TMCnews Featured Article

“Doing more with less” has become a mantra for businesses trying to weather the recession. The focus for most companies in the tight economy was on the “with less” part, looking for ways to cut operating expenses to improve the bottom line.

 

Now, with the economy starting to show signs of rebound, it’s time to shift the focus to the “doing more” part – finding ways to increase productivity, efficiency and effectiveness without escalating costs.

 

Phones are a primary tool for doing business. One of the ways smart companies are reducing operating costs is by switching to VoIP phone systems. Replacing old phone systems with a VoIP system can potentially reduce phone bills from the moment it’s implemented. VoIP also eliminates the cost of managing and maintaining in-house equipment.

 

But there’s more value in VoIP technology than just “how low can I get my phone bill?” VoIP enables companies to do more by being more efficient, providing better customer service through fewer dropped calls, real-time monitoring capabilities for tracking call durations and minimizing hold times, and managing and routing calls dynamically during high volume periods.

 

Providing better service builds customer loyalty, improves retention and is a compelling differentiator in today’s highly competitive marketplace. So VoIP not only improves the bottom line, it can help drive top line revenue, as well.

 

While these are clear benefits, they’re just one facet of VoIP’s overall value. VoIP is powerful technology that can help you do more, work smarter and positively impact your business in many ways you may not expect – like leveraging office space effectively, increasing productivity and attracting and keeping top talent.

 

After headcount, office rent is the biggest expense for most companies. With multi-year lease requirements, many companies take on more space than they need to accommodate future growth. VoIP systems with a phone-sharing application let companies do more with unused space by sub-leasing and generating an additional revenue stream to offset rent costs.

 

In the competition for talent, many businesses offer telecommuting as an option to attract top performers. A VoIP system cost-effectively enables telecommuting by creating a virtual office environment that allows workers to work and phone from anywhere, anytime, log in remotely to their desks and share desks.

 

Protravel International, a retail travel services firm, leverages VoIP to enable its agents to work from home, or from literally anywhere in the world, seamlessly, with all the functionality they would have in an office. As a result, despite the recent recession, Protravel was able to attract and recruit 185 high-level corporate travel agents in less than a year.

 

This same work-from-anywhere capability makes VoIP the ideal solution for companies with traveling “road warriors”, mobile workers and field support organizations.

 

The best news is VoIP-enabled workers are proven to do more. For example, American Express (News - Alert) reports VoIP-enabled telecommuters handle 26 percent more calls and generate 43 percent more business than office-based counterparts, and Compaq documented 15 percent to 45 percent productivity increases after implementing VoIP.

 

VoIP puts the “doing more” into “doing more with less.”