VoIP Service Providers West Sacramento

Choosing between VoIP service providers in West Sacramento

Consumers and businesses both tend to love anything which offers reduced costs without reduced service. VoIP can do exactly that, but only if you get the right VoIP service provider on your side. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to choosing between VoIP service providers in West Sacramento.

How To Choose VoIP Service Providers?

1. Start by working out your needs, wants, and budget

A VoIP service can be anything from a basic calling service to a Unified Communication System with all kinds of third-party integrations. It’s therefore helpful to have a clear idea of how far you want to develop your VoIP system. In simple terms, the less you want to do the wider your choice of potential VoIP service providers is likely to be.

If you plan to start with a basic implementation and then build it up incrementally, then you may want to keep your vendor-selection process as open as possible in the early stages. This could be the way to secure the best deal on price and, hence, recoup your initial investment as quickly as possible. You could then switch to another VoIP service provider at a later date if your needs/wants to progress beyond what your current VoIP service provider could support.

2. Assess whether your current telephone service ties into other services

In the consumer world, landline telephone services may be bundled with other services such as cell phones, the internet, and TV. This is less common in the business world, however, it’s still worth double-checking just to be on the safe side. If you are getting extra services from your landline telephone provider, then you’ll need to consider the cost of replacing them when setting your budget for your VoIP implementation.

If you have fax machines, then, in theory, you have three options. You could keep some phone lines so you can continue to use them. You could get rid of them or you could switch to Fax over IP (fax). Technically, this is different from VoIP, but most VoIP vendors support it. If you want to work with one who doesn’t, you could hire a Fax over IP specialist to plug the gap.

Fax over IP not only allows you to eliminate your existing telephone lines but also offers more security, lower costs, and greater convenience than traditional faxes. They’re also a lot more space-efficient. This generally makes them the only really practical choice for any modern company which still needs to run a fax service.

3. Define your service requirements and decide who will provide them

Your service requirements should cover bandwidth and infrastructure, service quality, security and compliance, customer service, and support and equipment.

Bandwidth and infrastructure can be organized separately from your VoIP service contract or provided by your VoIP service provider. As a rule of thumb, unless you’re really confident about managing infrastructure and/or you have a well-managed service provider on your side, you’re likely to be better just to have your VoIP service provider deal with it.

Service quality, security, compliance, customer service, and support will all lie almost entirely in the hands of your VoIP service provider. That said, you can play a part here too. In fact, in some cases, you must. For example, a VoIP service provider can only take care of the security of their service. They cannot supervise how your staff access it or be guaranteed to identify if your user access is compromised.

4. Think carefully about your equipment requirements

Equipment is another area where you might choose to source your supplies independently or have them bundled as part of your contract (or use a combination of both). If you plan to use softphones, then you will get the actual app from your VoIP service provider, usually for free (or for a nominal cost). You will, however, still need some hardware.

Even if you’re only using softphones, you’ll need headsets to go with them. Most companies will probably need some regular VoIP handsets. For example, staff who move around the business location a lot may find them much more practical than softphones. If you’re implementing conference calling, then speakerphones can be very handy and if you’re implementing video calling, then you’ll need webcams and possibly extra microphones.

Buying all this yourself does allow you to look for the lowest prices. In the real world, however, you’re only likely to get an outstanding deal if you are making a significant, bulk purchase and that’s not likely to be the case for SMBs. It may, therefore, be more practical to get them as part of a VoIP service contract and spread the cost.

If you’d like to speak to one of the best VoIP service providers in West Sacramento, please click here now to contact Aperio.IT.