Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems are the cornerstone of many companies’ communication strategies. The ability to make and receive calls over the internet enables businesses to reduce costs and stay in touch from wherever — whether they’re in Tampa, Chicago, or any other part of the world. VoIP was even instrumental in helping businesses establish remote work setups to remain operational during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

What’s great is that despite being a mainstream communication option, the technology is still evolving. Here are the game-changing trends and technological developments that are shaping the future of IP telephony.

Increasing demand for unified communications 

Unified communications refers to the integration of solutions — like hosted VoIP phones, audio/video conferencing, instant messaging, and file sharing — into a single platform managed by a provider. This essentially streamlines a company’s communication infrastructure, making it easy for users to find specific contacts and coordinate with their teams. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a global shift to long-term remote and hybrid work environments, businesses are relying on unified communications more than ever. Due to this, the global unified communications market is projected to grow from $93.5 billion to $344.8 billion between 2021 and 2028. 

Related reading: Use these solutions to better manage your remote workforce

5G improves quality of service

5G is the fifth generation of mobile networks, boasting internet speeds 100 times faster than 4G, larger bandwidth capacity, and lower network latency. The 5G network has nearly nationwide coverage in the United States, with over 417,000 wireless cell sites already installed in 2020. 

Congested and slow networks are often the culprit behind VoIP issues like call jitter, unstable reception, and packet loss, but 5G doesn’t have these constraints. This means that the quality of VoIP calls will improve considerably.

5G is capable of handling a larger volume of calls even in high-traffic areas, has a wider signal range, and can prioritize network packets to ensure smooth VoIP calling experiences. In fact, the improved efficiency of 5G enables businesses to reliably host larger audio and video conferencing sessions with an increasingly distributed workforce and customer base.  

Artificial intelligence (AI) in VoIP

AI technology simulates human problem-solving and decision-making capabilities by using advanced computers to learn from large data sets and adapt with automated functions. Today, AI has permeated many of the technologies we take for granted, from real-time navigation apps to facial recognition. Natural language processing, a type of AI technology, is also making significant developments in VoIP telephony. There are three distinct ways in which AI is transforming VoIP: voice-to-text, interactive voice response, and analytics.  

Voice-to-text

With voice-to-text capabilities, VoIP phone systems are capable of transcribing speech from phone calls and voicemails. These capabilities have been around for some time but their accuracy has always been questionable due to issues like ambient noise, different speech patterns, pronunciation, and even regional accents. 

AI-augmented VoIP systems, however, are becoming more proficient at recognizing conversations and converting useful voice data into text. These systems then index the transcription and store it in the company’s servers, which allows employees to retrieve previous conversation records with a simple search query. Having an accurate paper trail is particularly useful when following up with clients, providing coaching for customer service representatives, and clarifying misunderstandings from a prior phone call. 

Interactive voice response (IVR)

IVR is a conversational AI tool that allows businesses to give callers the information they need without having to speak to a human agent. It automatically processes a caller’s queries, provides appropriate responses, and even transfers callers to the right company representative. This is an improvement over traditional automated phone systems that require callers to press a series of buttons for several minutes just to be directed to the right department. 

Conversational AI in VoIP phone systems have powerful implications for customer service. It can be programmed to answer FAQs, make appointments over the phone, and handle customer refunds. When there are more complex queries, IVR forwards the call to a representative. The best IVR tools can even analyze and categorize the context of a call so customer service representatives know what to expect from the situation. 

Analytics

Another way AI empowers VoIP systems is through analytics. Through the use of natural language processing and sentiment analysis, AI tools are capable of processing the meaning and tone of words spoken in a call. They also analyze data outside the call such as call transcripts and previous interactions to gauge the calling experience for everyone involved. This enables you to better understand the quality of customer service and what clients think about your services. Your businesses can then use these insights to shape call coaching strategies, navigate difficult clients based on previous communication patterns, and predict someone’s buying behavior. 

Delivering omnichannel experiences with VoIP

An omnichannel experience involves providing clients with consistent communications across the various channels they use to contact your business. For example, if they previously used instant messaging to contact your organization, they should be able to seamlessly transition to a voice call to pick up where they left off. This saves clients from recalling the same information on a different channel and allows your business to provide efficient customer service. 

Integrated VoIP solutions will be key to enabling these omnichannel experiences. Modern VoIP solutions can turn data from a call into searchable text, making it easy to retrieve records on past client interactions. Meanwhile, queries on instant messaging, text, social media, websites, email, and other channels are routed to call center dashboards, giving customer service agents the necessary context to continue conversations with customers. 

Stronger focus on cybersecurity

VoIP is often a highly valued target for cybercriminals because of its widespread use and the massive quantities of voice data it can transmit over the internet. By hacking vulnerable networks and phone systems, cybercriminals can intercept voice data and listen in on private calls. Hijacking VoIP accounts can even enable hackers to access sensitive data or impersonate your business as a springboard for their social engineering scams.   

It’s therefore crucial that businesses like yours place a much greater emphasis on securing your VoIP systems. For starters, they need strong passwords and multifactor authentication to secure VoIP accounts. Businesses must heavily secure their networks with a combination of encryption, firewalls, and intrusion prevention systems. Network monitoring solutions that leverage AI to detect unusual network traffic will also play an integral role in preventing cybercriminals from eavesdropping on VoIP calls. 

If your business still hasn’t jumped onto the VoIP bandwagon, now is the best time. From intelligent features to more reliable service, a cutting-edge VoIP phone system can make your business more competitive. Dynamic Solutions Group will help you implement a secure and powerful VoIP phone system that can take your business communications to the next level. Call us today.