You’re in the market and receiving proposals for procuring a new, VoIP-based, phone system. The good news is, your business will receive huge benefits while improving your efficiency and customer experience when you choose the right VoIP platform. The bad news, it can be extremely hard to dissect what you need and if the recommended solution is right. Thankfully, we have written this article to help you on your purchasing journey.

What type of ‘VoIP’ solutions is being proposed? You need to know the difference.

On-Premise Phone System: This solution is essentially the same as the phone system you’ve most likely had in the past. The phone system is physically located in your office, and the handsets connect back to it. An extremely reliable tried and tested solution. VoIP (SIP Channels) will then connect to your on-premise phone system and provide cheaper calls going out over your broadband.

Pros: Extremely reliable, tried, and tested equipment that you can physically touch. If something does go wrong, an engineer can visit the site and most likely change a physical part.

Cons: It isn’t in the cloud. This can restrict the number of features and benefits available with most solutions. From reliable mobile apps, integrations, and being able to manage changes remotely, easily. 

Cloud VoIP, Per-User Model: This is the most commonly sold solution by telecoms resellers. There are many platforms that provide this solution, who then partner with resellers to sell their product. If the correct platform is sold, this solution will be as reliable as an on-premise phone system, but make sure annual downtime is discussed at POS. You will pay a subscription per user for the length of the contract.

Pros: You will receive all the bells and whistles of moving to the cloud, better features, more benefits, and be able to act as if you’re in the office, from anywhere. Many cloud solutions will also offer Unified Communications with video, instant messaging, and voice.

Cons: A reliable platform is a must, which can be hard for an end-user to know which one to choose. You should aim for a platform that has at least 99.99% uptime. There are some platforms that will not meet this, and you could be without a phone system if they are down. Secondly, as you are paying per user, it can get expensive if you have 10+ members of staff. Historically you’ve paid per phone line, not per phone. If you only have a few members of staff this shouldn’t be the case.