What VoIP system should I choose for my business

gthomas1

I have owned my business for a little over four years. I have managed to grow my business to include several employees, and I no longer have to go out in the field to do the job. I have been looking toward new plans of growth over the next few months and turning this year into a year of major growth. There are a number of things I intend to change in order to accomplish this goal.

One of the biggest problems I have is my ability to communicate constantly with everyone in my company. It gets extremely expensive purchasing a cell phone plan for 20 people, and internet access isn't always a feasible solution, or even affordable most of the time. I have decided that I need to improve our ability as a company to communicate things more quickly, and clearly. I need some method for us to stay in touch and communicate the progress of different job.

I started my search on the internet and Google as most of us often do. I found that the amount of technology available now days is astounding. It blows my mind to see all of the different types of services and programs that are available. It makes me wonder which services would serve me and my needs best, and what services I could probably go without.

I continued my search to learn more about telephones and different types of phone systems. I eventually landed on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone on Wikipedia. It had nothing that was very useful for me as a business owner, but I found a ton of great information about the history and development of the telephone. It blows my mind to think of how it was when the whole idea began, and how far we have come into the modern day.

I moved on and found a variety of other websites, as well. I have decided that some VoIP system would probably work best for me. There are programs that offer instant forwarding to cell phones. I also found programs that offer the ability to track and report things more easily. I even have the ability to view messages and calls from my computer. I found a website at http://www.phone.com/ and was wondering if anyone has used this program before.

What programs have you used that you would recommend? I need a program that is affordable, and will allow all of us to communicate easily with one another regardless of our locations. I also want something that will allow me to video chat with clients and potential suppliers when possible. I need to install a communication system that handles all of my communication needs from the client to the people in the field.

Mr. G

gthomas1 wrote: »

I have owned my business for a little over four years. I have managed to grow my business to include several employees, and I no longer have to go out in the field to do the job. I have been looking toward new plans of growth over the next few months and turning this year into a year of major growth. There are a number of things I intend to change in order to accomplish this goal.

One of the biggest problems I have is my ability to communicate constantly with everyone in my company. It gets extremely expensive purchasing a cell phone plan for 20 people, and internet access isn't always a feasible solution, or even affordable most of the time. I have decided that I need to improve our ability as a company to communicate things more quickly, and clearly. I need some method for us to stay in touch and communicate the progress of different job.

I started my search on the internet and Google as most of us often do. I found that the amount of technology available now days is astounding. It blows my mind to see all of the different types of services and programs that are available. It makes me wonder which services would serve me and my needs best, and what services I could probably go without.

I continued my search to learn more about telephones and different types of phone systems. I eventually landed on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone on Wikipedia. It had nothing that was very useful for me as a business owner, but I found a ton of great information about the history and development of the telephone. It blows my mind to think of how it was when the whole idea began, and how far we have come into the modern day.

I moved on and found a variety of other websites, as well. I have decided that some VoIP system would probably work best for me. There are programs that offer instant forwarding to cell phones. I also found programs that offer the ability to track and report things more easily. I even have the ability to view messages and calls from my computer. I found a website at http://www.phone.com/ and was wondering if anyone has used this program before.

What programs have you used that you would recommend? I need a program that is affordable, and will allow all of us to communicate easily with one another regardless of our locations. I also want something that will allow me to video chat with clients and potential suppliers when possible. I need to install a communication system that handles all of my communication needs from the client to the people in the field.

Phone.com (from looking at their website) is an American company, and so would not support local CLI and calls to the emergency services in Ireland. For these reasons, as well as being able to port your number etc I would recommend you choose a provider here in Ireland.

Have a look at Goldfish.ie and Blueface. Both of these are Irish and will divert calls to mobiles where required, such as when the office is on other calls etc

Obviously calls made from mobiles cannot be viewed from the same portal.

Do you wish to have it hosted? If you do not have a reliable connection in your office, this may be the way to go. The providers I mentioned above will host your "phone system" in the "cloud".

VoIP is being used more and more, and apart from cost savings, it does make firms more efficient and collaborative.

It may be no harm to set up a domain name and give each staff member a business email address. Just a tip

If you're looking to host a phone system in house, have a look at FreePBX. It allows you to install a fully functional pbx on a pc, but keep in mind if your internet connection is not great you may be better off getting it hosted since any diverts to mobiles will be put through that box.

What is your internet connection like in the office? You may be able to port numbers over from ISDN lines to save on line rental. If you have broadband on a line, that line cannot be ported.

Office 365, Hosted Exchange, Lync and Skype are also options. If you're going to video chat with suppliers and clients I would recommend you use Skype since the majority of people will be familiar with it. Skype do business plans also, so I would look into this. Again, 999/112 calls will not work on Skype. They will on Irish providers such as Blueface. You should have 3G really when doing Skype calls. It may be an option to get a few sticks to connect to laptops or some phones will allow you to make Skype calls, as well as connect into the hosted phone system.

O2 do a deal for €9.99 a month with unlimited mobile and landline calls. This may be an option for your mobile situation. Most providers will also do bulk deals.

What kind of a business is this? It sounds as if staff spend a lot of time out of the office so using VoIP may be an issue since it does not work very well in 2G.

There is a sticky with a list of providers whom you may wish to get in touch with. Please do ask if you have any other questions.

Mylow

Mr. G wrote: »

O2 do a deal for €9.99 a month with unlimited mobile and landline calls. This may be an option for your mobile situation. Most providers will also do bulk deals.

Had a good look on the O2 business site, I cannot find this, could you provide a link to it. TIA

Mr. G

Mylow wrote: »

Had a good look on the O2 business site, I cannot find this, could you provide a link to it. TIA

It's prepay. You can still claim VAT etc obviously.

I would suggest you post in a more relevant forum regarding mobile plans, you might get some help there.

Mylow

Mr. G wrote: »

It's prepay. You can still claim VAT etc obviously.

I would suggest you post in a more relevant forum regarding mobile plans, you might get some help there.

I would suggest you read my question again :-) My question was in relation to your "quote" in the "VOIP forum", therefore I would assume you were referring to a "VOIP product" now being offered by O2, similar to Blueface. I was already aware of the €20/€10 prepay offer on O2 and similar offering from 48months.

The original post looks very much like someone promoting a business via the backdoor especially as it is their first post.

Mr. G

Mylow wrote: »

I would suggest you read my question again :-) My question was in relation to your "quote" in the "VOIP forum", therefore I would assume you were referring to a "VOIP product" now being offered by O2, similar to Blueface. I was already aware of the €20/€10 prepay offer on O2 and similar offering from 48months.

The original post looks very much like someone promoting a business via the backdoor especially as it is their first post.

O2 do not offer any VoIP services as far as I'm aware. Blueface offer mobile and VoIP. Their mobile service ties in with their VoIP service in so far that there is one voicemail, call history etc. This is not the same as what is sometimes referred to as Mobile VoIP, which isn't really available in the Irish market.

If you have a problem with a post, please report it- Thanks! The original poster did not post any details about his/her business or even what field it is in.

Mr. G

Apologies for the confusion, I was talking about a mobile deal. O2 do not provide VoIP services at the moment.