Unlimited phone calls, text messages, and faxes should be the bare minimum. Many providers will charge additional fees or premium rates for international calling, so look for providers that offer unlimited telephony for every country your company handles its business in.
8x8 offers domestic plans for the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. You can also add service plans for unlimited calling to destinations like France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and other countries.
An auto attendant acts as a virtual receptionist to handle incoming calls. Basic attendants may simply be those services people call and are asked to “press one for accounts”. Auto attendants improve the customer experience and help your team handle calls efficiently.
Multi-level auto attendants can be customized to do much more.
For example, with the 8x8 platform you can:
- Configure multiple call flows based on rules you set.
- Create multiple auto attendants.
- Each auto attendant can have multiple profiles.
With 8x8, you can also customize caller greetings with several options, such as:
- Record your own caller greetings with the press of a button.
- Let our professional artists write, record, and produce them for you.
- Create different greetings based on business hours, out-of-office, holidays.
The top VoIP services will offer you the ability to record both incoming and outgoing calls. Recordings can be saved in the cloud or on devices such as mobile phones and laptops. Call recording can be great for training purposes. Individual users will also be able to record their own calls for any reason necessary, like remembering call details.
Like many VoIP features, visual voicemail is not common in traditional phone systems. Sometimes, team members are in a meeting or in a noisy environment and have to listen to an important voicemail.
With visual voicemail, users can access voicemails anytime from any smartphone or internet-enabled device and read their voice messages in the form of an email. This is accomplished by a VoIP solution like 8x8 with automatic voice transcription. From the app, users can read, listen to, forward, and delete voicemail messages as well as return calls directly from the email.
No one likes to be placed on hold.Callers may want to buy something, reach customer support, or speak to accounts, but either way, they want to be able to do it quickly. The best IP telephony platforms come with many advanced features to improve the customer experience.
Custom hold music, for instance, allows you to improve the hold experience and lift customers’ moods. You can either select music or upload your own. You can also use news and promotional messages.
Retain your brand equity by keeping your existing business numbers. Local number porting also helps you avoid forcing customers to spend their hard-earned cash on long-distance and international calls made from their landline or cell phone.
With 8x8, you can choose a local phone number from anywhere across 120+ countries and give your organization a local presence everywhere you operate.
Along with local number porting, direct dial numbers make it easier for your customers to reach you. Direct-dial numbers are like virtual phone numbers that can be routed to any device on your VoIP network.
In fact, you can configure multiple numbers to route to the same extension as well as use unique numbers to A/B test marketing campaigns. These numbers can be used in geographic regions in place of toll-free numbers so your customers can easily contact you.
One of the greatest advantages of VoIP phone systems is that they can be easily adapted for all of your call handling needs. 8x8’s business phone solution includes call handling features such as:
Caller ID, blocking & do not disturb - Increase productivity by knowing who’s calling so you can direct them to the right person or voicemail.
Call forwarding & transfer - Set custom automatic call forwarding rules and make in-call transfers.
3-way calling - A simple and easy-to-use audio collaboration tool for three parties. With a service like 8x8 Work, callers can place a 3-way call in three easy steps:
- Call the first party
- When that party is on the line, tap or click on the ellipsis to reveal a menu of features.
- Click or tap Add Call - Enter the third party
Call management is all about improving your customer service. Any VoIP solution should be able to help you effectively manage your calls. If that's not the case, then what’s the point?
Here are some call management features you should consider when choosing a VoIP provider: