Virtual Call Center

What is a Virtual Phone System? 10 Benefits & Features

Old-school phone systems lack the necessary features and capabilities modern businesses have to deliver better customer service and achieve the desired growth.

It has led many businesses, including small-sized ones and startups, to adopt new-age cloud-based phone systems that come packed with advanced solutions.

So, what is a virtual phone system, and how does it work? We will guide you through what you need to know about cloud phones and then help you select a business virtual phone system provider for your business.

What is a Virtual Phone System?

A cloud-based telephony technology, a virtual business phone system lets users make and receive phone calls over the internet. So, what is a phone system for virtual assistants? In simpler words, a virtual phone service is a phone system that works the same way as a regular phone system. But the most significant difference between VoIP and traditional phone systems is that VoIP uses the internet to make and receive calls.

Also, unlike conventional phone systems, which need wires, cables, and desk phones, virtual phone systems don’t need any of this hardware or equipment. It makes them both affordable and flexible.

Virtual Phone System: How Does It Work?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology makes it easy for a virtual business phone service to make and receive calls.

So, how does a virtual phone call work? With VoIP, analog voice calls are turned into digital packets. These data packets travel over the internet like email, instant messaging, and other data packets do.

The next step is to send these data packets or digital signals to the service provider. The service provider sends the data packets or digital signals to the recipients. When the packets reach their destination, they are turned back into voice signals so the receiver can hear the voice or message of the sender.

It may look like a long process, but it only takes a few milliseconds. But you need a reliable internet connection to avoid transmission delays- this is how virtual phone systems for business work. As was already said, a traditional phone system has some basic features and functions. However, a business virtual phone service also has many advanced features that improve business communication.

How to Set up a Virtual Phone System?

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Setting up a virtual phone for PC is an easy process. You simply need to follow these steps to process the setup:

Step 1 – Purchase numbers

The first step is to buy numbers, and you can choose from vanity numbers, toll-free numbers, or even local numbers from anywhere in the world.

Step 2 – Add your team

You must create different teams in the process and start adding team members along with their contact details as agents in the specified groups.

Step 3 – Call Flow Setup

Finally, you can complete the virtual phone system setup by setting up the call flows, including IVRs and voicemails. After this step, you are all set to call!

Features of a Virtual Phone System

Virtual phone systems offer several high-tech communication features- given below are some of such features.

HD voice quality

Virtual Phone System allows users to make and receive calls in high HD voice quality through the internet. This feature is attributed to high internet speeds, which can host more HD voice calls at once. 

Predictive Dialers

A click-to-call feature is common in almost all phone systems, but one of the best features of Virtual Phone systems is its automated power dialers. These can enhance productivity 18x times and speed up the process.

Video Conference Calling

Video conferencing (VC) is a fantastic tool for remote working where you can connect and communicate with your team face-to-face, thus saving time and expenditure on business travel. Video conferencing helps better translation and higher engagement and is great for culture. 

Call Recording

Call Recording is a vital feature of Virtual Phone systems as it allows you to track calls, check for compliance and legal necessities, train new agents, keep records, deliver relevant and real-time feedback, and increase agent productivity.

SMS automation

This feature helps you connect immediately with your teams or clients by sending instant SMSs on various platforms and engaging with your audience at scale.

Third-Party Integrations

Integrating with third-party applications and platforms helps you connect directly to mobiles and landlines from third-party applications and enjoy internal collaboration and external call handling on extremely simple pricing and call plans.

Business Phone Analytics

This feature also helps you with call history features and makes it easier for organizations to remotely oversee every team and location.

Automatic Callbacks and Call Queueing

A business virtual phone system helps in transferring the right call to the right agent. It calls queues effectively based on the customer’s issue and helps handle missed calls by featuring automated callback.

Multilingual IVR

The IVR acts as a virtual phone receptionist for your business. The choice of language for access through IVR can be highly beneficial for a business that can answer customer questions effectively or connects them to the appropriate agent or department.

Voicemail Drop

Voicemail drop helps you to repurpose your best voicemails at scale, select a default message, create several voicemails, click to drop voicemails for both VOIP and bridge calls, and act immediately if a voicemail is dropped.

These things make the virtual phone service ideal for businesses to communicate. It helps them improve customer service, talk to each other better within the company, and cut costs.

Benefits of Using a Virtual Phone System

The virtual phone service helps businesses because it cuts costs, makes it easier for teams to work together, and is very portable. Let’s look at some of the benefits quickly.

Saves Time

One of the core benefits of virtual cloud telephony is its speed and how it saves time. A slow pace can create business losses as several call center phone systems depend on third-party CPaaS (cloud platform as a solution), leading to slow performances. 

Improve Team Collaboration

Virtual business phone solutions offer quick text messages, conferencing, and call routing features that result in influential team collaboration. Departments within the organization can connect, and it becomes easier to collaborate with remote employees. 

Affordable pricing for small businesses

A virtual office phone service with all the right features gives you the most value by going virtual. You save on a virtual phone system for small business operations and get benefits like auto-attendants and custom greetings, automatic call routing, call forwarding, detailed call logs, reasonable international calling prices, and call recording for staff training.

Lower Costs

Virtual telephony comes with affordable hardware and software setups. The initial setup doesn’t come with an extravagant infrastructure, expensive wiring, or switchboards; all you need is a set of headphones and a working internet browser for your employees. 

Easy setup

The initial setup of a virtual phone system is simple, easy, and convenient. As discussed above, it comes with the least number of equipment and requirements, and any small business can adopt this system.

Improve Business Productivity

It helps you to enhance business productivity by sending text messages pre or post your a call, integrating your telephony and email into one center, saving agent time and customer experience, and helping your customers to contact you in multiple ways.

Ensures a connected remote workforce

Virtual phone system apps are well-equipped with a live dashboard, where you have clear visibility into calls taken by your remote workforce so that you can monitor their performance. 

Robust analytics and reporting

These systems give you the advantage of real-time analytics and reports of agent performance and contact center performance. Pre-analyzed data helps you delve into strategic learning, extract necessary reports and data, and cover every aspect of a contact center as you need. 

24/7 Connectivity

With a virtual phone system, you can connect with people in different time zones, ensuring 24 x 7 engagement, communication, and connectivity. 

Higher scalability

Virtual telephony promotes growth and helps you scale from 5 to 500 agents. It doesn’t require you to be near your desk phone and allows you and your agents to work anywhere. 

These are a few significant advantages of deploying a virtual phone system. However, aside from these ten core benefits, it also benefits organizations in various ways, such as facilitating multitasking, developing a unified system, enhancing security, and more.

Virtual Phone System and PBX: Differences

You may have a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) configured if you don’t have a virtual phone system. It is not flashy, but it gets the job done.

PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is an analog-based phone system, whereas virtual phone systems digitize analog signals and send them over the Internet. Both of them work as phones but in diverse ways.

6 Tips to Choose a Virtual Phone System for Your Business

Planning to replace your existing on-prem phone system might seem daunting. However, it is not as difficult as you think. Here are some tips to help you choose the best virtual phone system for your workplace:

1) Consider your needs

When choosing a virtual phone system, it’s important to consider all the different ways that you’ll use it. Do you need to make international calls? Do you need to know who is calling before answering? Do you want free long-distance calling? These are just some of the questions that need to be answered before making your final decision.

2) ‘Try before you buy’

Choose a company that offers free virtual phone system trials and free consultations with sales representatives. This will allow you to test-drive the product before you make any commitment.

3) Look at the features

Find out what features are included in the plan, and how much it costs to use them. The more features your system offers, the more expensive it will be. You don’t want to choose an expensive system if only a few features are needed — especially if those features aren’t going to be used often.

4) Upgrades for scalability

Find out about any add-ons or upgrades that may be available for your chosen system, including additional phone lines and extensions, conference calling capabilities, and more. If your business needs them, then this will cost money. If not, this could save money in the long run by reducing the number of phones needed or eliminating unnecessary features.

5) Quality of service

Look at the quality of service that the vendor provides. This includes both the technical and customer support aspect of it. Make sure that the company has enough resources available so that they can always answer your questions within 24 hours. Also, make sure that they have an excellent reputation in the market because if they do not, then there is no guarantee that they will be able to provide you with good quality service.

Conclusion

A virtual phone system packs plenty of new-age features that modern businesses require to scale. So, if you’re still using the old PBX system, it’s probably the best time to move on and try a virtual phone system. Adoption is easy and cost-effective. And with a top vendor like JustCall by your side, getting started takes less than three minutes. Sign up and get a virtual phone number instantly.

FAQs

What is the purpose of a virtual phone system for my business?

There are many reasons why you should opt for a virtual phone system. Some of the common ones include:

  • VoIP is a low-cost communication method.
  • It provides advanced features that help sales and support teams fulfill their responsibilities effectively.
  • The system increases the productivity of the employees.
  • The digital infrastructure may be scaled when required.
  • It provides remarkable portability while improving overall efficiency and work-life balance.
What compulsory features should a virtual phone system have?

Intelligent phone systems, as opposed to regular phone networks, incorporate several enhanced communication capabilities. The compulsory features that a virtual phone system should have are:

  • Call forwarding
  • Report analysis
  • Call queuing
  • Auto Attendant
  • IVR
  • Call conferencing
  • Call recording
How to install a virtual phone system?

In three simple steps, you can get started with a virtual phone system:

  • Choose a vendor and select a business phone plan
  • Get your virtual phone number
  • Start making and receiving phone calls.
How can startups benefit from a virtual phone system?

A reliable phone system can enable startups to ramp up their sales and support efforts. It can empower sales and support teams to be more efficient, productive, and cost-effective. Its modern and agile features can position your business for new growth opportunities.

Which virtual phone calling plan should I choose?

It largely depends on your distinct needs and requirements. So, as a first step, audit your needs. Do you need a local number? Do you want features like call recording and conversation intelligence? What’s your budget? Make sure you ask such questions and accordingly choose a virtual phone calling plan based on your requirements.

With a foundational role at Saas Labs, Anand has been a key player in establishing the Product Management function and spearheading the launch of our Conversation Intelligence solution. His expertise in AI innovation guides both the strategic direction of the products and a team committed to excellence.

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