How to minimize VoIP system downtime

Lots of companies these days are switching from traditional phones to VoIP. It tends up to be much more reliable, and that’s why people love it. However, since the whole network is on the internet, there’s still a risk of downtime. A loss of connection or a power outage can bring your whole system down, and they happen when you least expect them. On the other hand, you can keep your phone working if you plan for interruptions. And to help you out, we prepared this guide on how to minimize VoIP system downtime.

We understand how much damage can a power failure do to a business. You might miss customer calls, sales meetings, and even conference calls. And the longer it takes to fix the problem, the more money you’ll miss out on. Moreover, even with a perfect website, it’ll be a lot harder to convert visitors to leads if your phone is often down. People will simply stop trusting you. Of course, no one wants that to happen, so it’s a smart idea to take some countermeasures.

How to deal with VoIP system crash

If you just came to work in the morning and found out that your whole phone system doesn’t work, what should you do? Here are some tips on how you can get it up and running as soon as possible.

Confirm the problem

Before you can take any measures, you need to know where exactly the problem lies. And most commonly, you’ll find yourself with one of two issues:

• Your power will be out
• Your internet connection will be down

If it’s the latter one, there’s not much you can do besides restarting a router. And if that takes you nowhere, feel free to call your internet provider and see if they can help you. On the other hand, if you have a problem with the power, you should check a few things.

First, see if any of the circuit breakers in your electrical service panel are off. If you used too much power, you might have tripped a circuit. And in this case, switch the culprit to ”ON”, and you should be good to go. However, if everything seems fine, take a look at the available Wi-Fi connections on your phone. If you see almost none of them, there’s a good chance that your whole neighborhood is without power.

Now, let’s see what you can do about the power, and we’ll deal with the internet problem a bit later on.

Get yourself a backup battery power supply

To put your phone back on the grid short-term, you can use an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Connect it to your internet equipment and the phones themselves. It’s not a solution that will last a whole day, but it should get you through until the power company restores power. As a matter of fact, you can hope to get up to six hours with normal use.

However, if there’s a serious problem and a power outage lasts longer than that, you can do even more things.

Use your VoIP smartphone app

One of the best things about VoIP is that you can take calls wherever you are. And that means that you can do without your building’s internet connection. So, the next tip on how to minimize VoIP system downtime is to use the phone app that came with the system.

All the chances are that your phone will still have enough juice to get you through the rest of the day. And even if it doesn’t, battery packs for cell phones are common these days, so it shouldn’t be a problem to get your hands on one. Just plug it in and continue answering the calls that the ConvertMore callback widget brings you.

Divert calls to voicemail

If you can’t make it work with mobile phones, no problem, you can still forward all the calls to your voicemail. Inform your callers that you’re experiencing technical difficulties, and instruct them to leave a message and expect a callback.

The thing is that voicemail is handled completely by your VoIP service provider, so it has nothing to do with your power outage. You can even divert all voicemails to your email and do whatever you need from there – forward them to a colleague, listen to them, or even respond right away.

How to prevent VoIP outages and downtime

It’s a clear thing that you can’t rule out the odds of a power outage. However, there’s plenty of things you can do to prevent any problems that would happen regardless if you have power or not.

Choose a good VoIP provider

You want to ensure two things when choosing your VoIP provider. You want them to meet your needs but also promise reliability. Be sure to research the company you’re considering and ensure that they actually provide what they promise.

On top of that, ask them what steps they have in place to prevent downtime. Find out what they do in the event of an outage or disaster, and ask them about their security policies. The more time and effort you put into research, the better decision you’ll be able to make.

Set up automatic call forwarding

If you have the best conversion rate optimization software installed, you get calls constantly. And in the time you need to set a forwarding protocol, you’ll lose plenty of sales. To battle this, set your system up in a way that it automatically routes incoming calls to other offices or mobile devices in case of disaster.

This way, you have nothing to worry about. If your phone system goes down, your cell phones will start ringing. And as soon as everything is up and running again, things will be back to normal.

Have a backup internet provider

Your power going out is one thing, but if your internet fails, that’s a completely different animal. So, the last piece of advice on how to minimize VoIP system downtime is to have a backup WAN provider. Here, any low-latency internet connection will work. This means that you can utilize your cell phone provider and get a 4G LTE system just in case. It won’t cost you much, but it will give you the peace of mind that you deserve.