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SMEs Still Confused About VoIP |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Monday, 22 January 2007 |
SME business owners still can't tell the difference between residential
VoIP offerings and solutions intended for business deployment according to a
survey of Australian VoIP resellers.
The survey, conducted by ISPhone Australasia demonstrates that
resellers need to talk through the benefits of IP Telephony so that small business
users can begin to see its not just about saving money.
This general lack of understanding of VoIP technologies
could delay widespread acceptance of IP Telephony for another five years resellers
believe.
The survey found that while there is increasing interest
from SMEs cost savings are seen as the main benefit with the majority of
resellers indicating that lack of understanding about the technology was the
key barrier for SMEs when deciding to make the transition.
According to Dean Levick, Managing Director of ISPhone
reseller DRL Communications, while SMEs are keen to deploy VoIP, a fundamental
problem is that the majority still don't understand the difference between
residential and business grade VoIP services.
"Resellers need to sit down with the customer and have a
clear understanding of their business strategy before recommending a solution
that best suits their needs. We've made it our top priority to explain how VoIP
works from a business rather than a technical perspective. Taking the customer
through VoIP step by step clarifies any misconceptions and enables them to
better understand how the technology suits their business needs," Levick said.
More than 60 per cent of ISPhone resellers that responded to
the survey indicated that they had had to ‘rescue' a business customer who had
deployed residential VoIP services.
"Nine out of 10 customers don't understand the difference
between residential and business grade VoIP," explained Levick.
"A lot of SMEs we talk to have heard horror stories from
their colleagues about poor call quality and won't even consider VoIP -
however, this problem often relates to residential VoIP services deployed in a
demanding business environment," he said.
"There needs to be a clear differentiation between the
different types of VoIP services available," he concluded.
Beth Mackenzie, National Business Development Manager of
ISPhone Australasia stressed the industry needs to provide more education for
SMEs about VoIP.
"There are so many pieces to VoIP - the phones, the
software, the network and the Internet connection. This is very complicated for
an SME. A smaller company won't have a resident technology expert to
manage a new infrastructure," she said.
"At ISPhone, we offer a complete business grade VoIP
infrastructure, all network connectivity and administration, billing and
hardware. We also have a comprehensive channel program consisting of resellers
who are experts in the SME sector and provide ongoing support to customers. We
aim to provide SMEs with the expertise and knowledge to make the switch to VoIP
as simple and seamless as possible," said Mackenzie.
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