Wondering what call center VoIP is? No, it’s not a new industry buzzword, it’s just an acronym for making phone calls over the internet. Remember those clunky old landlines and all their cords? Or when voicemails had actual physical tapes inside of them? Yeah, VoIP simplifies all of that and repackages it in a sleeker way for simpler access to the same services.
Voice phone calls have conventionally used an analog signal to transmit communication, but not VoIP services. Voice over internet protocol calls convert analog data to teeny-tiny digital packages and send that information over the vast web to its final destination.
VoIP phones send the digital voice signal across the Internet, instead of the PSTN, or the Public Switched Telephone Network, which was the traditional circuit-switched telephone network that has been in general use since the late 1800s. The phones used over PSTN and VoIP themselves are known by several names, too, such as PSTN, landlines, Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), or simply conventional phones.
What is call center VoIP?
VoIP is an acronym that stands for voice over internet protocol. If you’ve ever heard of an internet protocol or IP address, then you’re already halfway familiar with VoIP systems. IP addresses are the unique set of identifying numbers that our computers use to communicate with one another across networks. Voice over internet protocol uses the internet to make voice phone calls.
The technology, which is actually quite old having been around for over 30 years, allows users to talk over an internet network rather than using traditional analog phone lines.
VoIP advantages
Many call centers use VoIP as their primary voice service. VoIP phone systems are built with virtually everything you need for business phones:
- Rapid deployment
- Easy to scale
- Simplified billing
All with no capital expense required. With a VoIP phone system, you usually get one extension for multiple devices, keeping you connected anywhere. VoIP systems generally provide desk, conference, and cordless phones as well as headsets, analog adapters, and even a softphone you can run on your computer.
If you have an internet connection, you can call anyone without the need for a local phone service like At&T. VoIP solutions work on any computer because they’re built on years of open standards. VoIP service providers do more than establish and operate phone calls.
They perform routing of outgoing and incoming calls through existing telephone networks. Landlines and cell phones depend on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Traditional telephones use analog lines to carry voice signals. If you want to make calls, you have to have extra wiring installed. VoIP eliminates the need for extra hardware and equipment beyond the phones you want to use and the computer you already have.
VoIP offers greater customization and availability
A VoIP phone system facilitates calls between other phones or over to another telephone company. It also provides other useful capabilities like voicemail, call forwarding, call recording, and call queueing—all visible and manageable from a dashboard on your computer.
High-speed internet access is available for over 90% of the United States, according to data provided by the FCC. Voice over Internet Protocol phone calls send conversations using small data packets. A data packet is a unit of data made into a single package that travels along a given network path. Data packets are used in Internet Protocol (IP) transmissions for data that navigate the Web, and in other kinds of networks. The internet can send these data packets around the world in mere seconds. For internet telephony, these packets travel between your phone and a VoIP provider.
Flexibly handle overflow calls
VoIP systems are fully-integrated and give you the power to handle overflow calls with ease, transferring calls from other areas of your operations or your storefront locations to your contact center—and vice versa—to decrease wait times for customers.
Leverage data for smart call routing
Because everything is unified using VoIP, including your caller’s data, you can route them to the right place faster and more accurately—setting up your own routing rules, without constraints, based on your unique needs.
What are the pros and cons of VoIP?
Voice over IP has many benefits compared to on-premise and hardware-based options. It’s work-from-home friendly, low cost, offers greater customization with advanced features like call queueing, recordings, and more. The only drawback is that its quality completely depends on the strength of your internet, but with high-speed internet being so widely available this isn’t much of a concern.
Is VoIP easy to use?
Yes. Anyone with an internet connection and a computer can use it. Setup is really simple, too. You only need a phone and network cables for hardware. From there, you can log into your VoIP dashboard and customize your administrative settings like voicemails and routing workflows.
