Julian Rivers-Smith, 2Talk senior VoIP engineer, offers some tips to get that customer over the sales finish line.

Coming from a PBX installer background myself I understand the challenges one can face as a reseller when trying to get a customer over the finish line on a transition to VoIP.

Some of the regular queries I received focused on a lack of trust in VoIP/SIP and the perception that VoIP services were essentially all like Skype and not a business telephony solution.

Dispelling these sorts of misconceptions can be difficult, but there are some key points that can help you and your client decide to transition.

1) A full comparison of your customers existing telephone bill to services offered by the VoIP provider is the key.

This means pricing the complete solution so all costs are covered, including the provision of features.

For example, customer link or call minder from some major providers usually carry a considerable cost, but are essentially just call forwarding and voicemail services. Generally these features are much more cost effective or even free with VoIP solutions and make up considerable savings to the end user.

2) Comparison of access costs. When it comes to ISDN a basic rate of two channels is still around seven times the price of a two SIP channels from most VoIP providers.

This is a key saving area that is often hidden due to the way telco’s charge this cost to customers. It is also important to ensure that the broadband or data circuit for the VoIP solution is included in your quote.

3) Because there is no geographical bound with VoIP customers can now afford to have local access numbers in multiple geographic areas enabling low cost entry into new markets. This can be an excellent revenue boost for your customers and increase brand awareness.

4) VoIP is the future of telephony. In the first half of 2013, global residential and business VoIP services revenue rose 3%, to $33 billion and worldwide business VoIP service revenue is forecast by Infonetics to grow at a 7% CAGR from 2012 to 2017.

5) VOIP solutions can provide superior call quality over traditional services as they have the provision to support high definition audio codecs unlike ISDN.

6) Ensuring your customers have adequate bandwidth for their call volumes along with good routers is an important part of delivering a quality experience.

The likeliness of them referring people to VOIP is essentially down to the quality of your install and the more peoplewe can get across the better.

Good luck!