It’s the holiday season, and regardless of the industry you work in, or where you are located, there is a good chance that during this busy time your phone systems will see an increased load. It seems that as the year comes to a close people want to communicate more, and so you need to ensure that your VoIP systems can handle the increased volume.

Establish VoIP system monitoring

Before you know whether your systems are ready for an increased call volume, you should establish monitoring tools that allow you to keep track of call volumes and how the systems hosting your VoIP solution are faring. If you notice that a spike in call volume during peak hours leads to decreased call quality, or perhaps an increased load on systems, then it may be a good idea to invest in a new solution that can help carry this extra burden.

Because this is the holiday season, and your staff and even IT providers may be away on leave, a monitoring solution can be helpful in predicting when issues may arise. You and your IT team can then help prepare for an increase in call volume and any problems that may crop up when they are away from work. This ensures that your systems won’t go down when you need them most.

Check your VoIP equipment

Sometimes, problems with VoIP don’t have anything to do with your service provider or even the underlying servers that host the solution, but the physical VoIP lines and phones themselves. One common issue with VoIP is that if equipment is too close to other VoIP equipment, you may see a degradation in call quality.

Therefore, you should take care to ask your employees if they have noticed lower call quality lately, especially if two VoIP devices are close to one another. If there have been issues, moving them further apart should clear this up.

Beyond this, take the time to inspect all cables and connections to ensure they are in good condition and able to deal with the increased wear and tear the holiday season can bring. If equipment is looking a little past it, now may be the time to look for new devices and solutions that can help boost your communications.

Set data priorities on your router

Most modern business routers have an important feature called QoS, or Quality of Service. This allows users to set bandwidth limits for different activities and even create priority lists. Because you will likely be getting more calls during the holiday season, it is a good idea to ensure that the extra bandwidth will be there when you need it.

Because your router is also in charge of assigning bandwidth to your VoIP solution, using the QoS feature is a good way to ensure that calls are receiving the bandwidth they need to remain clear. Take a look at the way data and bandwidth is being used in your network and set limits on non-essential activities that may be using higher amounts. For example, it may be a good idea to reduce the bandwidth assigned to streaming services and apply the extra percentage to your VoIP solution.

Work with an IT partner

These tweaks and updates can be time consuming and a bit of a chore to carry out, especially if you are not a tech expert. What we recommend is contacting us, so our VoIP experts can work with you to ensure your network is configured for the higher call volume, equipment is working, and servers are ready. We can even offer suggestions on better systems that can improve communications while reducing costs. Be prepared for the holiday season, contact us today.