What is Softphone? Exploring Modern Telephony Solutions

Imagine you are able to answer important business calls on your smartphone even while you're traveling or relaxing at your favorite spot.  Wouldn’t it be comforting for you? You’re not glued to your office to engage with your customers and teammates. This luxury softphone provides businesses, so you can work at the comfort wherever you are and continue to operate at a high efficiency.  

But what exactly are softphones? Softphones are VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) software applications that allow users to make and receive calls across the Internet through a computer or smartphone. They can be installed on any device, computer, smartphone, or tablet with internet connectivity.  At the same time, softphones provide greater flexibility to businesses to stay connected remotely to their clients regardless of the location. In this article, we will explain how softphones work, their essential features, and their importance for business success.

How softphone works

Typically, softphones use a VoIP system to make phone calls over the Internet on any device. It works like your traditional phone, except it uses software to make calls. You can say it is your virtual phone with extra call features.

Unlike a standard phone, you dial a number on a smartphone or desktop instead of a physical keypad. It sends analog voice signals into digital signals from cloud-based PBX (Private Branch eXchange). While the Softphones provide voice, text, and video communication from anywhere through a VoIP service provider.

What Benefits Do Softphones Provide to Businesses?

Softphones offer plenty of benefits for businesses over a traditional phone system. In particular, softphones are no less than a blessing for businesses that work remotely or hybrid. Let's look at the advantages of VoIP softphones.

Cost-effectiveness

Softphones are cost-effective as they don't need expensive hardware or maintenance on the site. You can use your own existing devices, like a smartphone and computer, to call through an IP (Internet Protocol) software app. Moreover, it doesn't charge for business phone system maintenance, making it a budget-friendly software. You can select your monthly plan according to your team size and the features your business needs to use softphone apps. You can instantly set up on your smartphone or computer by downloading the application through your VoIP provider's login credentials.

Accessibility

Softphones allow businesses to call from anywhere, and their ease of use is among the top advantages. VoIP softphones help you stay connected with your employees and customers no matter where you are.

Even if you are unavailable to receive calls, you can forward them to other team members. Softphones takes down the requirement to stay in the office to make and receive calls. You can easily drive business calls from your smartphone with internet connectivity.

Portability

Softphones are easily portable as you can take your smartphones or laptops wherever you go. Your employees no longer have to be tied to a desk for business meetings. You can easily switch between devices while maintaining access to your virtual phone number.

Advanced features and integrations

Softphones offer advanced features such as call transfer, recording, screening, video conferences, and voicemail transcription. It even allows you to integrate your VoIP service with your preferred apps. This way, you can access customer information from a CRM (Customer Relationship Management), send emails during calls, or use your productivity tools. It makes communication and workflow smoother and more efficient. However, the features and integration vary among VoIP providers.

Privacy

Your team members can handle calls through your business phone number, even on their smartphones. Softphones facilitate separating business and personal calls on the same device. They show business Caller ID instead of personal caller ID, which adds a layer of privacy. 

Top softphone features

• Call Screening: Call screening lets you decide whether to receive or reject an incoming call based on caller IDs. This feature drops spam calls and puts high-profile inbound calls first. It reduces spam calls and unnecessary calls irrelevant to your business. 
• Call recording: You can record your meeting conversation for later reference and to improve your business performance.
• Voicemail to email: Due to your busy schedule, you will likely be unable to check the voicemail through a portal. However, through the voicemail-to-email feature, voicemail messages are sent to your email, so you no longer need to delay your response. This feature will help boost customer satisfaction as a caller expects an immediate response. 
• Voicemail to text: You will likely remember more from the text than the audio. And voicemail-to-text transcription allows you to clearly understand the caller's query and respond quickly to voicemail.
• Contact Directory: You can create, access, manage and import your existing contacts in your softphone, increasing efficiency and organization. 
• Third-party communication tool integration: Softphones offer seamless integration with well-known third-party business tools. They allow your business to access CRM software, video calling platforms, and team collaboration tools in one place, making your work easier and more organized.
• Conference calls: Softphone conference calls help businesses address issues and communicate better for a proper team conversation.
• Speed Dial: Do you often forget the number? It's not an issue with the VoIP softphone speed dial feature. You can place phone calls using shorter sequences. For instance, press 3 to place a call at 555-555-1212. 
• Call group: A call group is a multiple phone number that simultaneously rings when a caller dials a specific extension. An extension can be digits from 2 to 5—all the team members that are linked to the department receive a ringing at a time. Meanwhile, this minimizes the call waiting time and boosts your team's productivity.  As a team member who is available to pick up the call can focus on other essential tasks, while a busy one cannot.
• Find Me/Follow Me: Find Me and Follow Me are two call-forwarding VoIP features. Find Me enables you to receive from any place, and Follow Me allows a customer to reach any assigned phone number in a sequence or ring out of the blue.
• Business Text Messaging: Businesses can send and receive SMS or MMS messages, bulk text, and schedule or automated messages.

Softphone vs Deskphone

Both Softphone and desk phones work through the Internet and are used to make and receive calls. However, there are some common aspects that set them apart from each other. Let's check out the significant differences between softphones and desk phones. 

Not all softphones are designed equally.

Softphone features vary depending on the VoIP service providers. Transparent VoIP softphones surpass others with their reliable customer support and over 90 features to level up your business communication.  

We created our softphones to boost the calling experience while consistently maintaining the system and securing your calls. You can easily integrate your favorite apps into our VoIP softphones to connect smoothly with your teams and customers. Businesses can get instant remote access to innovative features of VoIP and unified communication, such as audio and video calling, voicemail, automation, SMS texting, voicemail transcription, call forwarding, and much more. So save your dollars and time with our advanced and reliable softphones.