Toll Free over SIP (also called Toll Free over VoIP)
If you’re reading this blog there’s a good chance that you have heard and considered that SIP Trunking for your Call Center and now is ready for Prime Time and that you don’t want to be left behind in 20th Century technology. You may have heard that Dramatic Telecom Cost savings can be achieved with SIP & that is one of the great reasons you should consider moving your Toll Free Numbers and traffic away from traditional telephony circuits to an IP type of Solution such as VOIP or otherwise known as SIP Trunking, but it’s not the only reason. So we’ll cover other reasons that can be just as important and without taking up more of your valuable time let’s get right into it.
1- Increase Your Profits by Expanding Your Organization Presence
2- Faster provisioning of New Departments, Locations & Programs
3- Savings on Using Costs and Taxes
Increase Your Profits by Expanding Your Organization Presence–You might be thinking out loud “Well, we already have expanded our Organization Presence when we added Toll Free numbers for our company” and to a large degree that is true. But with SIP the doorway to new avenues of expanding your Presence and Profits has increased by metrics not yet fully put to the test by many organizations. So here are a few examples of what the limits of Traditional Telecom put on most Enterprises and where the limits have been removed.The limits of Traditional Telecom put your Toll Free inbound traffic categorized into many brackets such as Billing for one rate on USA calls (even some with USA lower 48 only), another higher Billing for Carribbean Island calls with different rates by Island & another higher Billing for Canada calls. In addition if you wanted ITFS (International Toll Free Service) there were only a handful of carriers that could provide this service and even in 1st world and developed countries the rates prohibited a lot of Enterprises from even considering ITFS, so either International Point to Point Circuits or MPLS Circuits could circumvent some of the cost for the largest of organizations but left many others to consider the costs too prohibitive.What SIP Trunking has done has leveled the playing field for even smaller organizations to compete with larger competitors in expanding their Client base beyond the US lower 48/US 50 states specifically in the ways listed here:
- There are many SIP providers that bundle in the same rate for Toll Free traffic coming from the Carribbean islands as the USA rate. In addition there are a few providers that will also include Canada at the same rate as their USA rates.
- For expanding to International markets SIP gives you so many more benefits because DIDs and SIP Trunks in many countries are so cost effective compared to traditional Telecom that the case for broadening your reach is more compelling than ever. And the same can be said for SIP ITFS per minute rates.
- Many SIP providers will allow you to subscribe to their services on a month to month, no usage commitment contract. Some International locations may require a certain usage amount on the trunks.
Faster provisioning of New Departments, Locations &Programs
This benefit has some of the Largest implications, especially for New Marketing Programs or New Locations and even to some degree when starting a new outsourcing campaign to another Contact Center as an example. Traditional Telecom can take weeks, even months for new circuits to be installed if you are maxed out on Capacity at your existing sites. But if you have sufficient bandwidth in place then provisioning new Toll Free numbers with significant can shave off 90% or more of the time to implement.
Savings on Usage Costs and Taxes
It’s more than a rumor that SIP Trunking will bring your Telecom costs down significantly. And there are 2 ways your costs will be reduced:
- The rate per minute, in most cases 30-70% less than PRIs, DS3 (TDM Circuits). The potential for savings is even higher if you want to use a carrier that does Least Cost Routing or Special Routing carriers who can offer rates as low as .005/minute because of Special IP Routing.
- Taxes. Some carriers charge the going USF Fee rate which varies quarter to quarter near the 15-16% range, other carriers charge a little less since they bundle it in the rate and a few charge some State taxes.
For assistance in finding the best carriers on the planet for SIP Toll Free traffic or for a Free Consultation on what are the steps to convert your Toll Free from Traditional Telecom to SIP please contact Call Center Pros™ at +1-404-936 4000.