What changes when you switch your business phone service provider to VoIP?

Change is always scary, but when you’re a business it can be downright terrifying if it’s a critical piece of your operations, like business phone service.

We understand why. Small businesses rely on phone systems to communicate with their customers. If you switch to a VoIP service provider and there are any issues, it reflects on your business and could harm your relationships.

Switching isn’t as scary as you think. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the five pillars of switching your phone system for business: costs, number porting, equipment needs, downtime and scalability. Let’s take a look.

Costs

From mom and pop stores to local businesses, we’ve heard from a lot of business owners. They all tell us the moment they consider switching is when they get that updated bill from their existing service provider and are shocked to see how expensive their phone service has gotten.

In fact, we’ve seen customers tell us they’ve gotten phone bills for $1,000, a 787 percent increase! Let’s leave the triple digits to airlines, because that is enough to say goodbye and switch to a VoIP service provider.

However, there is some risk there. Will you get locked into some kind of VoIP bundle or a contract you can’t get out of? Maybe the provider tells you that you’ll get special pricing for the first two years, which means it’s going to rise after that and you’ll have to remember to call back, threaten to leave and get that bill down again with a new bundle.

With some phone systems for business, that can be true. With others, it’s not. For example, with Ooma we have three business plans you can choose from: Ooma Office Essentials at $19.94 per user per month, Ooma Office Pro at $24.95 per user per month and Ooma Office Pro Plus at $29.95 per user per month. There’s no contract necessary with any of them. You can cancel any time.

Overall, you’ll probably end up saving money by moving to VoIP service, especially if you are currently using copper phone line service that has been exponentially more expensive in recent years You can use our savings calculator to compare with your current phone bill to see.

Number porting

Your phone number is part of your business’ identity. It’s also listed in places where customers find you, from map apps to Yelp and advertisements. We know that porting your number over to a VoIP service provider is scary, like letting someone hold your smartphone. Even if it’s a close friend, you feel like you can’t fully trust them with something so important.

What happens if they lose access to it during the porting process? All that cache you built with that number is gone, and you’ll have to spend time updating your number everywhere instead of focusing on improving your business.

Luckily, porting your number to a VoIP phone service is not as scary as you think. Here’s what you need to know:

• During the porting process, you’ll get a temporary phone number from your new service provider.
• This will allow you to forward all your business calls from your real number to your temporary number. Customers won’t know the difference and operations will still work smoothly.
• When the porting process is complete, your old number will work like it always did. The temporary phone number will go away.

The porting process generally takes one to two weeks to port from a legacy landline service provider like CenturyLink. Why? Much of it depends on your current phone service provider. Once you start the porting process, they have to send you a Firm Order Confirmation (FOC) date. This is the date your number will be officially ported to your new provider. We have found that current service providers generally take one or more weeks to do so.

The day before your number officially ports, your new service provider will contact you. At Ooma, we send you an email. We also have one of our customer support team members make a test call to confirm the phone number works. Then, we will send you an email confirming that porting is complete. We are with you the entire way, and you can even check the status of your number port in Ooma Office Manager.

Some important things to keep in mind during the number porting process:

Do not cancel your old service until your number is ported. If you cancel your service before you port your number, your old service provider may release your number and allow other businesses to nab it.

If you use DSL internet, you can’t port your number until you separate your phone number from your internet service.

Equipment needs

You’ve seen this story before. You buy a new iPhone and all of a sudden you need to buy new chargers because they don’t put them in the box and they changed the adapter. When you switch to VoIP you’re going to have to buy all new phones or get new hardware or do some big installation that’ll cause stress and headache, right? Wrong!

Some VoIP service providers, like Ooma, do not require you to purchase any hardware at all. Because VoIP provides phone service over the internet, you can call from a number of devices. You can make calls from your laptop, your desktop and your smartphone.

You can even bring over your old analog phones to use with Ooma Office. You will need to purchase an adapter that converts the internet signal into an analog signal your trusted phone will recognize. Ooma sells a Grandstream HT812 ATA adapter that comes with two ports for $69.99.

It is an extra cost, but you won’t have to purchase brand new phones or worry about your place of business having the right infrastructure. As long as you can get the internet at your location you can use VoIP phone service.

Downtime

VoIP phone services are more reliable than legacy copper-based landline phone services, and that’s down to copper sunset. Legacy providers like AT&T are looking to end their copper networks before the end of the year. You don’t have to take our word for it either. AT&T will tell you their copper service is unreliable.

An AT&T spokesperson told The Hill in December 2024 that “legacy copper services are no longer meeting our customers’ needs for speed, reliability and always-on connectivity. The copper network is incredibly inefficient: We are seeing declining reliability with storms and increased copper theft. Copper simply does not do well with water and flooding.”

Neglected copper phone lines mean service disruptions, bad quality audio and more. In fact, small business owners have told us one of the reasons they are switching to VoIP is because they don’t have any choice. Their copper landline phone service is either being cut or it’s become so unreliable and expensive that they have to switch to something else.

All of those options are terrible for any business, and VoIP phone service is a reliable alternative. You can even use your cellular network as a backup, either with a VoIP mobile app on your smartphone or connecting your phone or computer to a cellular modem or hotspot.

Scalability

With a legacy business phone system, scaling can be complicated. That’s because it relies on infrastructure and hardware. You need more phones? You need to make sure you have some copper wires routed throughout your location.

Those limitations don’t exist with VoIP phone systems. Any smartphone, laptop or desktop PC can be a phone with VoiP. All you have to do is go to the Ooma Office Manager in your web browser and add lines or extensions. If you prefer to get more desk phones, you can do that too. Either way, you have flexibility.

In fact, with Ooma Office you can add up to over 200 employees. Adding them is so easy, here’s how you do it:

1. Head to office.ooma.com
2. Go to the Settings page.
3. Click Add and select User.
4. Fill out the required information, like location service address for 911 purposes.
5. Choose their primary device.
6. Select the phone number or number assigned to them.
7. Click Save.

You’re done!

If you’re growing at a faster rate scaling your phone service is even easier because you can add users in bulk. All you have to do is download a template provided by Ooma, fill it out and upload it. Ooma will add the users to your account.

What changes when you switch

Yes, change can be scary but sometimes change is good. Here are a couple of good things that can change when you switch from a copper business phone system to a VoIP one.

Operations

Your operations can get more advanced, and that’s down to the number of features VoIP phone systems come with. We’ve mentioned VoIP enabling your business to be more mobile as you can take calls on the go with your smartphone.

However, you’ll also get helpful features like Virtual Receptionist, a versatile tool that can direct incoming calls and share important information about your business easily, letting employees concentrate their time on more important tasks.

If you’re a real estate office that has agents juggling calls and learning client wants and needs, AI transcriptions can simplify how they work. Every client call can be converted into searchable text, allowing you and your agents to keep track of details and requests without having to take extensive notes or rely purely on memory.

Customer experience

Your customer is key, and a VoIP phone system makes it easier to help them. Not only are you more available with text messages, videoconferencing and more, but you can make sure they always have someone ready to talk to them.

Ring Groups, Call Park and Multi Ring can help reduce the time it takes for someone to answer the phone. If they do have to wait, Music-On-Hold and Transfer Music make their experience more pleasant. Shift to text can allow your customers to switch your phone call into text messaging, freeing up time for your employees to do more. For example, they can press 2 to book a reservation or order food to go and instantly get a text with a link that’ll help them complete their action.

Plus, Integrations can plug your phone system into essential software you already use, from Square to QuickBooks, Salesforce and Clio you can take a look at customer information while you’re on the phone with them, making it easier to know that customer’s history with your business and how to help them.

Growth strategy

If you know your phone service can scale with your business, your growth strategy is easier to plan. You don’t have to worry about whether a new location has copper lines that are compatible with your business phone service. You just have to decide how many new users you need.

Your focus can be moved to the more important parts of any growth strategy, like making sure your supply chain is up and running without sacrificing quality, your new staff is adequately trained or that your original location won’t take a quality hit as your attention is diverted.

We understand change is scary, but sometimes it can be a good thing that opens possibilities to whole new futures. While you may be turning to VoIP as a new tool to replace your old one, it could turn out that VoIP turns into a competitive advantage for you thanks to features like AI transcriptions, integrations, Virtual Receptionist and more. It’s a platform that can elevate your entire communication game, making your small business punch at the same level as much larger ones.

If you have any questions or concerns about switching, you can contact Ooma to have them answered.