new features from VOIP

In my last post, I mentioned possibly upgrading my business line to VOIP before picking up a cellphone, in particular the iPhone, which has got me a bit starry-eyed lately. I worked for a telecom company that utilized VOIP technology, and it was pretty cool. My only problem was when I was on a conference call, and you would get this occasional breakup and lag on your voice. It sounded like digital stuttering. This was a couple of years ago, so I am sure thing have changed a bit since then (hopefully for the better).

I looked around at some VOIP offerings last night, including some from Xpander Communications, who specialize in hosted PBX small business VoIP phone systems, and was impressed by some of the new features that we didn't have a couple of years ago.

For example, you can input up to fifteen different phone numbers to be called simultaneously or in a chain when your extension is dialed. For employees who have multiple offices, a site phone, a mobile phone, a Blackberry, and a pager, this could come in handy. Not only does it make it easier for your customers, clients and fellow coworkers to reach you by only dialing one extension, but it makes it that less annoying since they only have to remember one number. If you really think of the potential of this feature, you start to realize that this could even be used to direct callers to your backup coworker, or even to a list of team members in the case that you are not available, perhaps with the fifteenth number being your manager's number (if you want that to happen). It would also work great for anyone looking to employ a smaller scale customer service extension that polls fifteen different receiving representatives.

This is just one of the exciting features possible with VOIP. Others include unlimited voicemail boxes, multiple calls and call holds, call coaching (where you can have someone hold your hand while on call with irate customers, with the customers not being able to hear the coach), conference bridging, auto attendants, etc, etc. The list goes on and on. It's amazing how feature packed VOIP is.

One of my favorite uses for VOIP back in the day (which is probably still available and more enhanced now) was the ability to have faxes arrive directly in your inbox as TIF image files. I would also receive incoming voicemails in my email inbox as an attached sound WAV file. There is usually a companion "softphone" feature that allows you to place and received calls directly from your IP line on your computer, without accessing the physical handset at all. This way, you are reachable from your same extension when while traveling, as long as you have your laptop. I even used it in remote locations on a dial-up connection, and although it didn't work perfectly, I was able to hear and be heard just the same. Not only does this make it so that I can access nearly every voice contact directly from my computer, but it allows for business users to track and record calls. This way, when you get someone who says that they "never said that" or "never agreed to that", you've got their voicemail on file to prove it. Obviously, this doesn't make up for getting signed invoices and contract bids, but it could help with backstabbing employees who say one thing and do another (which sees to happen quite often in the corporate world). I would actually file all the voicemail messages that I received for certain job builds right in the project folder, along with the engineering and contract details. It makes for a very thorough archive system.