Softphones vs. desk phones (or hard-phones): How to know which one you need
No matter how much we all like to say that everyone’s going remote, the fact is that some businesses and industries do still need hard-phones (though this is becoming less and less common).
Here are a few questions to ask if you’re wondering whether you should go with softphones, hard-phones—or both!
What remote capabilities do you need?
If your team (or part of your team) needs to be in the office, then you may find it useful to have a physical VoIP phone or two. Otherwise, if everyone’s remote, you probably just need a good softphone.
For example, Joy, the receptionist at global ad agency Mono, forwards calls from her desk to her cell phone when she’s in meetings—a perfect example of how a business can use both softphones and hard-phones in harmony.
How much are you prepared to pay in upfront costs?
One of the big advantages of softphones is that they reduce upfront costs by removing the need for desk phones and other hardware—which by extension also helps you save on complicated onboarding and startup costs.
This initial capital investment can be high, not to mention the money required to maintain an in-house telephony system.
Would you like to be able to call, text, and have video meetings from one app?
Finally, if you’re already using all these different business communications channels, then a softphone can help you consolidate them all into one app.
With a traditional telephony setup, you’d need a dedicated phone line, plus different apps for messaging, video conferencing, and more.
Now, you don’t have to do that anymore, with UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) solutions. For example, with Dialpad’s app, you can talk, message, and meet (and even manager a call center if you wanted to—since Dialpad Ai Contact Center is fully integrated into that same app):