6 tough questions experts ask SIP trunking providers

Posted on February 10, 2015 by

When you’re shopping for an enterprise SIP trunking provider, you read a lot of web content written to assure you that each offering aligns closely with a broadly inclusive set of industry requirements. But you’re not just interested in what providers can do, you also need to know their limitations. We were recently asked by No Jitter to assemble key probing questions will help you peek behind the curtain and make sure you’re getting an honest introduction to your provider.

6 questions to ask SIP trunking providers

As Eric Krapf highlighted in his introduction to our recent webcast, “SIP Trunking: How Experts Assess and Select a Provider”, there are more SIP trunking providers to evaluate than ever before. That’s a good thing, it means the industry is healthy and growing. The challenge for organizations is sifting through the chaff to find a provider that delivers real performance, skilled support and control to enable your business agility.

Getting your SIP trunking provider right is crucial for a number of reasons. Your voice connection forms the foundation for your entire communications platform. Significant effort goes into changing providers in terms of research, configuration, and number porting, and that’s just getting started. If your SIP trunking performs poorly, the return on your investment in Unified Communications might not be something you want to take to the big boss. Unreliable voice service also erodes faith in your organization internally and shows customers your brand doesn’t value strong communications.

To help you avoid getting stuck in the loop of provider research, selection, implementation, failure, we’ve assembled a list of tough questions experts ask SIP trunking providers so that you can be sure you’re choosing the right provider. These are questions we get every day from professionals who rely on SIP trunking to deliver their own services such as UCaaS, hosted VoIP, or application developers. They have been through the ringer by trialing providers configured countless different ways, and their experiences have taught them what works and what absolutely does not.

Choosing the right reliable SIP trunking carrier for your business pays dividends beyond the cost savings you will add to your bottom line. You can go 12 rounds with providers asking spreadsheets full of questions while they duck and dodge their key shortcomings. We’ve whittled the list down to 6 sure knock-out blows that yield valuable insight into the performance, control, and support you will be able to expect from any SIP trunking provider.

It’s not enough to ask a potential carrier if they’re reliable and smart. Who wouldn’t say yes? By asking these questions you’ll understand the reliability, quality, and cost benefits you can expect from each SIP trunking service, as well as get a sense of the expertise of each provider you consider—a huge factor when you do need support. The correct answers to these questions will give you great comfort you are going to be successful. Stumbles, however, illuminate problem areas most often overlooked such as the level of control you’ll have over the management of the features and functionality of your voice service, and a provider’s ability to adapt around failure.

Watch the webcast to get the full list of questions, and gain insight into the way experts evaluate SIP trunking providers for their demanding business needs.