How IP telephony works and why it is indispensable

Mobile telephony and messengers have replaced traditional telephony in some sectors of our lives. However, IP-telephony, which has replaced analogue telephony, has become an effective business tool and has remained so for many years.

How IP telephony works

The technology involves the transmission of a signal using Internet protocol. The interlocutor's speech is sound, or more precisely, an analogue signal. The equipment receives it, encodes it into a digital format, compresses it and sends it to the communication channel — the Internet. On the receiving end, the action is reversed and the other party hears the speech.

IP telephony has taken the convenience and look and feel of classical telephony and the wide range of possibilities of modern software.

It can be used as a means of communication:

• an analogue telephone equipped with a VoIP ATA adapter;
• computer with connected headset (microphone+headphones) and special software — a softphone that simulates a telephone;
• IP-phones (look like ordinary phones but have network access);
• mobile phones that work in GSM and Wi-Fi networks (also with a softphone installed).

Telephony for business: the possibilities

In most cases, this service is relevant for businesses, regardless of their size. Modern call-centres, taxi and delivery services, online-shops, medical and financial companies use IP-telephony in their work.

In general, this communication technology is suitable for any organization that has constant call traffic. If it concerns your workplace, pay attention to the IP-telephony advantages and set of its features.

Telephony for business allows:

1. Make calls from any device. This includes IP phones as well as smartphones, tablets and computers.
2. Call forwarding. In case of absence of one employee at the workplace a call is forwarded to the mobile number of another employee.
3. Connect multi-channel numbers. You will not have to buy a lot of SIM-cards — one number can serve several phone lines.
4. Carry out integration with CRM. As a result, you will be able to unload statistics in order to analyze the work of your employees / advertising efficiency / to learn about customer requests.
5. Make free in-network calls. IP telephony allows your employees to talk to each other for free via short numbers and make the most affordable calls to the numbers of other operators.
6. Receive calls directly from your website. In this way, customers can contact the sales department or call a separate extension in one click.

Virtual telephony is now widely used by business owners in Ukraine. Several factors contribute to the technology's popularity. Firstly, it is easy to use: unlike regular telephony, which requires a telephone cable, in this case an IP phone or softphone and Internet access are enough. Secondly, the technology makes it possible to set up a mobile office for employees who are frequently on business trips, so that they can connect to meetings from anywhere with Internet access. Thirdly, the virtual ATE interface can be configured to display a digital number during outgoing calls so that customers can see your number.

The benefits of technology

If you connect IP-telephony with multichannel number and cloud PBX, you get:

• increased efficiency in processing incoming and making outgoing calls many times over;
• absence of missed calls;
• maximum ease of combining geographically dispersed offices into one network;
• no tying to the Internet provider, moving the office without any problems;
• a beautiful telephone number.

All of these features help the business in three ways: revenue, image and visibility. By activating the service, you can avoid the costs associated with re-deploying the telephone network when you move and the losses due to missed calls, resulting in failed transactions.

In terms of personal use, it is a handy tool to cut costs when making calls to landlines.

Voice menu and 0800

Special mention should be made of the cool perks that can be connected along with IP telephony. You probably know about the existence of the 0800 hotline. This number means that you can call its owner free of charge within the country. Do you agree, it is pleasant not to spend money for calls from mobile to city numbers?

It is easy to activate the 0800 number — you do not need to be a legal entity. The procedure is simple: you choose a combination of digits and we set up access to a number you feel comfortable calling from.

This implementation significantly increases the number of incoming calls. But what if employees find it hard to handle them? This is where another tool comes to the rescue: the voice menu. This is a recorded message that greets the user and offers a choice to listen to the desired information or connect with the appropriate operator.

After the greeting, a message can be launched with relevant information or frequent questions (e.g: "Our website is down, write to Telegram" or "Today's offer of the day - pizza at a discount!"). This way we weed out erroneous callers and those who find the answer to their question. By answering popular questions before they've even been asked, you save yourself and your customers time.

Then, the callers who didn't hang up must choose what kind of question they are interested in, so that the call is forwarded to the right operator.

In this way the correct distribution of calls is done.

How the connection is made

For a subscriber everything is as simple as possible. You just have to install the software on the devices to be used for calls, enter your username and password and make the calls. All the configuration work is done on the side of the service provider. If conventional phones are used, a VoIP gateway is needed in addition, which ensures that the signal is transmitted over the Internet protocol.

As you can see, everything is very simple and does not require any complicated manipulation, especially from the subscriber. We hope that this article has been useful and perhaps you or someone you know has a need for a convenient and inexpensive communication channel.

Learn more about «IP-Telephony» service by calling 0800-31-8831