27May

7 Benefits of Softphones for Call Centers

May 27, 2021 Maulik Shah 7

Benefits of Softphones for Call Centers

A call center is normally associated with agents and managers. Although they play a huge role in building a successful communication hub, call centers are also defined by the technologies they employ, especially their phone systems – comprising hardware, software, and processes.

An efficient phone system is critical for a call center, as it facilitates functions like call routing and logging, agent desktop interface, multi-channel communications, and predictive dialing. Also, integrations – such as CRM integration – and workforce management can also be managed by internet-based telephony solutions.

If your business has made the transition from a traditional switch phone network to Softphones – or VoIP mobile dialers – in order to provide these functions, you have taken a step in the right direction.

Most modern call centers are powered by software, rather than telephone hardware systems. Organizations that are looking at setting up a call center to handle technical support, customer care, sales, and data collection often opt for a VoIP phone system or SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) phone solution. These internet phone options offer businesses general desk phones, wireless phones, or softphones with several optional call center features, to meet their needs for high-quality service and reliability.

In this blog, we will take a tour of how VoIP call centers work, how they optimize communications, and the benefits they provide to call centers.

What is a VoIP-enabled Call Center
VoIP Call Center Features that Match Every Organization’s Communication Needs
How unified communications can help your call center
How Softphones Optimize Call Center Communications
Softphone features that are tailor-made for Call Centers
Has your Call Center Switched to Softphones?
Introducing WebRTC into Call Centers

What is a VoIP-enabled Call Center

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has changed the way contact centers work, especially virtual call centers. A virtual call center is created by taking many small call centers and agents who work from home from different locations and connecting them. This is usually done using VoIP-enabled softphones, IVR (Interactive Voice Response), ACD (Automatic Call Distribution), and CTI (computer telephony integration).

VoIP-enabled softphone solutions for call centers are powered to handle higher call volumes and come with several additional features when compared to a traditional PBX phone service. These include routing incoming calls to the right person and integrating with other systems that provide essential customer information and capture operational data for analysis and control.

Most virtual call centers today use VoIP dialers, running entirely over the internet and automating multichannel customer support and self-service options. They are beneficial for businesses as they improve service levels, provide emergency backup and facilitate extended operating hours.

VoIP-powered Call Center Features that Match Every Organization’s Communication Needs

Call centers have evolved over the past few years, handling higher call volumes and managing growing customer expectations. In fact, call centers are metamorphosing into multi-channel communication hubs, providing assistance through forums, live chats, and other non-voice mediums. This makes it necessary for them to stay flexible and use a phone solution that exceeds customer expectations.

What are the special features offered by VoIP-enabled call center phone systems?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Set up your IVR to send incoming calls to the right call center agent.
Call recording: Record, pause, and listen to customer interactions at any time.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): Distribute calls based on business hours, technical support level, and IVR options.
VoIP phone numbers: Get local or toll-free numbers, or port your existing phone numbers.
Call routing: Manage customer interactions seamlessly. Don’t disgruntle your customers by making them repeat requests.

VoIP mobile dialers are changing the way call center agents interact with customers: How unified communications can help your call center

By incorporating a unified communication (UC) system into call center workflows, organizations can streamline communication and improve agent productivity and customer experience. Let’s elaborate on some of these benefits:

Enable digital transformation: HD video calling, message and presence screen sharing, and other UC features power up call center communications. These latest cloud communication technologies can help enterprises get ahead of competition.
Boost agent productivity: Agents can manage customer interactions using a streamlined, easy-to-use interface. With auto-answer capabilities, call notifications, and more, they gain the flexibility to work across all call control platforms.
Build customized user experiences: Add or remove communication channels that fit your organization’s needs and track end-to-end customer journeys.
Make remote call centers efficient: UC supports an at-home agent environment with a centralized management of distributed networks. This boosts the productivity of remote agents.

How Softphones Optimize Call Center Communications

Good customer service begins with crystal clear communication. With HD quality calling and diverse call control features, VoIP call centers enable agents to have everything at their fingertips.

Like every other industry, there is a growing demand in the call center sector to move to the cloud. Therefore, organizations are increasingly tapping into cloud communication solutions, such as softphones and UC-based call center apps to build a strategic and multi-faceted workforce – be it in a single location, multiple centers, or with work from home agents.

Call center softphones support cloud-based platforms, real-time messaging, and collaboration tools that allow customers to reach agents across locations and time zones. They facilitate communication as would happen in a traditional office while providing data security and flexibility.

Softphone systems also allow enterprises to white-label or provide specific, customized features and collaboration that are aligned with their brand and built as per their unique use cases.

Softphone Features that are Tailor-made for Call Centers

An efficient call center phone system helps run a communication center smoothly. Softphones offer features that are way more advanced than simple dialing and receiving calls. The exhaustive features that call center phone solutions come with make them stand out from landlines and PBX systems.

We have already discussed the standard IVR and ACD features that softphones offer. Let’s look at some specific VoIP features that add value to call centers.

Browser-based web phones: Agents can easily take calls from their computer browser, irrespective of location and without requiring any physical desk phones.
Click to call: Click to call browser plugins and auto-dialing numbers through a webpage help boost agent productivity.
Global outbound dialing: Make outbound calls to any location, anywhere in the world, with customizable caller IDs.
CRM integrations with screen pop: CRM integrations give agents more context and background about a customer during calls.
Instant set up: Setting up a phone has never been easier. Call center softphones can be set up and implemented in minutes. All that you need is a microphone and an internet connection.
Gain flexibility and scalability: Softphones make it easy to add new agents to scale your team.
Cost-effective plans: Call centers can save on costly phone bills, as well as the cost of setting up and maintaining desk phone equipment and phone lines.
Easy administration: Reduce your dependency on IT teams, as softphone solutions are centrally managed, and can be deployed across multiple locations, and scaled with ease.

Has your Call Center Switched to Softphones?

There was a time when pagers were the hottest business device used for instant business communication. The arrival of mobiles turned them obsolete and heralded a whole new era of wireless communication. Likewise, softphones are gradually replacing traditional hard phones as a call center communication solution of choice.

Let’s discover the benefits that softphones bring to call centers:

Easy access to data: Softphones can be easily integrated with the company CRM to provide call center agents with end-to-end background information on customers. This equips them to provide satisfactory answers to customer queries without any time delay. Easy access to data makes customer support faster and seamless.
Save time with one-click dial: The one-click dial feature of softphones saves valuable time for agents. Hard phones take time to dial a number and human error is a possibility.
Flexible and reliable: Softphones make geographical limitations redundant. Agents can work from anywhere, anytime. Also, softphones can be easily customized to suit the needs of a call center. Besides speed dial, IVR, and ACD, cloud-based softphones come with a huge scope of innovation.
Easy installation and maintenance: All you need is an internet connection and a device to install a softphone connection. You can put your maintenance worries to rest as well. As long as your device is bug-free and the internet connection smooth, your softphone will work without a glitch.
Single window service provider: Call centers that opt for VoIP softphone systems can use the same provider for their phone and data transmission requirements.
Manage calls over browser: With cloud telephony solutions like softphones, agents can make and receive calls from their browser window. Managers can monitor employees in real-time and generate call recordings and productivity reports.
Access CRM Data with ease: Quality customer experience is a key part of customer relationship management (CRM). In order to provide the best CX, call center agents can have secure access to applications, including CRM integration and other business tools. Calls can be auto-logged into the CRM and agents can view customer data while speaking to them.
Scale your customer service team: When it comes to scalability, softphones remain the solution of choice. Forget about increasing your office space or expanding an expensive PBX system. With cloud-based softphones, businesses can let their call center agents work from anywhere. Also, VoIP-enabled softphones cost a fraction of what landlines do.

Introducing WebRTC-backed Softphones into Call Centers

WebRTC enables voice and video calling directly inside a web browser, without a plugin or installation. One area where WebRTC technology is starting to make huge inroads is call centers. You may not know it, but the last call you make to a call center may have been picked up by a browser using WebRTC.

Why are call centers switching to WebRTC? The answer lies in the digitization that is sweeping across global organizations. Call centers are increasingly becoming omni channel communication hubs where customers can skip across channels while interacting with agents.

How do call centers benefit by transitioning to using WebRTC-enabled softphones:

Provides enhanced CRM and real-time communication support: A call center has two primary functions – a CRM that has a database of customer interactions and the other part is taking calls from customers. The CRM runs on the web, so the web part of WebRTC is well-suited for them. On the other hand, call agents handle real-time communication, so the RTC part is cut out for them. WebRTC fuses both these requirements.
Cut down on software installation and maintenance: WebRTC operates inside the browser. This means one less software application to install, update, and maintain. If you have 500 agents working in your call center, this translates to a lot of saved effort. By moving to WebRTC organizations cut down on their software installation and maintenance. The browser already uses CRM software. WebRTC gets added as another CRM feature. Upgrades to browsers are automatic and usually happen without a glitch.
Set up call centers anywhere in the world at no extra cost: WebRTC allows organizations to reduce the time it takes to set up new call centers in any country, with almost no CAPEX (capital expenditure) spending. This is a huge benefit for small and medium organizations looking to scale their operations into new geographies.

Conclusion

If you are looking at installing a call center phone system, consider a single, unified cloud offering that provides a fully-loaded set of real-time collaboration services that can help your agents become flexible and productive, and provide the best customer experience.

Moving to a VoIP-powered softphone system is a step towards setting up a futuristic call center, which offers increased efficiency, seamless and versatile communication options, without incurring any exorbitant financial investments.

21Apr

What is SIP and How Does It Work?

April 21, 2021 Maulik Shah 21

what is sip voip call

All conversations need an introduction and a reliable framework to initiate them. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) does this job in the digital world. It’s a seamless way to begin and end online conversations.

SIP is a signaling protocol for IP-based telephony applications. It provides the control layer for communications like the establishment and release of a voice call. This communication technology does more than just connect agents to their clients. It allows users to manage and modulate every call that enters their system. What’s more, SIP is content-agnostic. Although SIP was initially designed for voice communication, today it is also used for establishing sessions for instant messaging, video conferencing, SMS, file transfers, and more.

SIP is essentially used for internet telephony and disseminating multimedia between two or more endpoints. For instance, a user can start a telephone call with another user using SIP, or initiate a conference call with multiple participants.

The SIP protocol was designed to be simple, with a limited set of commands. Since it is text-based, anyone can read a SIP message that is passed between two endpoints in a session. The protocol is also flexible and comes with great depth. It was designed to set up real-time multimedia sessions between different participant groups. For instance, apart from facilitating regular telephone calls, SIP can be used to set up video and audio multicast meetings, or instant messaging conferences.

Since SIP is an open standard, it has sparked enormous interest in the telephony market. Marketers of SIP-based phones are witnessing huge growth in this sector.

In this blog, we will get a macro as well micro view of what SIP is, how it works, how it compliments VoIP, and why businesses should invest in this technology:

What does SIP do?
SIP Vs VoIP and how SIP adds value to VoIP.
Features of SIP.
How SIP enables a VoIP session call flow.
How SIP works during a voice call.
Benefits for businesses.

What does SIP do?

SIP is not voice, not video, and not data – the protocol is not restricted to any one media. Also, while it is mostly applied to VoIP, it’s not exclusively a VoIP protocol as well.

SIP launches and ends IP communication sessions that could either be voice calls between two users or a team video conference. It initiates a session by sending messages – in the form of data packets – between two or more identified IP endpoints, also known as SIP addresses. Every SIP address is linked to a physical SIP client – like an IP desk phone – or a software client – like a softphone, for instance.

During these sessions, SIP does not decode or transfer any information. Therefore, the protocol can be used for video conferencing and instant messaging besides making internet voice calls.

SIP’s primary function is to set up calls and end them once they finish. This process involves 5 parts:

User location: This tells the protocol where the end system that will be used for the call is located.
User availability: This tells the protocol whether the party that is being called is available to take it.
User capabilities: This determines the media that will be used for the call.
Session setup: This involves connecting a call from one user to the other.
Session management: This involves the running of the call session – for example: transferring and ending a call.

SIP Vs VoIP: How they differ

Since both SIP and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) are both internet-based telephone service technologies, it is common to confuse between the two. The key differentiator between the two is that while VoIP is a type of telephone service, the SIP protocol is used to commence and end communication through VoIP or any other technology.

If your business only requires voice communication, you might want to invest in technologies other than SIP with your VoIP system. However, organizations are rapidly adopting advanced technologies in order to stay competitive and scale rapidly. With its superior unified communications platform and strategies, SIP provides businesses with this opportunity.

Finally, businesses must consider what solutions work best for them. If an organization is considering consolidating its communication technologies, then integration of SIP and VoIP services would be a high-value option for them.

How SIP adds value to VoIP

A primary reason for SIP’s soaring acceptance as a go-to telephony technology is that it supports a wide range of communication platforms. Besides being easy to implement and manage, SIP builds on an enterprise’s VoIP system strengths and fills the tech gaps, allowing them to turn more productive.

SIP adds value to VoIP in various ways:

If a business needs a network system that will provide crystal clear images in long-distance video conference calls, SIP will do the job seamlessly.

If an organization is looking for an easy way to send files and documents to its employees and outside its office, SIP offers the functionality it needs.

Because of SIP’s flexibility, enterprises, as well as service providers, use it to deliver VoIP services. SIP even builds on VoIP’s capabilities by adding video and data transfer potential to it.

SIP enables network operators to gain more control over their services. For instance, not only does SIP set up the initiation of contact between devices, it also allows users to add more parties to a call, or switch between communication methods.

Features of SIP

SIP can handle a diverse range of media technologies as the protocol is not restricted to any limited media types. Let’s look at some features of this protocol:

Direct connection between private and public telephone networks:

One of SIP’s main benefits is that it provides a direct connection between private or local telephone systems and public telephone networks. This way, individuals and businesses don’t need legacy phone lines to connect calls.

Provides end-to-end authentication and encryption:

VoIP networks opt for SIP as a call control protocol because of its open and extensible properties. However, the integrity of call signaling between two sites is a priority for businesses, to counter eavesdropping concerns. SIP provides this by supporting comprehensive end-to-end and hop-by-hop authentication, as well as end-to-end encryption.

Supports both multicast and unicast communication:

Users in a SIP session can communicate using multicast or unicast relations, or even a mix of the two. SIP supports session descriptions that allow participants to accept a common set of compatible media types. It also facilitates user mobility by proxying and redirecting requests to the location where the user is at the moment. SIP is not restricted to any one conference control protocol.

Additional capabilities can be added easily:

SIP doesn’t make any presumptions about the underlying transport protocol. It can, therefore, be easily extended with additional capabilities and is actively used for many media applications. This also makes SIP an enabling technology for providing innovative new services that integrate multimedia with internet services like e-mail, instant messaging, and the worldwide web.

Asynchronous event notifications:

In addition to real-time services, SIP can be used for asynchronous event notifications, such as automatic callbacks, message-waiting indicators, SIP proxy statistics changes, presence information, session changes, buddy lists based on presence, and more.

Unlike other telephony systems, SIP is non-numeric:

Telephony is usually associated with numeric addresses. In SIP, an end station has a SIP URI (which is a form of URL) that recognizes it and is used in the SIP protocol. Because phones generally have numeric keypads, they translate what you dial into a SIP URL.

SIP is text-based:

The SIP Protocol is text-based and has a notable resemblance to the HTTP protocol. The text-based messages and SIP’s request-response mechanism make for easy troubleshooting. Also, it is easy for anyone to read and decipher the text-based SIP messages passed between the endpoints in a session.

SIP leaves fewer margins for error:

Because SIP isn’t affected by external factors, there are lesser things that can go wrong with it. While traditional phone lines can be affected by bad weather, SIP trunks use the internet and can have back-ups set up to ensure that even if your internet connection goes, you aren’t offline for too long.

Big cost benefits:

SIP works out to be much cheaper than traditional phone lines. Small to large businesses that switch to SIP-enabled VoIP phones reduce the cost of their local calls and save on international calls as well. Once the initial setup is done, the only thing that businesses pay for is the Wi-Fi that you use to place these calls and your unlimited SIP trunk subscription.

How SIP enables a VoIP session call flow

Now that we have understood the dynamics of how SIP works, let’s look at how a SIP call flow establishes a VoIP call. There are four parts that together establish a call:

Registration:

When a user agent – let’s suppose it’s a softphone – launches, it has to register with a SIP server so it can be found by other users. This happens by using the SIP Register request message. The message provides the location details through the To and From SIP URIs. Besides the message, additional binding can be provided through the contact field.

Establishing a call:

This is where the real work happens – in the following steps:

SIP invite request: The SIP invite initiates an attempt to establish a call. This is sent from the caller to the SIP server where it finds the call receiver’s number. In larger networks, the SIP server may need to consult other SIP servers if this user number is not local. Once the number is located, the invite is forwarded.

SIP response 100: A message is sent from the SIP server to the number of the end-user in order to confirm the invite request.

SIP Response 180: This message is a confirmation that the invite has been received and the user agent is alerting the user.

SIP Response 200: A 200 response is sent to confirm a call when it is answered by the end-user. Also, the user agent sends a message with the VoIP call parameters. This message results in an exchange and negotiation of VoIP call parameters.

SIP Ack Request: In the final lap, the caller confirms the call by sending an Ack request to the number he has called.

VoIP Call:

The VoIP call is transmitted between the user agents using RTP (real-time transport protocol), which is also used for sending audio and video data over Internet Protocol networks. Besides this protocol, RTCP (RTP control protocol) is used to provide statistics and control for the RTP transmissions.

Terminating a call:

When a user ends a call, a SIP Bye request is sent. The call can be ended from either side of the line. The termination is confirmed by the other user agent with a SIP 200 status code response.

How SIP works during a voice call

Before voice information is sent over the internet, it needs to be encoded in codecs. This enables audio signals to be translated into data. There are two primary types of codecs that are used: G.711 and G.729. Let’s take a step-by-step look at how SIP connects voice calls:

Real-time transport protocol (RTP) is used to transport packets of encoded audio data. RTP comes with its own protocol application layer which facilitates the movement of audio and video data in real-time.
In the next step, the RTP and SIP packets are transported by protocols at the transport layer. This is done either by using a Transmission Control Protocol or a User Datagram Protocol. User Datagram Protocols are considered to be better suited for transporting VoIP calls.
In the final step, as SIP is a media-independent application, another application layer protocol – known as the Session Description Protocol (SDP) – works with SIP. SDP indicates the type of media that the SIP client sending the call and the client receiving the call can support.

Benefits of SIP for Businesses

Enterprises today are trying to figure out how to support a host of new unified communications applications in an era of new devices, mobile connections, and sophisticated end-users. In such a scenario, how does SIP benefit organizations?

Customer engagement is a top priority for sales agents, and this is where SIP stands out the most. Using a text-based medium to transcribe messages, this VoIP function enables both agents and clients to run through the messages exchanged during every session, and makes it smoother for both developers and network managers to find and correct mistakes.
Whether it’s through their computers or mobile phones, clients can efficiently communicate with agents through SIP. Since its appearance, SIP has played a key role in the success of internet telephony as a critical tool for call centers in providing customer service.
This VoIP function has played a significant role in helping companies become cost-efficient in their communications. You could be located anywhere in the world SIP has made it possible to make free audio or video calls.
Telecom major AT&T has confirmed that SIP “can reduce access costs, improve bandwidth utilization, and bring down operational expenses. Enterprises using SIP can save significant money by converging their voice and data networks, particularly if they are covering multiple locations.” Gartner estimates that SIP trunking will reduce telecom expenses by 50% in the US.
Since SIP has become a well-accepted telephony standard, it has helped enterprises eliminate telecom complexities, accelerate innovation and avoid vendor lock-ins. Using SIP, technology organizations can construct diverse multi-vendor networks that meet their functional and financial needs.
SIP is a valuable tool for companies that have employees working in locations across the world, and need to collaborate over long distances. As SIP facilitates fast and powerful multimedia sessions, it’s an ideal solution for such businesses.
Businesses deploy SIP to boost efficiency and increase ROI within their organizations. For example, instead of having several platforms to manage video, telephony, and other services, they can use SIP to manage them all with one interface.
SIP calling ensures that an enterprise is always available and on-call for their customers to contact them.

Conclusion

SIP has become one of the most common protocols to be used in VoIP technology, as this application layer protocol works in conjunction with other such protocols to control multimedia communication sessions over the internet. SIP is fast gaining momentum as being a protocol of choice to facilitate audio calls, video conferencing, and instant messaging in next-generation networks, to boost efficiency and cost-effectiveness for businesses.

19Apr

What is a Softphone – Definition, Benefits and Lots to Know

April 19, 2021 Maulik Shah 21

SIP Softphone

In the days of the good old PSTN (landline, in simple terms) you had a nice phone with a round dial and you spun the dial to connect with someone. The round dial gave way to push button type dialers that did the same thing and that was that. These are hardphones.

What is a softphone?

Softphones, by definition, mean software based dialers. Everyone is familiar with the dialer interface on mobile phones. Softphones are similar. The mobile dialer is software based.

What is softphone

To understand how softphone is different than the hardphones or deskphones, we’ve made a comparison chart on Softphone Vs. Hardphone:

VoIP softphones on desktop and mobile

The softphone software does need to be installed. You can install it on a mobile in the form of a mobile dialer app. You can install a softphone on your desktop. You need internet connection on both devices in order to make and receive calls the same way you make and receive calls on a regular phone. For desktop computers you need a microphone and speakers attached to the audio ports. A headset that has both is recommended.

The key difference is that the softphone front end dialer initiates calls or accepts calls. The crucial background service is SIP based.

The SIP factor in VoIP softphones

What you see when you download the softphone dialer is the front end. You have a visual interface that allows you to make and receive calls among other things. However, a lot is going on in the background since calls are now internet based and this is where you have SIP working in the background.

SIP is short for Session Initiation Protocol, one of the different protocols used in internet telephony. You download the app and your app provider takes care of SIP provisioning in the background. This comprises of:

Creating a user account and authentication process
A direct inward dialing SIP phone number that you can use like any other phone number to make and receive calls to other SIP phones, mobiles and landlines.
Connecting to the backend SIP Proxy server and gateway.
SIP is responsible for identifying user location, user availability, capability, session setup and management. You can also transfer calls and have intercom features or turn a call into a conference, all thanks to SIP.

SIP is important for VoIP telephony using softphone dialers. SIP defines messages, initiates a call, keeps track of it and terminates it on hang up. It comes into play for audio and video calls.

You have the newer WebRTC technologies from Google that supports audio-video calls and conferencing plus document exchange during calls but even this needs SIP in the background. More details about SIP appear in our blog here. For end users it is not of material importance to go into details of SIP, just to know that it is there powering your mobile softphone.

Why use a softphone if I can use my phone for audio video calls?

For individual users that question is easy to resolve: you can do without SIP softphone apps.

However, business is a different thing. Even if each employee has a mobile device with unlimited calls and internet, there are limitations to mobile phones that SIP softphones overcome.

Each employee has a different number. It is difficult to integrate all these seamlessly into your IP PBX or office phone system and CRM. Softphones integrate with IP PBX and CRM.
If contact data is updated then all individual employees must update their contact list. With softphones your employees all access a centralized database of contacts and, importantly, relevant data of contacts such as purchase history, complaints and so on.
There is no security or confidentiality of calls nor do you have centralized records, which is crucial for business. Softphones record calls and log data of calls received and sent.
Employees may use mobile softphones on their phones when out of office and be available should they choose to be so or set “presence” to off and yet receive push notification if someone is trying to get in touch with them.
They can use the softphone dialer on the mobile and also on desktops, ensuring continuity. Efficiency increases.
It is easy to transfer a call to another employee simply by dragging the call to the other employee name in the contact list.
You can convert a call into a conference call by inviting other employees to participate. If you opt for webRTC powered softphones then it permits you to exchange documents and mail or share video within video. (Read more about WebRTC phones here). Your mobile phone may simply not have this feature.
Desk Phones have limitations – accessible only when you are in office. On the other hand, SIP softphones on mobiles let employees carry their office and data with them wherever they go and access office records or be accessible at any time. (read about softphones vs deskphones here).

There is more to SIP softphones that make it virtually indispensable for business users.

The Softphone features

Provided you choose the right SIP softphone from the right provider you get more than internet telephony. You get all the benefits of Unified Communications plus low cost.

You can make and receive audio and video calls
Convert audio video calls to audio-video conference on a SIP softphone
Hold, transfer, barge in, forward calls
Use presence feature to indicate availability
Enjoy push notification that tells you someone is trying to reach you
Send a text message from within the softphone app
Send voicemail from the SIP softphone app
Access CRM and complete data of customers through the mobile dialer app
Caller ID, call logs, call recording, one click call
Share documents, show video within video, share screen, send email or fax and send message even during an ongoing audio-video conference
Access email, send emails.
Higher levels of encrypted security so you can be sure business communications are absolutely confidential and remain so.

The benefits of SIP Softphone

Here are a few benefits of SIP softphone you cannot ignore

As stated in the previous section you have quite a few more features in SIP softphones and all of them are integrated into a single dashboard. No mobile phone can integrate all these features and permit low cost national and international calls and video conferencing with secure lines.
You do not need dedicated lines. Each employee’s mobile device becomes a sort of extension of the office IP PBX if you have one, or slips smoothly into the SIP proxy server setup.
You will deliver a happier customer experience by being available at any time, by responding quickly and by responding intelligently through access to CRM data. You can even configure it to work with the IP PBX IVR and then auto route calls to the one employee most capable of handling an incoming call.
Call anyone, anywhere at any time from anywhere at a low cost. This is simply not possible using mobile phones or desk phones. If you take your mobile phone abroad then roaming charges can be horrendously high as everyone knows. No worries with SIP phones. You can be in London and call without cost worries and you can be in New York the next day and use the softphone. You just need internet or wi-fi internet for it to work. You can get wi-fi anywhere in the world.

Now that you know just how useful a softphone is for your business the next question is which softphone to get.

Which SIP Softphone to choose?

SIP has plenty of features and developers of Softphone Mobile Apps can do a lot to develop a complex softphone dialer with all the bells and whistles or simply dish out a plain version. It is up to you to choose. However, at a minimum, consider:

Your SIP softphone should permit set up with direct inward dialing numbers and have features stated above as well as integrate with CRM.
WebRTC is desirable. You can do more with it than with plain old SIP softphones, take our word for it.
As said above there are plenty of features but not all employees may use all features at all times. What you need is a SIP softphone that has features represented by icons that users can drag and drop into the main operational area – less clutter, speed of operations is the result.
Superior codec, transcoding and protocol handling. This sounds like a mouthful and it is. With no codec handshake, you simply cannot talk with other parties. It is up to the developer to integrate codecs and protocols so you never know that such a hurdle even exists. But do ask, all the same.
Full HD audio is a must and how it is implemented keeping in mind variable internet bandwidth and speed is important. SVC implementation takes care of smooth video regardless of video speed and, likewise, your softphone developer should be able to integrate audio codecs for crystal clear clarity regardless of internet connectivity. Tragofone is top of the line softphone with full customizable options.

Tragofone is as good as it gets with SIP server support and WebRTC layered over customization, security and ease of use. Request a demo to find out all that it can do for you.

Maulik Shah