Going Global: How VoIP Can Help When Expanding Your Business Internationally
Communication is key to the expansion efforts of all businesses. However, most businesses have always faced challenges, especially with cost when making international costs. This challenge has made some of them reconsider expanding to other countries.
Fortunately, they do not have to worry anymore. VoIP has made international communication easy and affordable. It does not matter how small your business is, you can set up a presence in any country that you want, as long as you have access to the internet.
VoIP comes with a host of features and helps businesses cut their operational costs. It means that you can expand to other countries without any issues. Here is how VoIP can help you when expanding your business internationally;
Local Numbers
Imagine a situation where you have a business based in the United States but want to expand to an African country. Your business is doing well and you have a phone number that you use to engage with American customers.
Expanding to Africa means that you will need a phone number to engage with your African customers. Will you use the same American phone number? This cannot work and will derail your expansion efforts.
Customers trust a business with a local presence and a local phone number. Fortunately, VoIP allows you to get a second phone number that can be specific to the new location of your business. This aids your expansion efforts.
Saving on International Calls
Taking the example above, you have succeeded in setting up a new office in an African country. Your staff, in both offices, need to work together and often communicate to ensure that the company is working towards a common goal.
Using the traditional phone systems, you are going to pay a lot of money for international calls. On the contrary, you need to look for ways to reduce your operational costs and maximize profits.
Luckily, VoIP systems have made international calling affordable. You can even get a subscription service for international calls, meaning that your business is going to save money even when your employees from the two offices are communicating regularly.
Remote Workers
Instead of setting up a physical office in an African country, you might think about hiring staff in that country to support your expansion efforts and assist your in-office staff. You will need to invest in the right tools for remote work and an effective communication system.
Using VoIP, you can expand your hiring pool and employability to any country that you want. This is critical since research shows that remote work is shaping businesses.
If you look at some of the biggest tech companies in the world such as Facebook, Google, and AWS, they are all looking at having a bigger percentage of their staff working from home.
You cannot achieve this easily without a good communication system, and VoIP promises to provide that to businesses.
Modern Features
The traditional phone systems have limited features. Businesses using these systems have no option but to use what is available. Unfortunately, these features are not ideal for businesses that want to tap into international markets.
VoIP comes with a host of modern features that can play a crucial role when a business is going global. For instance, you can use conferencing features, share your screen, and make video calls.
When operating from different geographical locations or countries, you need to ensure that you can have face-to-face meetings with your employees or customers without any issues. VoIP can help you achieve this.
Unified Communication
Finally, you need a single communication system for all employees, no matter where they are working from. For example, if an employee moves from your American office to the African office, they should not have any problems using the systems in place.
With VoIP, you can make sure that all your employees are using the same system, making communication simple and clear. In addition, collaboration gets easy when all employees are using the same system no matter where they are.
In conclusion, every business wants to expand and tap into new markets. Unfortunately, this is going to be challenging without a proper communication channel. Adopting VoIP is going to make things easy for you when going global.
