Category: Blog

For businesses with a global base, keeping communications unified could be challenging. For instance, maintaining separate phone lines for each business region might create communication silos.

Universal international freephone numbers (UIFN) can work as a central bridge connecting your business to multiple continents. With UIFN, businesses can tap into a vast pool of potential customers, increasing sales and revenue opportunities. And customers in participating countries can easily contact your business for support through a single, familiar number.

In this article, we’ll delve into UIFN pros and cons and how these numbers work.

Using UIFNs for Business: Pros and Cons

The phone number type you choose for your business is a gateway to customer connections. It can influence how customers reach you, operating costs, and more. So, when considering international operations and expansion, a question arises: Is a universal international freephone number right for your business?

To determine if a UIFN is suitable for your communication needs, consider the nature of your business, target regions, budget, and customer outreach goals. In this article, we’ll go over the important UIFN pros and cons:

How Does UIFN Work?

UIFN offers a single, toll-free point of contact that can be dialed from multiple countries participating in the program. These toll-free numbers are assigned by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Customers living in participating nations must use a specific dialing format to call a UIFN number. The standardized format typically comprises a country’s exit code (e.g., 00, 011), followed by the UIFN number, which is 800 and an 8-digit global subscriber number (GSN).

For example, in the UK, you would dial 00800 xxxx xxxx, and in Australia, you would dial 011800 xxxx xxxx.

UIFN Benefits

You can do a myriad of things with UIFN international freephone numbers, from centralizing communication to improving customer accessibility. Let’s take a look at the pros of using UIFN for your global communication strategy:

1. Expansive Global Coverage

One of the biggest advantages of UIFN is its global reach. Businesses can serve customers across a broad international spectrum (about 60 countries) with a single phone number.

Luke Genoyer, Business Development Manager at United World Telecom, explains that UIFN is beneficial for companies wishing to have a single phone number that covers a whole region like Europe or APAC. For example, he adds, “It works particularly well as a toll free number for EU countries because the dial-out prefix is the same for most of those countries.” So if businesses want to expand to Europe, then a UIFN will allow you to offer a single customer service number across European markets.

Below is the extensive list of countries where UIFN is available:

2. Unified Number = Unified Contact

Juggling multiple phone numbers for different countries can be a nightmare for both you and your customers. Imagine the frustration of a customer in France trying to reach your US headquarters, only to find a confusing list of regional numbers. UIFN offers a single point of contact for several international locations. You can eliminate the complexity of managing multiple phone numbers.

3. Easy to Advertise and Market

A single toll-free number can aid your marketing and advertising efforts greatly. Businesses can do away with the complex web of regional phone listings and promote one number across global marketing campaigns. This consistency also reinforces brand recall, because customers have to remember one number on different marketing channels.

Several countries on the UIFN list share a dialing code. For instance, most European countries have the same dial-out code ‘00.’ This further simplifies branding and marketing efforts, as businesses can promote a single, memorable number without having to educate customers on different dialing procedures for each country.

4. Minimal Documentation Process

UIFN numbers are regulated by the ITU, guaranteeing a standardized and reliable service. According to Lusia Tsymbrovska, Carrier Relations Manager — while some regulations exist, obtaining a UIFN is relatively straightforward; minimal documentation is required, typically only necessitating basic company details like name and address.

And, you typically only need to register the UIFN in a minimum of two participating countries. This eliminates the complexity of managing separate regulations and applications for each targeted market. This streamlined process allows you to quickly activate your UIFN and start connecting with customers across borders.

UIFN Cons & Alternatives

While UIFN offers extensive benefits, it comes with certain limitations that businesses should consider. These include complex dialing conventions, lengthy activation times, and high costs. Let’s delve into these challenges in more detail:

1. Limited Participating Countries

While UIFN boasts impressive global reach, not all countries participate in the program. It’s possible that key target markets might be missing. For instance, Luke observes that UIFN is not an ideal solution for business in Latin America and the Middle East since only a few countries in those regions participate in the UIFN program.

In such cases, companies could opt for international toll free numbers. ITFN offers broader coverage, encompassing over 160 countries, including most remote locations. And since they’re toll-free numbers, customers can call them for free from within these countries, even if you forward those calls to your office in another region.

Another alternative is Toll-Free FlexDial which leverages advanced reverse-calling technology to provide worldwide toll-free access via one number.

2. Complicated Dialing Conventions

UIFN presents challenges due to complex dialing conventions across countries. Customers need to navigate a maze of dial-out codes and prefixes, specific to each country. This variability can confuse international callers, who may not be familiar with the UIFN format and its toll-free nature. It may prove difficult to educate customers from different countries on these conventions, possibly leading to missed connections.

3. Lengthy Activation Time

Unlike ITFS numbers, which can be typically activated within a few days (e.g, we can activate Australia numbers in one business day), UIFN requires registration on a country-by-country basis. This means that activation can take anywhere between 10 days to two months. If a speedy rollout is what you are looking for, then consider getting an ITFS number.

4. High Costs

UIFN cost structure is another major drawback. The actual breakdown depends on where you are buying your UIFN number. In most cases, there’s an initial one-time registration or maintenance fee of $300. On top of that, you’ll also incur a $100 setup fee for each country activation plus monthly subscription costs for using the service. This ongoing expense can add up, especially for companies requiring UIFN coverage in multiple countries.

In contrast, ITFS costs often follow a more flexible model, typically involving a provider subscription fee, additional phone number charges, and usage-based carrier fees. This structure can be more cost-effective for businesses with fluctuating call volumes or a need for targeted coverage in specific regions.

5. Limited Mobile Accessibility

Not all participating nations allow mobile accessibility to UIFN. In countries where mobile phone usage is high, this could restrict some customer segments. This is a crucial consideration, especially with forecasts suggesting that the number of mobile users worldwide is likely to rise to 7.49 billion by 2025.

Make an Informed Decision with UWT

If you are considering global expansion or are looking for a more universal contact number, getting a UIFN number could be an excellent starting point. And as you know by now, a UIFN offers a single point of contact for customers worldwide, centralizing communication.

With years of extensive experience, United World Telecom has garnered an understanding of the pros and cons of UIFN compared to alternatives like ITFS and Toll-Free FlexDial. We ensure businesses make the right choice for all their communication needs.

Need help deciding on a business phone number? Contact our experts today to discuss your specific business case and determine whether a UIFN is the right fit for your global ambitions.

Improved customer experience can result in approximately a 15% boost in sales conversions. And to provide stellar customer experiences, you need to support your sales and support teams with the right tools and technology.

That’s where blended call center software may come in handy.

Blended call centers seamlessly integrate both inbound and outbound calling functions so you can assist customers across different buyer journeys. From providing advanced call management tools to flexibility in workforce management, there’s so much that blended models can do for your business.

In this article, we’ll go over what a blended call center is and the essential technologies to run one, such as:

• International Phone Numbers
• Call Forwarding and Routing
• IVR and Call Flows
• Softphone and Web Dialers
• Outbound Caller ID
• Call Recording
• Call Reports and Analytics
• VoIP Integrations

What is a Blended Call Center?

Blended call centers combine inbound and outbound call services in a single setup. This is different from traditional call centers that specialize in either inbound (handling incoming customer inquiries) or outbound (initiating calls for sales, follow-ups, etc.) services.

In this setup, agents handle incoming calls as well as make outgoing calls to support all call center and business communication needs. By integrating both, agents handle a diverse range of tasks from resolving customer issues to conducting proactive outreach campaigns. This further ensures optimal resource utilization while maximizing customer service levels.

So, why is this holistic approach to customer service management good for your call center?

Benefits of Blending Inbound and Outbound Call Services

Blended services offer a range of benefits—including improved efficiency, scalability, and service levels. Above all else, blended call center tech is capable of adapting to evolving business needs, supporting expansion, thereby, driving growth.

Here are some of the key benefits of blending inbound and outbound services:

• Access a variety of inbound and outbound calling solutions and features to manage all business phone communications.
• Use inbound calling features like call routing, IVR, etc to improve call handling and caller experience.
• Leverage outbound calling features like caller ID management, softphones, etc. to increase response rates and sales efficiency.
• Increase the chances of upselling and cross-selling since agents handle both incoming support and outgoing sales calls, they have more opportunities to talk to customers about products and services across different points in the customer journey.
• Assign agents to inbound or outbound calls based on real-time call volume fluctuations to reduce wait times and provide more prompt service.
• Analyze call center data and reports to improve agent utilization and allocate resources effectively across different channels and shifts.

8 Essential Blended Call Center Technologies

You will need an arsenal of cutting-edge call handling techs and features in order to run a blended call center.

From delivering sophisticated customer experience to helping you make staffing decisions, here are 8 blended call center technologies that can shape effective business operations:

• International Phone Numbers
• Call Forwarding and Routing
• IVR and Call Flows
• Softphone and Web Dialers
• Outbound Caller ID
• Call Recording
• Call Reports and Analytics
• VoIP Integrations

1. International Phone Numbers

International phone numbers, such as local and toll-free numbers, from target countries offer businesses the opportunity to establish a global presence without needing physical offices in every region. Customers can comfortably call designated business phone numbers, no matter where the business, main office, or service centers are located. Simply forward incoming calls to your desired destinations.

But besides expanding reach, calling internationally with local numbers can improve outbound campaign efforts and inbound customer engagement. This is because local numbers have recognizable toll-free and area codes that encourage customers to answer or return your business’ calls.

Blended call centers can especially benefit from services like local 2-way voice that support incoming and outgoing calls via a local number. This means your teams can use the same virtual local phone number as their outbound caller ID. This helps improve customer trust and the likelihood of calls being answered. Additionally, if a call is missed or unanswered, the recipient can easily call back on the same number, simplifying follow-up and potentially leading to successful sales conversions.

This makes it easy to manage inbound (support) and outbound (sales) calls through one service. And if you have multiple locations, you can get multiple international phone numbers from one global provider and centralize communications.

Related: Inbound Sales Calls vs. Outbound Sales Calls

2. Call Forwarding and Routing

Call routing and forwarding are features that let you redirect inbound calls from one location to another strategically without incurring expensive international calling fees. These tools help you ensure that agents are available wherever your customers are located.

And you can leverage various routing strategies like time-of-day or location-based routing or simultaneous ringing to provide round-the-clock support. Blended models can prioritize agent allocation based on factors such as agent availability, customer preferences, etc. This prioritization also helps in improving first call resolution rates.

With optimized call handling, your agents can respond better to customer needs and prioritize outbound efforts for more urgent queries. It also frees up your agents whom you can then distribute to other areas of need.

3. IVR and Call Flows

Advanced call management solutions, such as automatic call distribution (ACD) and interactive voice response (IVR), help streamline call flows across multiple departments and locations.

ACD helps with routing incoming calls to the right agent based on factors like availability, skills, etc. On the other hand, you can set up automated IVR menus with menu options that callers use to navigate to the right agent.

These tools are generally quite customizable, ensuring you can effectively control and manage how calls travel within your phone network. They help reduce call queues and wait times while quickly connecting callers to the best possible agent for support.

4. Softphone and Web Dialers

Softphones, web dialers, and web phones are tools or apps that convert any device into a business phone. With a dial pad and call handling capabilities, these tools are a must for blended call centers, offering flexibility and convenience in managing calls from anywhere in the world. Simply put, you can make phone calls directly from a device or web browser like Chrome, Firefox, etc.

Agents can make and receive calls with a softphone on any IP-enabled devices, such as smartphones, laptops, etc. For example, the United World Telecom softphone can be downloaded on any Windows device. Users can then use the softphone app to

• Receive local and international VoIP calls
• Make outbound calls using local caller IDs
• Receive voicemails
• View call activity and history
• Transfer calls to other agents, and so on.

Some providers also offer softphone integrations with top CRMs and help desk software. With features like click-to-call, data sync, and in-app dialer, agents can get a comprehensive understanding of customer interactions. And managers can view and analyze agent performance and activity. This makes it easy to determine your inbound and outbound call flows and how to best optimize your customer experience efforts.

5. Outbound Caller ID

Caller ID management is important in ensuring your business calls are answered by your customers and prospects. Most people won’t answer calls by an unfamiliar number or one marked “Unknown.”

This is where the outbound caller ID feature comes in handy. By displaying a familiar or local phone number as the outbound caller ID, you can increase the chances of recipients answering calls. This could improve the success rates of outbound campaigns.

Now, if you have distributed and remote teams (aka, not working out of our main office), you may use a call masking feature to mask their actual outbound caller ID and use the business’ phone number instead. This way, your remote teams are also unified under the business’ phone network. This also protects agents’ personal phone numbers when using their own devices to place calls.

6. Call Recording

Call recording features can record both inbound and outbound calls. Blended call center supervisors can use these recordings to:

• Monitor agent performance
• Assess quality of customer service delivery
• Protect against liabilities
• Identify areas of improvement, and
• Ensure compliance with established standards and protocols.

Some providers, like United World Telecom, offer call recording add-ons like transcription and translation for increased accessibility.

7. Call Reports and Analytics

Other quality assurance-related features like call reports and analytics, too, provide overview of call traffic, agent distribution, service quality, and areas for improvement. You need these features to evaluate call center performance and make informed decisions. Measure key metrics like call volume, average handling time, customer satisfaction metrics, etc. for a real-time, deeper understanding of customer interactions.

And with call activity reports, you can reorganize call flows, routing strategies, staff goals, etc. in line with business goals. United World Telecom customers can view metrics such as call duration, agent activity, calling charges, caller locations, and more to understand caller habits better.

Related: Tips for Running a Successful Virtual Call Center

8. VoIP Integrations

VoIP integrations with CRMs and help desk software can streamline call operations. These integrations come with features like call logging and data sync that automatically sync call records and contacts between the two platforms. This saves agents time and manual effort and ensures accurate record-keeping. Additionally, managers and agents can review customer interaction histories, follow-up tasks, and call recordings directly from the CRM interface.

How Can United World Telecom Help?

The right blended call center tech and tools can make or break your call handling strategy. And this directly affects the bottom line. Wondering what call management capabilities are right for your call center?

Talk to us! United World Telecom has been helping international enterprises and small businesses with state-of-the-art communication solutions. Our call center solutions provide you with a range of services and features to manage inbound and outbound calls and connect with your local and international customers reliably.

We can help you upgrade your telephony system to drive call center growth. Connect with our experts today and learn more about call center essentials!

SIP trunking offers a compelling alternative to traditional phone lines. Gone are the days of relying on expensive analog lines and calling fees for business communication. Why? Because SIP trunking uses your existing internet connection and communication hardware to transmit voice calls.

But this depends on finding the right SIP trunk provider. Once you’ve settled that, implementing and using this service is straightforward. SIP trunking integrates smoothly with your existing phone system.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• What to Expect from a Global SIP Trunk Provider
• Benefits of Switching to SIP Trunking
• How to Choose the Right SIP Trunk Provider? 8 Factors to Keep in Mind

What to Expect from a Global SIP Trunk Provider

Instead of traditional phone lines, a SIP trunk service uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to send voice calls on virtual phone lines. These lines allow for multiple calls to happen at the same time; i.e. a SIP trunk carries multiple SIP channels where 1 channel = 1 inbound/outbound call, allowing for multiple calls simultaneously.

A global SIP trunk provider can be your one-stop shop for international communication needs, with the tools needed for smooth global connectivity. By adding SIP trunks to your phone system, you can expect:

Efficient Call Handling
At its core, SIP trunking is a highly scalable and reliable phone system that can handle many conversations simultaneously without losing call quality or efficiency. This means that your business can stay connected even during peak times.

Global Coverage
And because it transmits calls virtually, your business can achieve global voice connectivity at a scalable rate. Simply tap into your provider’s network of virtual phone numbers from various countries. This way, you can count on receiving top-notch voice quality for incoming and outgoing calls worldwide.

International Termination
SIP trunk providers offer international SIP termination services that guarantee your calls reach their destinations without any hitches. SIP termination is the process of routing calls from one provider (usually the SIP provider) to another PSTN or VoIP provider. In simpler terms, you can use SIP trunks to make outbound calls to customers wherever they are located and connect comfortably to their PSTN or VoIP setup.

Easy Integration
SIP trunks easily integrate with your existing business phone system, whether hosted or on-premises. In most cases, setup takes hardly a few days.

Feature Sets
Many SIP trunking providers offer outbound features, such as SIP calling, local caller ID, and call masking. These features let you manage how your number appears to call recipients, thereby increasing call connection rates.

Benefits of Switching to SIP Trunking for Business

Everyone from small startups to global corporations embraces modern telephony’s advantages, such as SIP trunking. Here are the top 5 reasons why:

1. As SIP trunking uses the internet to place calls, overall communication costs go down. Save costs on long-distance and international calls. This is because traditional long-distance calls may need to be routed through multiple carriers, driving up per-call costs. Additionally, SIP trunking eliminates the need for additional hardware and maintenance.
2. You and your staff can make or receive calls from anywhere—all you need is a stable internet connection and SIP-enabled devices like phones, computers, tablets, etc.
3. Easily scale your service up or down—add or remove phone lines and destinations—as your business needs change, all without the hassle of dealing with multiple contracts.
4. Typically, service providers offer redundant connections and disaster recovery features, ensuring minimal downtime and business continuity in case of outages.
5. Get features like advanced routing, caller ID management, and multiple other communication features on a single unified platform.

Learn more about how this communication technology can benefit your business in our SIP trunking guide.

How to Choose the Right SIP Trunk Provider?

Choosing the right SIP trunk provider is crucial for a smooth transition and reliable communication. Remember, the ideal provider understands your business and offers the right features at a reasonable cost.

Let’s evaluate the different factors to consider when choosing a SIP trunk provider for business communication.

Quick summary:

• Look for established providers with a proven track record.
• Beyond pricing, consider the features offered, customer reviews, and contract flexibility.
• Responsive customer support, ideally available 24/7 and through various channels, is essential for troubleshooting.
• A dedicated account manager can further ensure your needs are met. Research different providers, compare offerings, and don’t hesitate to contact them directly.
  Free trials can also be a valuable tool.

1. Determine Communication Needs and Gaps

Before selecting a SIP trunk provider, assess your business’s communication requirements and scalability needs. For instance, consider:

• Call volume – how many calls need to be supported simultaneously?
• Team location – which teams and locations need to be added to the phone network?
• Features – are there any features or functionality currently missing that can help improve your inbound and outbound calling efforts?
• Tools like international phone numbers, softphone, local caller IDs, international call forwarding, etc.?

Cloud-based phone services provide a much more elastic telephony infrastructure. Unlike traditional analog lines, you can easily adjust channels, phone numbers, and destinations through a web interface. And with a global SIP trunk provider, you can expect extensive global coverage to support your international communications.

2. Identify Features and Functionality Needed

Consider the features and functionality essential for your business operations. Most cloud telephony and SIP trunk providers offer a full suite of inbound and outbound calling features. Of course, what your business needs depends on your size, team and customer location, call volume, and budget. But here are the features we’ve seen customers use the most:

Inbound features must-haves:

• International call forwarding
• Call routing strategies
• Call recording
• Virtual voicemail
• Transcription
• Online dashboard, etc.

Outbound features must-haves:

• Caller ID management
• Softphone for inbound and outbound calling
• Integrations, etc.

Another important factor: how easy is setup? How quickly can you get this new phone system up and running with little-to-no downtime?

Consider compatibility with your existing systems and evaluate ease of integration.

3. Research Providers and Their Offerings

When researching, look for SIP providers with global coverage, advanced features, flexible pricing plans, and positive customer reviews.

Reach out to representatives to gauge their responsiveness and see if you can use a free trial before subscribing to get a sense of the service.

Consider United World Telecom

Over 28 years, United World Telecom has partnered with Tier 1 carriers worldwide to bring businesses a high-quality SIP trunking solution at affordable rates.

Why choose United World Telecom?

• Global SIP trunk numbers in 160 countries
• Monthly plans — no long-term contracts
• International SIP termination
• Local caller ID management
• PBX integrations – 3CX, FreePBX, Genesys, Cisco, Mitel, Panasonic, etc.
• CRM integrations – Zoho, Zendesk, Salesforce, etc.
• High call quality
• No setup fees or long-term contracts
• Quick activation and dedicated account management
• Advanced features — call recording, time-based and location-based routing, voicemail translation, and more
• Scalability — easily add/remove users, phone lines, destinations, as needed.

4. Consider Costs

To make informed SIP trunking decisions, businesses must dissect cost structures. Monthly subscriptions can vary based on channels, virtual numbers, and even per-user fees. Outbound calling rates are another key element, with options for metered pay-as-you-go plans or predictable unmetered options. Don’t forget potential add-on costs for features like call recording. Finally, factor in any setup fees.

While pricing structures vary by provider, a careful evaluation of these cost factors and competitor comparisons will lead you to the most cost-effective SIP trunking solution that aligns with their communication needs and budget.

Here’s a breakdown of our SIP trunk pricing:

Monthly Subscription:

• Monthly fee for the phone number used as the caller ID for outbound calls. For example, US numbers start at $7.95.
• Monthly call credit; Basic plan is $25.

International Calling Rates:

• United World Telecom call rates are metered. Different countries have different calling rates and this gets deducted from the call credit.
• Calling rates can be found on our SIP trunk pricing guide.

Features & Add-ons:

• 40+ free features including Caller ID Management and Softphone.
• Premium features at additional rates such as Inbound or Outbound Call Recording for $5 monthly fee + 3¢ per minute.

Setup Fees or Contracts:

• No set up fees.
• Month-to-month billing; no long-term contracts.

Total SIP Trunk Pricing for United World Telecom: $7.95 monthly subscription + $25 call credit = $32.95 per month

5. Understand Setup and Requirements

You can quickly integrate SIP technology into your existing infrastructure with minimal hassle.
Ditch the setup headaches!

Service providers like United World Telecom handle everything for you. Get an outbound calling plan, and we’ll provide the SIP trunk credentials you need. Simply enter them into your phone system, and you’re ready to make calls.

6. Review Testimonials and Customer Reviews

Before making a decision, take advantage of the wealth of information available online. Researching customer reviews and testimonials will offer valuable insights into a SIP trunk provider’s track record and industry standing.

Ask providers for testimonials, references, and case studies. Positive reviews from satisfied customers can give you confidence in a provider’s ability to deliver on its promises.

7. Test Top Providers

Many SIP trunk providers offer free trials or demos, allowing you to experience their service firsthand. Make calls to various locations and devices to assess voice quality and stability. Play around with the features to determine how you may use them. See how user-friendly the provider’s control panel is for managing your settings. Most importantly, engage with their customer support team. Ask questions and evaluate their responsiveness and technical expertise.

In this way, you can take advantage of free trials and demos and eliminate any lingering doubts. And then confidently choose the SIP trunk provider that delivers the performance, reliability, and features you need.

Want to see how United World Telecom works? Book a demo today!

8. Review Security Measures and Compliance

Finally, security is always a concern for businesses and that should extend to communications networks as well. Look for providers adhering to industry-established security protocols like secure real-time transport protocol (SRTP). These standards encrypt communication content, making it unreadable even if intercepted.

Inquire about the provider’s security infrastructure. Reputable companies will have robust firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and access controls in place to prevent unauthorized access to your network.

Get Global SIP with United World Telecom

Sign up for SIP Trunking with United World Telecom. Not ready to take the plunge? Start with a free trial and test out our service. Get an outbound number and add inbound features.

Still have questions about how SIP trunking works? Our experts are here to help you make the right decision. Reach out to us to see if it is a good solution for your exact business communication needs.

Did you know that 64% of customers have switched to another company after a bad experience? This shows how important it is to make customers happy.

For global businesses, maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction is even more critical. And when your customers are spread across different time zones and regions, a robust communication infrastructure is essential for building trust and loyalty. And all this depends on having a reliable global phone system.

Let’s look at:

• Business Benefits of a Global Phone System
• What to Keep in Mind When Choosing a Provider
• How to Set up a Global Phone System

How Can Your Business Benefit from a Global Phone System?

In a nutshell, global telephony providers facilitate communication over the internet using VoIP technology. They offer a range of cloud-based services from virtual numbers to softphones and web dialers, that you need to establish a global phone system. Let’s look at the top benefits of using global telephony services:

1. Establish a Global Presence and Wide Network

Virtual numbers have brought the world closer. You can operate your business across borders without a physical presence. Simply purchase a phone number for your target region and then place calls virtually.

For hard-to-reach regions, United World Telecom offers Toll-Free FlexDial, a solution that makes your business accessible even in countries where toll-free numbers are hard to purchase.

Also, expanding to new markets is easier with virtual local phone numbers. This is because it showcases a localized approach, which is important for gaining trust and building credibility among locals. Paired with outbound calling, these numbers let you display a local number as the outgoing caller ID. This can improve the chances of customer engagement, as they perceive calls to be from a familiar source.

2. Offer 24/7 Global Customer Support

Providing round-the-clock customer support is a must for businesses with customers worldwide. To that effect, call management features like call forwarding, time of day routing, and follow the sun support strategies can help you stay available for all customers anytime and anywhere.

For instance, say a customer from Japan reaches out to inquire about a product at 2 AM Japan Standard Time. This would be outside your US business’ regular hours. With a feature like time of day routing, you can preset where calls are directed depending on the time of the day. This means that the call from Japan will automatically route to a support team in a closer time zone, such as Australia. In this manner, you can effectively provide all your global customers with timely assistance.

3. Work with Global Workforce

The internet and cloud telephony have made it possible for businesses to work with a global talent pool. Through features like conference and in-network calling, distributed teams can meet virtually, brainstorm ideas, and coordinate projects in real time.

Say the marketing team of a business in New York needs to discuss a new campaign with the design team in London and the production team in Tokyo. Using your business’s global phone system, they can initiate a conference call, allowing all team members to participate in real-time discussions. Global phone system typically comprises telephony features that facilitate communication across different regions.

4. Use Advanced Business Communication Features

Are you looking for new ways to stay ahead in a competitive market environment? Here’s what you can do.

From interactive voice response and call analytics to voicemail transcription and call recording, there’s a plethora of sophisticated global phone services available today. You can streamline communication, gain customer call insights, and more. Moreover, the option to integrate these features with business applications and platforms could further improve efficiency and workflow.

Take for instance the call masking feature. Besides offering privacy, it helps with building a brand and trust from local customers. How? By displaying specific local or a business phone number when making outgoing calls. So, if you work with a remote sales team, each salesperson can display the business caller ID when making calls. This helps in increasing response rates as they are more likely to answer calls from a known number.

Global telephony providers like United World Telecom offer a range of advanced business communication features with their virtual number plans. With these, you can review and handle calls more successfully.

What to Keep in Mind When Upgrading Your Business Phone System?

Here we’ll go over a couple of important pointers to consider when setting up a global phone system. To skip over, jump to the How to Set Up section.

When building a global phone system for your business, there are several key factors to keep in mind to ensure optimal use of resources and effectiveness. Here are some of the top considerations to take into account:

1. Business Needs

Before rounding up the global phone services for your phone system, consider your business needs carefully. Identify your communication challenges and coverage gaps. Find out how many phone lines you need and how many users (local, remote, and global) need to be connected.

As a global business, you have clients and staff across the world, so figure out if you need features for multi-language support. For instance, a voicemail translation feature makes communication easy by translating transcriptions, allowing your agents to assist customers from anywhere and in any language. Similarly, call routing strategies and rules can ensure your global and remote teams are comfortably connected to your phone network.

If this process seems daunting, you can always reach out to your service provider and get help in shortlisting your communication needs. United World Telecom has been helping global businesses upgrade their business phone systems since 1996. We can help you scale up with our top-rated services like call routing, call forwarding, voicemail transcription, and more.

2. Types of Global Phone Services Offered

There are several factors, such as budget, existing infrastructure, desired features, and specific communication needs, if any, that need to be considered before getting global phone services. For instance, both voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and unified communications as a service (aka UCaaS or UC) utilize the internet for communication. You’ll notice that they also offer similar benefits. However, UCaaS combines various communication technologies into a single platform, while VoIP mainly focuses on making calls over the internet.

Learn about their differences in our UCaaS vs VoIP guide or ask one of our cloud communication experts.

3. Global Coverage

This is the most basic telephony requirement for any global business. You need to peruse international coverage services that providers offer—such as toll-free or local virtual phone numbers. These features are necessary especially if your target markets include remote and hard-to-reach regions.

Check out our country coverage to see if we cover your target markets.

4. Tools and Tech Needed

Cloud communications, such as VoIP, session initiation protocol (SIP), and Unified Communications (UC), offer a wide array of features and functionality. Key tools that you will need to simplify and centralize global communication include international phone numbers, call routing, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), outbound calling, local caller IDs, call activity reports, and more. Assess these tools to determine which ones align with your business requirements.

5. Scalability of Features

A scalable system allows you to upgrade to accommodate the increased communication demands without disrupting service or requiring heavy investments. For example, if you initially start with a simple VoIP service, you can easily scale up by adding more phone lines, country phone numbers, or advanced features like call routing as your business expands. The idea is that your communication infrastructure should adapt to the business’s growing needs without breaking the bank.

6. Integrations

When thinking about global phone services, it is important to look at how well they integrate with your existing tools and system. VoIP integrations, for instance, help you multitask efficiently.

Let’s understand this with an example. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are normally used to manage data, track interactions, etc. But this has to be done manually. VoIP integrations enable automatic tracking of customer interactions, access to customer information during calls, and so on. So when a customer calls a support line, the VoIP CRM integrated system displays the customer’s order history and previous inquiries when the call comes in. Plus, with click-to-call functionality, teams can quickly call from within their preferred business applications.

United World Telecom offers multiple CRM and help desk integrations to help you centralize business communications.

7. Operations

Decide how you want to organize your global communication setup. You can send all the send all global calls to one main office for easier and centralized control. On the other hand, you can give distributed teams in different regions their own numbers to offer tailored support in their regions. Align your operations model with your business goals and customer service strategy.

8. The Ideal Telephony Partner

When selecting a global telephony provider, prioritize factors like reliability, uptime, responsive customer support, customization options, etc. Also consider the provider’s track record, reputation, and ability to deliver tailored solutions that meet your specific requirements.

Next, research different providers to ensure they offer services for your target countries and regions, competitively priced plans, secure communication systems, integrations, licensed carrier status, and highly available networks with multiple connections. Consider factors such as pricing, activation times, available features, network reliability, and customer support.

Pay attention to other customer testimonials to gauge service quality, industry relevance, problem-solving capabilities, and customer support availability.

Finally, be wary of hidden fees and long-term commitments, and ensure you have a clear understanding of cancellation and refund policies before signing up.

How to Set Up a Global Phone System?

Setting up a global phone system for your business involves several steps to ensure smooth communication across borders. Let’s break it down into four simple steps.

1. Sign Up and Buy International Phone Numbers

Once you’ve researched your providers, decide on one that meets your needs and budget. Then, purchase international phone numbers for your target regions. Use call forwarding and advanced routing rules to forward incoming calls to your desired destinations.

2. Configure Devices and Install Software

Depending on your needs, you can use softphones (software-based phones), IP phones (hardware phones), or gateways to connect legacy phones to your VoIP system. Simply download the necessary software or connect your hardware devices to your internet router to get started.

3. Customize Your Phone System

Take time to familiarize yourself with features provided so you can set them up as needed. Call management features will ensure that your phone system operates efficiently and meets your specific requirements. Create call flows, set up IVR (interactive voice response) systems, implement routing strategies, enable call recording, and establish ring groups to manage call volumes effectively.

4. Verify Network Performance Through Testing

Thoroughly test your network for any issues before deploying your global phone system. Look into connection reliability and call quality. Check the latency and audio quality. Finally, test the network speed. Test your system for coverage, address any issues with your service provider, and get necessary adjustments made before going live.

Once live, continue to collect feedback to improve and maintain your global phone system.

How Can UWT Help?

As you know, success of global businesses hinges on effective communication strategies that transcend borders. From establishing a global presence with virtual numbers to working with a diverse workforce, there’s much that can be achieved with a global phone system.

For 28 years, United World Telecom has been helping businesses worldwide with global telephony features such as call routing, voicemail transcription, and integration capabilities. Using these, our customers have not only fostered stronger relationships with customers, but also improved operational efficiency.

Ready to upgrade your business phone system? Contact our experts today to find out how United World Telecom can help you drive business growth.

Reliable voice connectivity is without a doubt crucial for global businesses. It helps businesses become more accessible to customers while fostering strong relationships with them. So how do you achieve better global voice connectivity? A global SIP trunking solution is one way to expand the coverage of your business phone system while improving reliability and call quality.

SIP Trunking for Global Businesses

Global SIP technology makes it possible to run global businesses from anywhere you are. Simply integrate this service with your existing infrastructure and then connect with customers, stakeholders, partners, and employees anywhere in the world. Let’s learn more.

Understanding SIP Trunking and VoIP

SIP trunking and VoIP rely on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)—a signaling protocol—to transmit voice and other communications over the internet and IP networks.

SIP trunking refers to virtual phone lines over which this communication can take place. A SIP trunk can hold multiple SIP channels, enabling you to run multiple concurrent call sessions through one trunk.

Easily integrate SIP trunks into your existing phone system and let your PBX system leverage VoIP to make calls over the internet.

SIP Trunking with United World Telecom

United World Telecom offers a SIP trunking solution as our Outbound Calling service. You can sign up for a monthly outbound calling subscription with an outbound number and inbound features.

How Can SIP Voice Solutions Help Your Business?

But why go for SIP trunking?

From transcending geographical barriers to unifying communications, there are myriad ways in which your business can benefit from global SIP voice solutions. Here’s how:

1. Establish your Business Beyond Borders

Global SIP trunking expands your reach, connecting you with potential clients across different regions using virtual local, international, and toll-free numbers.

If you are looking to expand your business into remote, even hard-to-reach and rural areas, you can do so without establishing a physical office. SIP trunking works alongside toll-free and local virtual numbers in different regions. For instance, if you are looking to expand your business into Australia, then you can get a local 2-way number—for both inbound and outbound calls—providing your customers a convenient way to contact your business.

With these numbers, you can display the desired outbound local caller IDs. You can get local 2-way numbers for multiple countries like the US, Singapore, France, Australia, etc. with United World Telecom.

2. Leverage a Reliable Voice Network

Additionally, you can avail a highly redundant voice network essential for reliable global outbound calling. For instance, United World Telecom has long-term partnerships with local tier-1 carriers around the world, enabling us to deliver top-notch SIP trunking call quality at competitive prices.

Our global telephony services are accessible in nearly 195 countries and over 4,000 cities worldwide. This ensures comprehensive coverage for global business activities.

3. High-Quality Voice Calls and Communication Functionality

As SIP trunking sends calls over the internet, you can make high-definition calls. Keep in mind the quality of these calls hinges on factors such as internet bandwidth and device caliber. It is therefore important to allocate sufficient bandwidth that can accommodate SIP traffic.

Moreover, service providers like UWT often offer a range of advanced call management features designed to streamline communication processes. From setting up IVR for different phone lines to changing your outbound caller ID to managing call routing rules, we’ve got you covered.

Related: How to Achieve Best VoIP Call Quality?

4. Flexibility and Scalability

A significant advantage of SIP trunking is the flexibility and scalability it offers. With our softphone, your team can transform any device, such as smartphones or laptops, into a robust business phone, enabling you to make and receive calls from anywhere. This way they stay connected to headquarters via their smartphones, making and receiving calls as if they were in the office.

You can get a softphone from United World Telecom with our outbound calling plans. We also have a web dialer that is powered by WebRTC.

Plus, you can use complementary features like call routing and forwarding to direct calls to available staff or agents, in case a call goes unanswered. Simply set them up and adjust as needed through the control panel. This flexibility extends to users as well; add or remove phone lines and users depending on business needs.

5. Work with a Global Workforce

SIP trunking simplifies collaboration across global teams, bridging distances effortlessly. Hire remotely and work with global teams—all easily managed with a unified communication platform. Teams can connect with each other over audio, increasing collaboration and productivity. And as all this is possible over the internet, you don’t have to worry about paying through your nose for long-distance calls.

Finally, SIP trunking solutions with their robust security measures can protect your communication channels from cyber threats like hackers. This makes it a reliable technology for conducting business virtually. Learn how to keep your global phone system secure in our security and encryption guide.

6. Quick and Easy Setup

Integrating SIP solutions into your current setup is a breeze, requiring very little effort to get up and running. You can quickly incorporate SIP technology into your existing infrastructure without encountering any major obstacles.

And service providers, like United World Telecom, handle and guide you through the setup process. This allows you to focus on your core operations while leaving the setup and management of such cloud solutions to professionals. Once you get an outbound calling plan with United World Telecom, we will provide you with the necessary SIP trunk credentials. Feed these credentials into your SIP or PBX phone system, and you’re all set!

Get Global SIP with United World Telecom

Looking to expand your global voice connectivity? Dive into the world of global SIP trunk solutions.

Get a virtual phone number with United World Telecom and join our extensive global SIP network. As a leading provider since 1996, we offer top-rated international SIP trunking services. Our solutions include outbound calling, call forwarding, local 2-way calling, and more.

Reach out to our experts today to learn more and achieve global voice connectivity!

Modern businesses thrive on seamless and efficient communication, with the business phone system serving as its backbone. While traditional phones were once reliable, they now pose limitations. Once stalwarts of business communication, they are now proving to be expensive relics.

In a recent study, a majority of IT and non-IT leaders say technical debt severely limits their IT function’s ability to innovate and migrate to new technologies. On top of that, many businesses report allocating significant funds and budget towards sustaining business operations. This means, less is available for innovation as time and money is spent maintaining, fixing, and damage control.

As technology advances, maintaining outdated phones can incur unforeseen costs, hindering business efficacy. In this article, we cover the factors that affect legacy phone system cost and how you reduce your communication expenditure with alternatives like voice over internet protocol (VoIP).

• Key Cost Factors of Legacy Phone Systems
• Cost Advantages of VoIP Business Phones

How Much Do Legacy Phone Systems Cost? Key Factors

Legacy phone systems refer to traditional business phone systems that have been used for decades. These systems transmit analog or voice signals through copper wires between users. The most common examples of legacy systems are the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). Legacy systems are characterized by their reliance on physical hardware, such as landline phones and on-premise PBX systems.

Knowing how much your legacy phone system is costing you is essential to understanding your communication expenses. From unexpected outages and downtime to call volume charges and hardware upkeep, each aspect contributes tremendously to the big picture. Let’s look at the key factors contributing to the true cost of a legacy phone system.

1. Outages and Downtime

Hardware failures, network issues, low-quality IT infrastructure, and bad weather are some factors that can trigger outages, disrupting the ability to make and receive calls. This interruption could affect communication with customers, suppliers, and stakeholders. Such downtime can ultimately impact revenue generation and tarnish brand reputation.

Still, businesses are reluctant to move to newer, more efficient technologies. In contrast, VoIP and internet-based phone systems offer redundant and high-availability networks that ensure continuity and keep the business running as usual.

2. Call Volume and Usage Charges

One key factor contributing to the higher costs of legacy systems is the method of call routing and transmission. Calls made through legacy systems typically travel over the PSTN. When you make a call, a dedicated circuit is created between the point where your call originates and the point serving the person you’re calling. This circuit allows your voice signals to travel through the network from your phone to the recipient’s phone.

However, the establishment of these circuits comes with costs, particularly when the call crosses long distances. For long-distance calls, more infrastructure and resources are required to establish and maintain these circuits, resulting in higher costs for both the telecom provider and the user. Plus, getting more phone lines means adding new infrastructure, which costs a lot of money.

3. Hardware Upkeep and Support

Legacy phone systems rely on outdated hardware components like analog lines, physical switches, and handsets that may need to be replaced periodically due to wear and tear, which can contribute to ongoing costs.

Additionally, they need IT staff with the right expertise and skills to maintain operations daily. However, as newer phone systems continue to grow popular and become the norm, fewer people know or are willing to deal with older systems. Hiring the right people to work with such technology can, therefore, prove expensive.

Adding to that, failure to maintain these systems could result in service disruptions, which further entail financial repercussions for the business.

4. Limited Flexibility and Scalability

A legacy phone system offers limited flexibility and scalability, and you might need to allocate more of your infrastructure budget. For instance, adding new phone lines or expanding infrastructure—like purchasing additional hardware and phone lines—means additional spend. Naturally, this will lead to increased complexity and cost.

While traditional phone systems allow call merging and routing, you may require staff to handle these tasks manually. If this manual intervention is insufficient or unmonitored, especially in high call volume settings, you may experience missed opportunities and revenue loss.

Further, the absence of advanced call management features (like transcription, IVR, and auto-attendant) and modern solutions (like integrations with other business systems) make legacy phones incompatible with remote and hybrid work setups. Modern businesses demand mobile, flexible, and easily scalable communication solutions, and lack thereof adds to the overall cost. However, adding these features to your legacy phone system will stack up as more hidden costs.

VoIP, on the other hand, typically comes packed with advanced features and call management functionality. Read more about VoIP features ahead.

5. Staff Training

Training and skill development are essential for all those who manage legacy phones. While using a legacy phone might seem straightforward, there are still essential functions that employees need to understand, such as call forwarding, conference calling, and using voicemail. Proper training ensures that employees know how to use the phone system efficiently, reducing the likelihood of missed calls and minimizing downtime.

However, training staff over time can be an ongoing expense. This includes costs for initial training as well as recurrent training for updates or new features.

Cost Advantages of VoIP Business Phones

Many organizations are transitioning to modern and flexible communication solutions, such as VoIP and session initiation protocol (SIP), to mitigate costs associated with legacy systems. This migration presents an opportunity to streamline communication processes and reduce costs. Basically, VoIP/SIP lets you upgrade telephony service but decreases costs.

VoIP leverages software-based platforms and internet infrastructure to offer a spectrum of cost benefits compared to legacy phone systems.

Let’s explore the key factors that contribute to its affordability and effectiveness in modern business operations:

1. Initial Investment

VoIP relies on software-based solutions and utilizes existing internet infrastructure, reducing upfront costs. This means you can use it to add new functionality to your existing structure. Or, do away with your outdated equipment and forward calls to your computer or laptop using a VoIP softphone.

In fact, United World Telecom offers a flexible softphone and web dialer with our outbound calling plans, so your teams can connect from anywhere.

2. Call Costs

VoIP providers often present more competitive pricing structures, particularly for long-distance and international calls. For instance, United World Telecom offers plans for as low as $7.95 per month and they come with a host of free call management features.

Additionally, we offer extensive voice global coverage, reaching even the remotest locations at cost-effective rates. Our connectivity spans over 160 countries, allowing you to engage with customers worldwide. Furthermore, by forwarding calls virtually, you don’t need to worry about additional long-distance rates.

Get a toll-free number and facilitate cost-free communication for your global customer base. And if you choose local numbers, customers still call at low local rates, even if you forward those calls internationally.

3. Maintenance Costs

VoIP is a cloud service, which means it is hosted and maintained by service providers. This way, you don’t have to worry about maintenance and upkeep at all. From routine updates to troubleshooting and repairs, the responsibility falls squarely on the VoIP provider’s shoulders, freeing up valuable time and resources for you to focus on core business operations.

4. Downtime Costs

VoIP systems are inherently more resilient to downtime with the availability of features like redundancy routing and failover forwarding. These features are proactive measures that automatically redirect incoming calls to alternative destinations in the event of system failure or network disruption. All you have to do is set up routing rules to specify alternative phone numbers, extensions, or voicemail boxes where calls should forward to during downtime.

To improve phone system reliability, check out our resource on VoIP uptime.

5. Features and Functionality

Service providers like United World Telecom offer an exhaustive list of cloud telephony features and functionalities unavailable with traditional legacy systems. From time of day and VIP caller routing to advanced IVR and call flow builder, the list of options is endless! You can use these VoIP features to reduce costs as they come free and can be implemented in an online control panel. So, no extra hard or software investment is required.

Additionally, these features can help cut down on time-consuming tasks, improving operational efficiency. For instance, while legacy phone systems can send voice calls to voicemails, an agent or staff must manually listen to the messages and jot down important details. Additionally, if you have a global customer base, you’ll need a translator to interpret or translate transcripts. But with a business voicemail translation feature, you can get the voicemails transcribed and translated in your preferred language on a single platform. This way, global teams can efficiently communicate and collaborate regardless of where team members are located.

6. Flexibility and Scalability

With VoIP, you get unparalleled flexibility and scalability to adjust your communication infrastructure according to changing business needs. You can add or remove users, phone lines, and numbers in a simple few steps—all this without investing in costly hardware upgrades.

7. Integrations

One of the best aspects of VoIP telephony is it seamlessly integrates with other business applications and tools, allowing for greater efficiency and workflow automation. Integrations with CRM software, email platforms, and collaboration tools streamline communication processes and eliminate the need for manual data entry, resulting in time and cost savings.

United World Telecom offers the option to connect your phone numbers to your business tools like Zoho, Salesforce, Zendesk, and more. Visit our integrations page or speak to one of our experts to learn all about this telephony capability.

8. Remote and Hybrid Work Support

VoIP systems are well-suited for remote and global environments, providing employees with access to the same communication features and functionalities regardless of their location. With mobile apps, softphones, and web-based interfaces, remote workers can stay connected and productive without the need for additional hardware or infrastructure, reducing overhead communication costs.

As you can see, the total cost of ownership for VoIP systems is generally lower than that of legacy phone systems due to lower infrastructure costs, reduced call rates, and increased efficiency and productivity gains.

You can read more about why VoIP is a good fit for distributed teams in our article.

How Can UWT Help?

Legacy phone systems are undoubtedly becoming obsolete. Latest technologies like SIP and VoIP come with endless possibilities in communication that can grow your business.

Is VoIP a reliable alternative?
Yes, VoIP is highly reliable and has globally emerged as a preferred alternative to legacy phones. We at United World Telecom have helped global businesses evolve with our VoIP offerings since 1996.

UWT offers basic to advanced VoIP-based call management features catering to different business communication needs. We also understand the complexities of upgrading from legacy phones to VoIP.

Don’t let outdated technology hold your business back!

How to switch to VoIP?
Switching to VoIP involves planning, testing internet connectivity, preparing infrastructure, selecting a provider, choosing equipment, training teams, and setting up your device for a smooth migration.

Stay ahead of the curve in the digital age. Consult with our experts today and let us help you transition to VoIP.

Globally, there has been a shift towards digital and internet-based communication services. Many countries are investing in high-speed internet infrastructure, and telecom companies are moving away from traditional copper wire networks.

While POTS has been reliable and served its purpose for many years, the shift towards more advanced and integrated communication technologies is driven by the desire for enhanced features, efficiency, and adaptability to the demands of modern communication.

Let’s examine why POTS lines are being phased out and what POTS replacement options are available for businesses.

Using POTS for Business Communication

Plain old telephone service (POTS) is a traditional telephone system that utilizes copper wires to transmit analog signals for voice communication. It has been the primary telephone service before VoIP and other digital communication techs since the 1880s. This solution is also called the public switched telephone network (PSTN). There are several local and national carriers operating these copper-based networks.

Businesses widely used POTS as it was considered reliable—particularly during power outages, due to its independence from electricity. Setting up POTS is relatively straightforward and viewed as a beneficial feature. One has to connect to the traditional telephone to the existing phone lines, and you’re ready to make and receive calls.

However, POTS has many limitations and drawbacks, such as higher costs, more maintenance, fewer features, etc. In comparison, more advanced communication technologies like VoIP offer better quality service for lower costs.

Why Replace POTS?

POTS replacement services aim to improve efficiency, support new services, and enhance connectivity in the evolving digital landscape. Legacy phone systems are primarily designed for voice calls, lacking advanced features that have become integral to contemporary business operations.

Integrating communication tools with other business applications—like VoIP CRM integrations—and workflows streamlines processes, reduces response times, and enhances productivity.

Also, digital systems outperform POTS in call quality with advanced technologies like digital signal processing, error correction, adaptive voice codecs, and echo cancellation, enhancing voice clarity and minimizing background noise.

Lastly, the upkeep of copper wire infrastructure for POTS can be expensive. Meanwhile, digital and internet-based communication systems often utilize existing broadband infrastructure, proving more cost-effective.

Are POTS Lines Being Phased Out?

Modern phone systems render PSTN obsolete due to its incompatibility with current communication needs and trends.

In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission implemented regulatory changes, such as Order 19-72A1, accelerating the transition from traditional POTS. This initiative supports incumbent local exchange carriers in upgrading to modern telecom infrastructure.

Similarly, the UK is phasing out PSTN by 2025 as part of its digital infrastructure transformation driven by technological advancements. Australia also sees a consistent decline in landline telephone usage. All this indicates better solutions and alternatives are available.

Exploring POTS Alternatives

As POTS becomes obsolete, evaluating available POTS replacement services is crucial. Many businesses are switching to cloud telephony solutions with session initiation protocol (SIP) and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) for business communications. Unlike PSTN, SIP and VoIP leverage digital technology and the internet to transmit voice signals, providing cost savings, advanced features, and enhanced flexibility.

What is the difference between POTS and VoIP?

Related: How Does VoIP Connect to PSTN?

How Can UWT Help?

As modern businesses embrace remote work models, the relevance of POTS dwindles. With unparalleled mobility, flexibility, and scalability, POTS alternatives like VoIP take center stage.

United World Telecom is one of the pioneering VoIP service providers, and we bring vast expertise in modern business communication solutions.

We can help you make the switch to VoIP seamlessly.

Consult with our expert today to explore POTS replacement solutions.

Operational efficiency is like a compass that can guide your business towards adaptability and resilience, eventually boosting revenue. In a survey of 1,300 CEOs worldwide, a whopping 77% said that prioritizing operational efficiencies is their key approach to boosting revenue growth. This consensus among top leaders tells a clear story—efficiency is not just important; it’s a key part of the success formula.

In this operational efficiency guide, we’ll cover the following:

• What Does it Mean to Improve Operations?
• Which Areas to Consider to Improve Operations?
• How to Improve Operational Efficiency in 10 Steps
• Using VoIP to Improve Business Communication

What Does it Mean to Improve Operations?

Enhancing operations involves creating a leaner, more responsive organizational structure. The bedrock of operational efficiency is well-designed, clear, and standardized processes. Such processes can eliminate unnecessary steps, reduce errors, save time, and ensure consistency in tasks, thereby, maximizing productivity.

The best example of operational efficiency for business is customer relationship management (CRM) software. The CRM is like a digital assistant that helps agents keep track of customer support interactions and manage information, allowing agents to respond quickly.

Say a customer calls in with a question. The CRM consolidates customer history, helping your agents to provide quick and personalized solutions. Now this CRM function not only saves time, but also improves the overall customer experience.

Importance of Operational Efficiency for Businesses

Improving operations isn’t just about cost savings; it’s about working more efficiently. For instance, when businesses smartly integrate digital technologies across their value chain and processes, they can see a 90% productivity increase, 50% energy efficiency, and 100% speed-to-market improvement, according to research by the World Economic Forum. This makes sure that your business can provide excellent service and adapt quickly to competition.

When you take time to improve business operations at various levels, you can:

• Streamline workflows,
• Optimize resources and reduce waste,
• Reduce inefficiencies and errors,
• Improve productivity and collaboration,
• Ensure faster delivery times,
• Offer reliable services,
• And maintain sustainable growth overall.

Which Areas to Consider to Improve Operations?

As you know, seamless operation is crucial for sustaining growth and staying competitive. From business communication infrastructure to customer service, each area plays a big role in how well an organization works. Focusing on these areas will help your teams work together better and make business processes smoother.

Let’s look at 9 operational areas where you can make improvements:

1. Communication Infrastructure

Upgrading communication infrastructure for operational efficiency requires bringing together all voice services in one central place. Imagine it as a single hub for all your business calls. This simplifies things—no more juggling between systems. By centralizing, you reduce the need to manage calls manually.

For example, you can effortlessly handle and track business calls from a single platform with centralized voice services. This means no fumbling between phones or missing crucial information. When a call comes in, you have everything you need in front of you. Discover the latest trends shaping the future of unified communications in 2024 in our article.

2. IT Service Management

Implementing IT service management (ITSM) frameworks like an information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) is like giving your IT operations a smart makeover. The ITIL framework standardizes processes, ensuring timely incident resolution, strategic capacity planning, smooth change management, and expedited problem resolution.

By implementing ITIL, you can create a robust and reliable IT infrastructure. This integration optimizes internal processes and fosters an adaptive business ecosystem.

3. Cloud Migration

Making this shift involves moving your business operations and data from traditional on-site servers to the cloud, which offers a secure and remote digital space. This cloud migration shift has many benefits: scalability, flexibility, and cost savings.

Depending on business needs, you can easily adjust digital resources, like storage and processing power. This adaptability helps avoid wasting resources during slow periods and accommodates growth during busy times.

Cloud services allow your team to access important data and applications from anywhere with an internet connection. This flexibility facilitates remote work, collaboration, and swift-decision making, contributing to overall efficiency.

Migration also reduces investment and maintenance costs. You can eliminate hefty investments in physical infrastructure. Cloud services operate on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning you only pay for what you use, reducing overall expenses.

4. Security

Prioritizing the protection of your IT systems can lead to a seamless workflow and safety of sensitive data. An essential aspect is setting up IT security policies and routinely updating and patching systems to fortify them against potential threats.

Conducting regular vulnerability assessments will help you identify and fix potential weaknesses, preventing security breaches. Implement best practices such as zero-trust security. In this security model, each user and device must authenticate and verify their identity before accessing resources. It is an additional layer of security that acknowledges that threats can come from both external and internal sources.

5. Monitoring and Analytics

Proactive monitoring helps identify issues before they impact users. This involves regular examination of different system aspects like its performance, security, and overall functionality. Incorporating best practices like continuous monitoring helps in actively staying ahead of potential issues.

A practical example of a tool in this realm is Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software. APM tools keep a close eye on how applications are performing, detecting any slowdowns or glitches. When an issue is identified, the software provides insights into the root cause, enabling quick resolution before users even notice a problem. This not only prevents disruptions but also contributes to a seamless and efficient workflow.

6. Knowledge Management

A knowledge base or documentation system can help store and share critical tech information, troubleshooting guides, and solutions. It serves as a centralized hub for important IT insights, which helps your agents find answers easily. You can also leverage such documentation—whether you use dynamic PDFs or the best AI for presentations for slides—to bring new employees and customers up to speed on your systems, making the onboarding process more efficient. This helps everyone work smarter and faster.

7. Risk Management

Whether you’re a large enterprise or small company, IT risk management is crucial. Develop and implement a risk management strategy to identify, assess, control, and mitigate IT-related risks. First, you need to identify possible risks to IT systems and how they might affect operations. Next, assess the impact and likelihood of these risks. And finally, take steps to reduce the impact or chance of issues occurring.

For instance, you can use tech tools like threat intelligence software. This software provides early warnings, allowing you to address security risks preemptively.

8. Continuous Improvement

This practice is a cornerstone for enhancing operational efficiency within a business. It involves encouraging your IT staff to regularly review and refine processes and adapt to changing business needs. They must methodically create and implement a strategy to recognize, evaluate, and mitigate potential IT-related risks, thereby ensuring the resilience of the digital infrastructure.

9. Customer Service

Efficiency in response times entails a prompt and streamlined interaction with customers. It is about ensuring that when a customer seeks assistance, whether through call, chat, or email, the response is swift and helpful, leading to reduced abandoned calls and interactions. Quality support is the soul of customer service. Empower your agent with knowledge, tools, and resources to provide quick and personalized solutions.

How to Improve Operational Efficiency in 10 Steps

To improve operations, you must prioritize streamlining processes to enhance productivity while minimizing resources. By assessing the current state, setting goals, and creating a strategy, organizations can identify areas for improvement. Then, select the right solutions, embrace automation, and implement new tools to significantly optimize workflows. Businesses that invest in these steps gain a competitive edge, ensuring sustainability and growth.

1. Assess Current State

A critical first step is to assess where your organization stands right now. This involves meticulously examining needs, identifying gaps, and understanding the essential ‘jobs to be done.’ This evaluation serves as the bedrock for crafting strategies to enhance operational efficiency.

Break down your examination into specific areas. Workflow processes, communication, security, storage, and technology infrastructure are some of the key areas you can look into. For instance, picture a store facing delays because its inventory system isn’t communicating well. By fixing how information is shared, like providing how the store tracks its products, they can make things smoother.

2. Set Goals and Create a Strategy

Clear goals and strategies provide a sense of direction, while a strategic plan outlines the steps to achieve those goals. For instance, introducing a knowledge management system and conducting targeted training sessions could be strategic initiatives aimed at achieving the goal of reducing average handling time.

Moreover, goals also serve as benchmarks for measuring progress and fostering accountability. The iterative nature of this process allows for continuous improvement, adjusting to changes, and maintaining long-term efficiency.

3. Identify the Right Solutions

It goes without saying that finding the right solutions is one of the most important keys to improving operations. It involves a strategic approach to understanding and addressing gaps and challenges, facilitating optimal use of resources. Research plays a crucial role in this process. It gives you valuable insights into industry best practices, latest technologies, and customer expectations.

For example, understanding the latest trends in customer communication channels may help you identify the right tools and strategy needed to fix bottlenecks in customer support workflows. This might mean using advanced software or automated systems to speed up response times.

4. Consider Automation

Automation is a game-changer. Take, for instance, the manual task of routing customer inquiries to the right department. Without an automation tool like an IVR system, this process could be time-consuming and prone to human errors. However, with automated ticketing systems, you can quickly direct incoming tickets to the right department or agent based on predefined criteria.

5. Implement New Tools

The shift to new tools is driven by the recognition that outdated systems can impede progress. You can not only boost efficiency but also future-proof operations. For example, modern communication tools like international call forwarding or community chat services facilitate real-time communication, document sharing, and thereby enable quick decision-making. By embracing the advantages of such tools, you can adapt to evolving demands, enhance collaboration, and streamline workflow.

6. Consider VoIP for Communications

Unlike legacy phones, VoIP phone systems allow seamless communication over the internet, reducing costs and increasing flexibility. Features like call forwarding, voicemail-to-email, and virtual numbers, VoIP streamlines communication, ensuring your team stays connected from anywhere.

More on how to use VoIP to improve operational efficiency below.

7. Train Employees

Your staff needs regular training on new tools, knowledge, and methods to stay adaptable and updated. Skilled staff can handle tasks competently and troubleshoot problems independently. For example, a retail store with trained staff processes customer transactions faster, preventing long queues. This, in turn, leads to better customer satisfaction. You may even consider running regular training sessions as refreshers to maintain quality.

8. Provide Support and Troubleshooting Assistance

Helping your agents with support and troubleshooting leads to swifter problem-solving and first contact resolutions. It empowers employees to handle challenges well and stay productive. Providing prompt assistance and a clear escalation matrix also prevents work disruption and contributes to a positive work environment.

9. Document and Review Processes

By documenting workflows, you can create an operations blueprint for others to use and resolve similar issues quickly. And regular reviews of the documented processes are crucial for two main reasons: continuous improvement and maintaining business continuity. Additionally, in times of employee turnover or unexpected events, others can step in smoothly because they have pre-existing guides.

10. Collect Feedback and Update Process

Gathering customer and employee input is a great way to identify and address specific pain points and hiccups. By incorporating this feedback into process updates, you can tailor operations to better meet essential needs. This step ensures processes remain agile and aligned with customer expectations.

Using VoIP to Improve Business Communication Efficiency

So, how can your business use a VoIP service to make business communications streamlined and efficient?

Here are some practical applications of VoIP to improve operations:

1. Implement Collaboration Tools

VoIP supports audio calls, which offers your teams a more immediate way to interact, make decisions, and solve problems. An optimized VoIP network also offers a variety of channels to communicate. This way, your teams can choose the most suitable mode of communication for a given situation, optimizing efficiency.

For instance, a quick clarification can be addressed through chat, while a more complex issue could be discussed over a video call. This adaptability minimizes delays and overall responsiveness.

2. Use Cloud Telephony Features

You can leverage cloud telephony features like virtual numbers, call routing, and auto attendants to scale your business cost-efficiently. These cloud calling features help create a tailored communication infrastructure in line with your operational needs and business goals.

For example, the simultaneous ringing feature can enhance sales teams’ availability and responsiveness. Picture a scenario where a potential customer has urgent questions about your product or service and is considering making a purchase. With simultaneous ringing, multiple sales representatives receive the call simultaneously. The first available representative can answer the call promptly and address the prospect’s queries, securing a potential sale.

Check out the wide range of advanced calling features offered with every United World Telecom phone plan.

3. Provide Customer Service from Anywhere

Cloud communications ensures business continuity and productivity even during crises like power outages or pandemics. How is that possible? With the data and communication tools available online, your teams can collaborate, attend virtual meetings, and keep the work going.

Say in the event of a severe weather event that forces the closure of your contact center’s physical location, you can quickly and easily forward or route calls to alternative locations or remote agents. This ensures that customers can still reach a representative for assistance, regardless of the impact on your primary facility.

Similarly, time-based routing allows you to direct incoming calls to different locations or numbers based on the time of the day. For example, during business hours, calls could be routed to an in-house customer support team, while after-hours calls could be forwarded to a remote center.
This feature also helps you provide 24/7 support and remain accessible year-round from anywhere.

4. Manage High Call Traffic

VoIP call features, including smart routing and automated attendants, reduce wait times and manage incoming calls smoothly. Setting up failover forwarding to send calls to remote or backup teams during peak periods or emergencies can maintain service continuity. Similarly, you can use an automatic call distribution system to efficiently smartly and evenly distribute calls, avoiding overload on specific agents or service centers.

5. Maintain Support Across Different Time Zones

You can support customers in different time zones better. Using VoIP features, route and forward calls from different international locations to your global teams. In this manner, you can offer assistance even during off-hours. It’s like having a 24/7 support system without making everyone work at the same time.

6. Integrate with Key Business Applications

VoIP integrations serve as a vital strategy to improve operations. Specifically, CRM integrations with VoIP can cut down time spent on repetitive manual tasks and eliminates the need to toggle between apps.

Agents can receive caller details on their screen when a customer call is received or initiated. And they can easily place outbound calls directly from the CRM interface with a simple click. No need to grab the phone and manually dial the number!

How Can UWT Help?

As you know, operational efficiency is an ongoing commitment to improvement. Effective business communication influences how tasks are carried out, information is exchanged, and customer relationships are maintained.

Modern business communication tools can reduce errors and misunderstandings and facilitate better collaboration, thereby upgrading operations. United World Telecom offers many features to optimize and power your business communication.

Legacy phone technologies, like the PSTN and on-premise PBX systems, shaped digital communications today, but it’s time for businesses to embrace the digital landscape’s growing needs.

This is especially important for virtual and hybrid work setups. Employees, stakeholders, partners, and customers can connect from anywhere, using features like virtual extensions and global SIP trunking.

But with more and more businesses using cloud-based communication, securing your cloud PBX phone system is crucial.

In this guide to PBX security, we’ll go over:

• Which is more secure? Cloud PBX or On-Premise PBX
• Potential threats
• Best practices of PBX security

Importance of Keeping Your PBX Phone System Secure

It’s necessary to use cybersecurity measures to protect communication data handled by your cloud PBX from potential threats and unauthorized access. These cyberattacks can result in high costs (up to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025), data loss, and cause lasting damage to your business reputation. In the U.S., in 2022 alone, there were countless malware attacks (44%), data breaches (27%), and DDoS attacks (22%) (Forbes).

And yet, most companies don’t invest in cybersecurity because they have “little financial incentive to do so.” However, when organizations have advanced security measures and capabilities, they can deliver 43% higher revenue growth. This means that if your business is not paying attention to security across the board, you are not safeguarding your business enough.

This is true even in the case of a cloud telephony or PBX system, primarily because they rely on the internet to function.

Is Cloud PBX or On-Premise PBX More Secure?

Whether cloud PBX or on-premise is more secure depends on a few factors such as communication needs, budget, provider, and IT team availability.

The main difference between cloud and on-premise PBX systems is where they are stored and who is in charge of the system. Cloud PBX is typically hosted by your PBX provider and available through the Internet. Since it’s a hosted system, your provider maintains, updates, and secures the system. While cloud communication technology is convenient, cost-effective, and easily accessible, if not secured well, it can be prone to fraud, breaches, and similar disruptions.

On-premise PBX, on the other hand, is located in your office premises and connected to your internal network. This is typically built, run, and managed by your experienced in-house IT team. Since your team is in charge, you have more control over how to keep your system secure. Yet, on-premise systems can be outdated compared to modern technology, and by extension, modern cybercrimes. This may lead to struggles with functionality, recovery, and stability.

Learn more in our guide on cloud vs on-premise PBX.

5 Potential Threats to PBX Security

Identifying and fixing security issues begins with understanding the different cybersecurity problems and what elements they can affect. From the menace of eavesdropping to sophisticated cyberattacks, several threats make your cloud PBX system vulnerable. Here are a few of them:

1. Unauthorized Access and Hacking

2. Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed DoS (DDoS) Attacks

3. Eavesdropping Attacks

4. Malware Attacks

5. Phishing and Social Engineering

5 Best Practices of PBX Security

Securing your cloud PBX system is paramount, and implementing best practices ensures its resilience against potential threats and attacks. From fortifying your system with robust passwords to bolstering its defense with modern technical measures, here are some ways to protect your PBX system:

1. Password Fortification

Use long, complex, and strong passwords for your PBX phone system and update them regularly. Change default admin and guest passwords to something uncommon to avoid common attacks. These simple steps replace easy-to-guess passwords, reducing the risk of common attacks.

2. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Now, most PBX and VoIP providers offer two-factor authentication (TFA) or MFA as part of their service. Users must provide a verification, like a code sent to their email, along with their password to get into the account. This way, even if an attacker gets a user’s password, they can’t get in without the verification code. Enable these defenses for all user accounts for an added layer of security. Also, remember to check and update MFA settings periodically.

3. Software Updates

Make sure both your PBX provider and your business update the software regularly. Providers should fix bugs and security concerns and release timely software upgrades. And users must make sure to apply all the latest security patches and updates. This helps fix security issues and address potential vulnerabilities.

4. Control Access

Set up controls to decide who can access what. It ensures that only the right people can use and manage the communication system, keeping sensitive information safe. By assigning specific permissions and restrictions, you can mitigate the risk of unauthorized usage and cyberattacks. This proactive measure enhances the overall system resilience.

Learn more about our user and role management features.

5. Technical Measures

Intrusion detection systems and firewalls help in monitoring and blocking suspicious activity. Employ encryption to shield communication data, especially in VoIP calls, videos, text messaging, and other communication-related data. Encryption converts data into secret texts accessible only through a decryption key that converts it back to its original form. This protects the data from unauthorized access.

In addition to that, use digital certification, VPNs, and other authentication protocols to verify device and user identities, preventing breaches. Proactively audit network, system, and access logs and user accounts for unusual usage patterns.

These technical measures, combined with established practices, offer robust protection against unauthorized access and threats to your PBX security.

Learn more in our guide to VoIP security.

6. Educate and Train Users

Nothing helps keep systems secure like teaching your users the dos and don’ts of IT security best practices. Do refresher training, set up reminders to change passwords, conduct regular service checks, and so on.

How Can UWT Help?

As more businesses use cloud-based communication, it’s crucial to prioritize strong cybersecurity and safety measures. Since 1996, United World Telecom has provided secure and reliable VoIP services. We know that security is important for high-quality, fraud-free VoIP calls. Get in touch with us now for any questions about improving your business communication system and protecting it from security risks.

Call us at 1 (877) 898 8646 and learn more about our privacy, security, and fraud control measures.