How to Choose the Best Suited VoIP Service Provider

Small businesses are rapidly turning to alternative solutions like hosted PBX, VoIP, and cable instead of the traditional telephone. These solutions are considered great ways to save costs as well as enjoy increased flexibility. How can you turn your business to these solutions is discussed below.

The big news of turning to VoIP first- these services will lower your telephone bill significantly as opposed to traditional phones. With VoIP you can enjoy all the features that you did on your older phone services like- caller ID, call waiting, call blocking, call transferring, speed dialing, 3-way calling, and more. As a business owner looking for a VoIP service provider, you have the seemingly tough task of choosing the best VoIP provider from a mass of VoIP vendors. These vendors are competing fiercely against each other and you can be floored by their offer of extraordinary service packages at surprisingly low rates.

But while every vendor is promising the moon, you have to understand that these plans can be quite different from each other and vary hugely from one service provider to the next. So you must be the smart customer and compare the offers closely while reading the fine print too. The top areas that you can use as benchmarks for comparison are:

1. Affordability: When you are choosing VoIP for lower costs, might as well get the maximum you can. So, you must check out the calling plans offered for long distance and international dialing. Look for free international calling offers, and that to certain number of nations. Get a clear cost breakup of the basic plan as well as the optional features. After you get the monthly estimate, make sure to calculate the annual cost of the plans for each service provider separately. The last thing to check is to see if you will have to incur additional costs of purchasing special equipment for the switch to VoIP or if you will be able to carry on with your already existing infrastructure.

2. Get Freebies of Value Added Features: To benefit the most from the fiercely competing VoIP vendors, try to get as many freebies as possible. Try to compare the value-added features each VoIP service provider is offering you free of cost. These value added features include caller ID, call waiting, call blocking, call transferring and speed-dialing among other essential features. Be partial to the VoIP provider offering many more features than others.

3. Free trial periods: As a customer you have the right to choose. Even more so, if you are entering the VoIP market for the first time. Choose the service provider that offers a free trial period. Such a period is an excellent way of determining the system’s usage by your staff as well as the technical support. You must check the connection quality as well as get an idea of issues that may arise. When going for a free trial period, do not buy any special equipment and save yourself the bother of having to ship it back.

4. Judge their technical support: Your business and staff may face initial hiccups in switching to VoIP. To sort these issues, you will need reliable and expert technical backup. So choose a vendor that promises excellent and easily available technical or customer support service. Look for customer reviews to know how customer complaints are addressed by these VoIP providers Business, whether small or large runs well if extra costs are saved. Choosing the right VoIP service provider is a way of doing just that.

The writer is associated with Breezecom, the leading VoIP service providers offering routes to over twenty countries across the world.