As a small business owner or employee, do you ever find yourself frustrated by the fact that your customers are still going to bigger businesses because of their familiarity with the name brand? If so, your frustration is understandable. Small businesses are often able to offer more to their customers in terms of personalized service and niche specialties than big companies can. So why is it that your company gets their VoIP service from one of the big players in the communications game?
Many small businesses would prefer to do their business with other companies of approximately the same size. This helps to generate positive working relationships while supporting the community-based concepts behind small business development. However, businesses may hesitate when it comes to these partnerships because they?re not quite sure if the small companies can give them the service they need. Are you guilty of making the same assumptions about other small businesses that you don?t want your customers making about you?
When it comes to VoIP, most of those assumptions are probably incorrect. The main concern by most companies is that a small VoIP company is going to be unable to provide the kind of call quality that a business requires to express its professionalism. With advances in VoIP technology, this is no longer the cause for concern that it was a couple of years ago. VoIP companies of all sizes are providing better call quality and there doesn?t seem to be a significant difference between large and small business in terms of this service.
Another reason that small businesses may choose a large company for VoIP service is the fear that smaller companies won?t offer all of the additional technology that large companies may offer. For example, online customer tracking and video conferencing are tools that a small business may be interested in but which aren?t necessarily automatic additions to a VoIP package. As these things become more important, smaller VoIP companies are offering them.
In fact, a smaller company might be more likely to offer you the VoIP services that you need for a small business. This is because they understand the small business mindset. One area that you?ll see this in is the use of VoIP for making a small business appear larger than it is. The large VoIP service provider might not understand the need for this. Smaller companies are the ones working on technological breakthroughs in areas like these.
Neither the small nor the large VoIP service provider is necessarily the right choice for any company. The services offered, the products needed to implement those services and the personal preferences of the business owners should all be taken into account when choosing a VoIP provider. But when it comes to supporting the community around you, a small business usually does better when working with other small businesses to get the job done.
Question of the Day: Would you prefer a small or large VoIP service provider for your small business?
