend. Between the excellent prices and superior service, it’s no wonder large corporations continue to switch to using VoIP.

Nevertheless, navigating the murky waters of the VoIP world can be a bit cumbersome. Every VoIP provider is different, and there are so many out there! But instead of breaking down the differences between each and every company, today, we want to help you understand Enterprise VoIP and give you a guide to finding the right provider for you.

What Is VoIP?

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. This is often shortened to Voice over IP, or VoIP. An internet protocol determines how two devices will exchange information on the internet, and there are many protocols. You’re using HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) right now to read this website, for example.

But a voice call has different needs than a website. Voice calls need to happen in real-time, and they must transmit more complex information than just text and images. VoIP allows you to make a phone call that sounds as good as the ones you make from a standard phone.

The internet makes it possible to do some pretty nifty tricks with your VoIP Call. You can program call routing by simply logging in to a website or adjusting settings in an app. You can record your call to your local PC or to the cloud too. Some of the best VoIP providers even have artificial intelligence that can provide you with call analytics.

What Is Enterprise VoIP?

Enterprise VoIP refers to a VoIP service that is specially designed to address the needs of large businesses. While small business customers may also need this level of VoIP service, it’s generally targeted to companies with at least 15-20 employees. Enterprise VoIP providers focus on delivering specific features that are more important for large companies.

Your typical VoIP provider will give you a virtual phone number with unlimited calling. This is the basic VoIP package. But businesses need more than just a number to call from. You need unified communications. Messaging, calls, conferencing, you get it all under one roof when you opt for an Enterprise VoIP system.

The big Enterprise VoIP providers take it to the next level, giving you the ability to route calls across your entire enterprise. It doesn’t matter where in the world your workers are; you can keep them connected as if they were all in the same room.

Can a VoIP System Replace Your Business Phone Service?

But what about Diane, your receptionist of 30 years whose desk phone has been through it all? The earpiece is a completely different color, and the plastic has worn down where her shoulder has pressed into it. That phone is as much a part of the company as Diane, and she won’t give it up without a fight.

The good news is that you don’t have to get rid of your old hardware if you don’t want to. Your existing phone network is built on something called a private branch exchange, or PBX. Your business is like a leaf at the end of the phone company’s branch, and when a call reaches your building, it exchanges it to your internal system where call routing and call forwarding take place.

With enterprise VoIP, you can actually tap into this existing infrastructure and send calls to your old school phones. But if you want to take full advantage of VoIP and its features, you’ll want to upgrade to a fully online Cloud PBX and get desk phones with an internet connection.

So VoIP services are absolutely capable of replacing your business phone system, and they can even do things your current setup will never be able to.

Advantages of a VoIP Phone System

Exclusive Advanced Features

An enterprise VoIP phone system opens up a world of possibilities. If your traditional phone line is a gravel road, VoIP is a smart highway from the future. Do you want to have a professional menu system to receive and sort your calls? With an auto-attendant, you can automate the repetitive aspects of your customer support.

Do you need cloud-based everything? Whether you want call recording in the cloud or the best quality audio and video available, cloud-based VoIP phone systems give it to you.

Enterprise VoIP lets you control your users with a dashboard instead of physical phone lines. You can scale your phone service in seconds. Manage your virtual numbers by location or by user. The control you get with VoIP is unparalleled.

Cost Savings

One of the biggest advantages of VoIP is just how much money your enterprise can save. The fact that there are so many VoIP phone systems is a blessing. It creates competition, and that lowers prices for your company. Your local phone company, on the other hand, has no competition whatsoever. They laid the lines, and they get to charge you whatever they want.

Phone companies love extracting profits from enterprise customers. They know you need the most advanced features and make sure to charge you heavily for it. Their toll-free numbers are likewise expensive.

The bottom line is that when you give your business VoIP service, you’re going to save time and money every month while adding a bunch of new features that will make your company even more productive.

Faster Customer Support

Good luck getting your phone company’s customer support to come out and fix your issues quickly. With VoIP, you’re still dependent on your local ISP, but you can choose from a variety of service providers. Because the service provider can diagnose your troubles at a distance, you can get help instantly and keep downtime to a minimum.

Adding users is as easy as a few clicks. You log into your administrator’s account and add users and virtual numbers instantly. If you suddenly get a call from some Australian customers and want to create an international virtual number so that they don’t have to pay long-distance, you can do that in seconds. Or, just get a toll free number in a minute or less.

Every time you need something from the phone company, you have to call and be put on hold forever until some disgruntled employee picks up the phone. You don’t have time for that! With enterprise VoIP, you have full control over your service, and you get to configure it to your liking.

How to Find an Enterprise VoIP Solution

Once you’ve decided that a business phone service powered by VoIP is the right choice for your company, how do you figure out which enterprise VoIP phone provider is right for you? Finding a service provider may seem like an overwhelming task, but if you have the right approach, you won’t have any trouble at all.

The hardest part is sifting through all of the different enterprise VoIP companies. So make that easy by limiting your search to no more than 3 options. How do you find your final three? Follow this easy process, and you’ll have your shortlist in no time.

Review Your Communications Budget

It all starts with your current spending on telephony service. Take some time to evaluate your existing service. What are the features included with your current provider? How much are you spending on those features, in addition to the base cost of your phone lines and any other network infrastructure installed at your site?

Large businesses often ignore their utility bills as they see these as a relatively minor expense, the cost of doing business. When was the last time you actually took a good look at your enterprise phone bill? But remember, communications costs aren’t just limited to your phone bill anymore.

Does your company pay for a video conferencing app like Zoom? Include that in your calculations as well, because enterprise VoIP phone companies will often give you unlimited video conferencing with their calling services. Determine your monthly expenses on communications, and then you’ll have a baseline for deciding which enterprise VoIP system to use.

Determine Which VoIP Features You Need

Each VoIP system has its own set of features. While many have several basic features in common, they handle them in different ways. Some focus on delivering VoIP calls straight to your desk phones, while others have amazing apps that work on every platform and are meant to use your computer as the calling device. Still, others specialize in artificial intelligence features.

Let’s consider some of the major VoIP features available to get an idea of what you should look for.

Basic Features

All VoIP systems on your shortlist should have these basic features. These are essential. If you see an enterprise VoIP option that lacks these, forget about them.

The first thing you need is a series of virtual numbers with unlimited calling for every user on the account. The VoIP phone service should also give you the option to get international numbers that allow for unlimited calling in the same country, at an additional cost per number. You should also get at least one toll-free number by default.

Your VoIP solution should further have a modern app that works on your mobile device and your desktop computers. That program should be compatible across all platforms, including Mac and PC, Android and iOS, and if Linux is supported, that’s a big plus. This app ought to be capable of video conferencing and real-time calling as well as messaging between coworkers.

Advanced Features

Here is where enterprise VoIP companies differentiate themselves. The best solutions have all of these features. If one of these features stands out to you as extremely important for your business, then look for a company that specializes in providing that enterprise VoIP feature:

Hosted PBX Systems

We touched on this earlier. Enterprise VoIP systems can utilize your existing PBX infrastructure by installing a device called a VoIP gateway. The enterprise VoIP company should have a reliable network of installers who can come out to take care of this for you.

But if you would rather make a complete switch to the cloud and ditch your old desk phones, you’ll want a fully hosted PBX. You can log in and configure call forwarding so that calls from a certain country or area code are delivered to the correct person. You can also set up extensions for your workers.

You should then consider buying new phones for your office. These new phones can be used with Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable to deliver VoIP calls to your desk. Diane might even be willing to upgrade once she sees the gorgeous touch screens that bring up contact information and call history whenever the phone rings.

Artificial Intelligence Features

The relatively new field of machine learning and artificial intelligence has taken enterprise VoIP to the next level. Businesses large and small can benefit from features like the auto-attendant, which will automatically pick up calls and provide customers with a menu to help them get to the right department. It can play pre-recorded messages too.

Even more advanced auto attendant systems will use AI-generated voices to talk to your customers. This is great for customer support since the caller can explain their situation, and the auto attendant can even listen for keywords. AI can even translate voicemail to email by listening and transcribing the voicemail.

AI can make your customer service better as well. Call recording is useful for reviewing customer support representatives, and some AIs can even detect your mood in real-time, letting you know if one of your workers is being a little too grumpy on the phone.

Advanced Call Analytics

Enterprise VoIP lets you leverage the power of the internet to discover trends in your call activity. Analyzing data is known as analytics, and it’s becoming a major part of every business. When you use VoIP, you can track every one of your voice calls and derive valuable insights from the data.

For example, if you’re suddenly getting lots of calls from a single area code, it could suggest you get a new number in that area to give your business a more local feel to those customers. Perhaps the AI notices that lots of callers are asking about discounts or sales, so your marketing team creates a campaign and calls those same people back to let them know.

You can make all of that possible by switching to enterprise VoIP. It may seem too good to be true, but it isn’t. VoIP is nothing new; it’s been around for decades. It’s just that now we have the bandwidth and connectivity to see its true potential.

Check Your Bandwidth and Connections

Before you pull the trigger on a VoIP system, be sure you evaluate your current level of connectivity. VoIP doesn’t consume a ton of data, but if you have dozens of employees making VoIP calls, you’ll need to make sure you have enough bandwidth for their calls to go through.

If you’re switching to IP phones, then make sure you have a wired connection for each one—or at least, very good Wi-Fi coverage. Poor signal strength will ruin the quality of your calls.

Compare Enterprise VoIP Providers

Once you know exactly what you want, start comparing providers. Find the ones that have the features you need and evaluate their cost per user per month. Compare that to your current expenses for your existing phone service.

Get your list down to three companies and ask them for a free trial. Consider having a test group in your office to try out the new network before settling on a final choice. Now your enterprise is ready for the future.