“What if my internet goes down?”
One of the most pressing concerns for dentists looking into internet phone systems is reliability. As we’ve worked with dental practices across North America, we’re frequently fielded questions like: “What if my internet goes down?” and “What if the power goes out?”
These are great questions! Keep asking them. Your dental practice will find the right provider by asking questions about reliability. You just need to evaluate their answer.
A dedicated and reliable Hosted VoIP provider should answer your question by reassuring you they’ve built a strong Cloud architecture and put failsafes in place.
#1. A strong Cloud architecture
An internet phone system can be a game changer for your dental practice. You just need a reliable Hosted VoIP provider. What that looks like is a strong Cloud architecture. Specifically, look for multiple secure and strong data centers. A provider with strategically placed data centers offers better service uptime, redundancy, call failover, scalability, and availability.
In fact, your landline system is more vulnerable to outages and interruptions. Because your current service is located on-site, this creates a single point of failure. Whereas with a Hosted VoIP solution—that’s redundantly hosted in data centers across the world—a service provider has multiple points of failure, which makes outages and service interruptions less likely.
#2. Failsafes
A internet phone system for dentists should offer a failsafe: essential phone connectivity even if your internet or the power goes out. An excellent example of a failsafe for Hosted VoIP is Jive Business Continuity (JBC). Come what may, JBC is a server-based application that guarantees essential phone functions for your business.
Preserve extension and outbound dialing
When the winds carry off landlines, JBC can still connect you to your colleagues by providing on-premises dialing. (Just input a colleague’s extension and you’ll be connected). And when the skies send a deluge that buries your internet connection, you can still make outbound calls to communicate with your clients.
Automatic failback and prioritizing emergency calls
Another great feature of JBC is that it’s got its priorities straight. During an internet outage, JBC automatically puts your system into failover/fail-back mode, which prioritizes emergency calls.
You’re health-care providers, so we know it’s essential for you to make and answer emergency phone calls. With JBC, if there isn’t a line available, it will automatically drop other outbound or inbound calls so you can place an emergency call. So rest assured that you’ll have functioning phones to assist you in caring for the safety and health of your employees and patients.
Monitoring and support
JBC also helps your dental practice take preventative measures against outages and internet issues. JBC works in tandem with our free network monitoring product, Jive View, to identify concerns before they become big problems. This is one of the reasons that a internet phone system (with a reliable failsafe) can become more reliable than your current landline phone system.
Unless the wind is blowing at 71 miles an hour, landlines often ambush users with outages. While the same can be said for a lot of internet connections, if you have access to a free tool like Jive View, you’ll be more prepared than you ever hoped to be. You can even make preemptive decisions to improve your service and avoid potential problems.
JBC standards
When you’re looking for a Hosted VoIP provider, use JBC standards to evaluate failsafes. Jive Business Continuity is a unique and industry-leading failsafe. In fact, without our email alerts about an outages, you may not even know that you’re suffering one. And we’re not exaggerating.
Donald Ready, a founder of Ready Communications—a partner with Jive—told us that after Jive installed JBC at a few Polk County Schools locations,
“Polk County Schools actually suffered an outage, but no one even noticed since Jive’s failover solution kept them up and running. It was so seamless that, when they did get back online, it was like nothing had even happened.” —Jive Press Release
True story.
Internet outages actually aren’t that big of a deal . . . if you have Jive. Your dental offices deserve the best and most reliable phone system, so don’t settle for anything less than the JBC failsafe standard.
A reliable Hosted VoIP provider
There are internet phone system providers out there that can be even more reliable than your current landline. Your dental practice just needs to identify a provider with a strong Cloud architecture and effective failbacks. For more helpful tips on finding the right internet phone system for your dental practice, download our free Hosted VoIP Buyer’s Guide!
