We are living in an increasingly digital age and having adapted their computer systems, an increasing number of companies are now looking at updating their phone systems too.

So, what is it that’s making companies turn to VoIP? For years, traditional phone calls have had the upper hand, but it seems that VoIP may finally be coming into its own. And it may be something to do with customer satisfaction and the competitive advantage it gives companies without a lot of capital to invest.

Firstly, as the technology is not confined to the phone system within an office, queries can be received by the company owner outside of hours as the remote working capabilities of VoIP enable the business to respond to a query immediately.

Secondly, VoIP has a relatively low cost of call-backs when compared with traditional phone models. The numbers being dialled are free, removing the charges that could be racked-up by traditional phone systems. Plus, the VoIP phone system is far cheaper to run than a traditional phone model and this could add up to a crucial cost-saving for smaller businesses.

The really big news with VoIP, however, is in the streamlined handling of customer enquiries. With VoIP, when you contact a company with a query, it’s handled by the same person no matter how many call-backs you have so you aren’t passed from pillar to post, repeating yourself every time.

Another plus for VoIP is the ability to personalise its service. Many traditional phone providers have pre-loaded and inflexible packages available to customers, which means that they can’t offer individual solutions, leaving the customer frustrated and dissatisfied.

So much of a business’ interaction with its customers is still by phone, and many people don’t actually like live chats and automated emails. A service where customers actually speak to real people – like they used to – can nowadays almost seem like a spectacularly personal extra service. To be fair, online chats and email communications do provide businesses with tracking and data capture sent to their servers and CRM systems, but many businesses don’t realise that VoIP can do exactly the same.

With a traditional landline businesses are likely to be charged line rental on each line coming into the business, and even though call centres, for example, can have more than 100 lines coming in, there is a limit to the concurrent calls that they can handle – leaving the customer in a queue and losing data that can’t be sent to the server or CRM system.

Not so for VoIP. If you have broadband with a stable connection, theoretically you don’t even need a handset – though they are recommended. VoIP can really enhance customer data capture with the call logs, call notes and GDPR compliant call recordings to be saved automatically to the relevant customer information page in the CRM system.

Besides this, VoIP offers the use of auto-attendant, opening hours and auto-routing which means that customers are automatically routed to the correct department. And if it’s out of hours, you can customise the message the customer hears so that they are at least aware of why they are not getting an actual response, rather than listening to an interminable engaged tone.

So that’s it. VoIP versus traditional phones. Food for thought indeed.