You may have read a fair bit about VoIP phones and how they use the internet to connect you to clients and customers without all that tedious mucking about with landlines. However, there are a few terms that should be explained. Two of them, termination and call origination do need further examination so that will help you to understand them. A wholesale voip termination provider like https://www.idtexpress.com can answer any in depth questions that you may have.
Origination means quite simply the call that is coming in. That might come as something of a surprise as you would think that it would be the other way as usually if you’re making the call, you’re the originating source. Origination refers to the service provider, not yourself. The reason for this is that the provider holds your phone number. Its then the job of the service provider to connect the call through thus originating the call. Now you might see that there are some costs involved here and it’s a god idea to consider a few things when choosing that originator/provider.
The first is what value you are going to get. Price is always important but it should not be your overriding consideration in this matter. One positive is that there is a wealth of providers to choose form and the price has become pretty standard throughout. So that brings us to the service level. The old calculation of service ratio divided by the cost is what should be your main concern. Without doubt the thing to look for are the degree of customer service, the quality of the calls provided and the knowledge that you can rely on them to come in clear. You can do this by asking to look at the equipment and to listen to some recorded audio.
The next thing to consider is the functionality and the features that you want on the phone VoIP system. Something’s you have to have like an emergency services call, Caller ID storage which is essential for the management and maintenance of your system. There are toll free options that some providers can give you which does make it easy for your callers to contact you so this is something that you may want to look at.
Making yourself available to your callers and customers is always important. But you need to have something in the background as back up. If the main route fails, you need a backup to keep those calls flowing into your business and also so that the customer thinks everything is going to plan.
The one thing that you do not want to worry about with your origination is the management of the whole thing. However, you do want to make sure that you have control over what type of calls come in and what route they take to the receivers of the calls. It’s something that an agent can go through with you to select the level of control required. There is also the question of flexibility. If the package that you use is not working for you then you need to have the chance to tailor, it to something else. Most importantly you want to be able to route or cancel those incoming calls as easy as just clicking with the mouse. That covers Origination now let’s take a look at the Voice termination element
Voice termination refers to the act of delivering the call. It is different to origination as a phone number is not required. Again, we start with value for your money. As we’ve said before prices are starting to equal themselves out, so you should focus your search on what the provider does for you in relation to helping your business. The audio that you receive will great depend on the provider.
That audio is also relying on the infrastructure that the provider creates for you. A good infrastructure means that the call is not going to disappear as it will follow a good route to you. The other element is Security. In the days of heightened telephone crime its vital that you protect yourself and your customers. Providers look at authentication of call, restrictions to where they can go and what permissions are but in place. One other idea is to make your VOIP origination provider different from you VOIP termination provider. There are certain advantages to this approach. If you use one, then you have one bill and the account is end to end covered. It also means that your equipment is the same throughout. The big advantage of a two-provider system is that if one goes down the other will still be up it very rare to lose both. If it’s vital that you keep on getting the calls in regardless, then this might just be the option to look for as you can mix and match the offer where you need it.