9 May 2008
Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) solutions provide small and medium business employees with the ideal method to communicate with their clients and customers while away from the office, it has been claimed.
According to the Internet Telephony Services Providers' Association (ITSPA), services such as having voicemails forwarded as mp3s to your email inbox, or calls redirected to a mobile help small business owners stay in touch even when they are abroad.
Colin Duffy, a council member of the association, which represents VoIP network operators and service providers in the UK, said that giving out a landline number which is redirected to a mobile via VoIP can also make a business seem more professional.
"With voicemail, your inbound call is answered by the network, the message is left, and then converted to an MP3 file and emailed to you. So you can pick up your voicemail wherever you are, so long as you have access to the internet," he explained.
"You also get call forwarding, so you can give out an ordinary mobile number. You don't want to give your mobile number as your contact number."
Meanwhile, research published last month by T-Mobile suggests that 42 percent of small businesses feel they pay too much for their mobile communications, and that 60 percent spend at least 32.5 working days outside of the office each year.<br/>
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