VoIP Training: What You Need To Know in 2024

Making the switch to a VoIP phone system can be daunting, especially if your employees rely heavily on their phones to communicate.

Setting up VoIP is relatively straightforward, but you should take the time to thoroughly train your staff on your new phones. That way, they can hit the ground running once the new system is operational.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about VoIP training and highlight training options for your front-office employees and IT staff.

Why VoIP Training Is Important for Your Company

VoIP training should be considered an essential step when switching to a VoIP phone system. It prepares your employees for a big change and sets them up for success with the new technology.

Here are three of the most important reasons why VoIP training is so critical.

Ensure a Seamless Transition

While VoIP technology might be familiar to some of your employees, it’s possible not everyone at your company will feel comfortable using a new phone system right away. Offering training is a good way to head off problems that can lead to frustration or cause your employees to miss important calls.

In addition, you can use training sessions as an opportunity to help employees set up call forwarding to their mobile devices, record voicemail greetings, or configure voicemail-to-email settings. Working through these setup tasks before you fully switch over to using your VoIP phone system can ensure no communications fall through the cracks during the transition.

Increase Employees’ Productivity

VoIP phone systems offer many productivity-enhancing features like call queuing, auto-attendants, and integrations with other business software.

It’s important to train your employees on how to use these features. Ideally, you should walk through examples so your staff can see when a certain feature might come in handy. Without this training, employees might not know about VoIP settings that could save them time and make them more productive.

Keep Your Phone System Functioning

You also need to train your IT employees on your new phone system since they’ll be responsible for keeping it running smoothly and answering employee questions. IT staff training should go into more depth on how your system works, including any integrations you’ve set up and how to configure new VoIP phones to function properly.

If no one on your IT staff has prior experience working with VoIP phone systems, it may be worth sending one or more employees to a professional VoIP training course. We’ll discuss these in more detail below.

VoIP Training Options for Your Office Employees

VoIP systems are designed to be relatively easy for front office, sales, and other non-IT employees to use. So the amount of training you need to provide is typically low—in most cases, you can cover everything employees need to know in half a day or less.

Many businesses choose to host in-house workshops to introduce employees to a new VoIP system. In-house workshops are a good option because employees can get their hands on your new VoIP phone equipment and test it out for themselves with your supervision. In addition, these workshops give employees a chance to ask any questions they have.

Some topics to cover in your training include:

• VoIP phone systems verses landline phone systems
• How to use your VoIP phone software to configure settings
• How to set up a voicemail inbox
• How to set up call forwarding
• How to use additional features such as ring groups, call queuing, conference calling, and call recording

In addition, if you have any VoIP integrations, it’s important to explain how those integrations work and how employees can use them.

It’s a good idea to create a checklist of things employees need to do to configure their VoIP phones. This could include tasks to make sure their phones are working properly, such as calling a colleague and leaving a voicemail. These practice tasks will also get employees more comfortable with using the new phone system.

If possible, you should record your training session and send the recording to employees so they can refer back to it. You can also create an internal handbook that explains how to configure key settings or use integrations.

VoIP Provider Resources

Many VoIP providers offer their own educational resources that you can incorporate into your training. These materials typically include FAQ pages, training manuals, and on-demand webinars.

At a minimum, make sure that employees know where to find these resources on your VoIP provider’s website. That way, if an employee has a question, they can check the provider’s documentation to find answers.

Some VoIP providers even offer onboarding sessions which are similar to the in-house training sessions described above. Its worth taking advantage of these since they can save you time creating your own training materials.

VoIP Training Options for Your IT Staff

Your IT staff will need more in-depth training that covers the inner workings of your VoIP phone system. They need to know not only how to use your VoIP phones to make calls but also how to set up new phones for employees and troubleshoot the system when problems arise.

Enrolling one or more of your IT employees in a professional VoIP training course is the best option. These courses cover everything your IT employees need to know about setting up and maintaining a VoIP phone system.

There are many of these courses available, including:

• Cisco Certified Network Professional Collaboration
• SIP School Voice and Video over IP Professional
• Avaya Certified Implementation Specialist Program
• Systems & Network Training Definitive VoIP for Engineers
• NobleProg Practical Voice and Video over IP Training Course
• Teracom Training Institute Fundamentals of VoIP & IP Telecom Networks

Each of these courses offers a completion certificate, which can help your IT employees advance their careers and boost their value to your business. However, there are no industry-wide standard certifications for VoIP training.

Pricing for these courses varies, but expect to pay around $300-$500 per IT employee you want to enrol in an online certification course.

In addition, IT staff may be able to gain knowledge from resources offered by your VoIP provider. Some providers offer onboarding sessions and webinars specifically for system administrators. IT staff can also read any documentation your VoIP provider offers about how to configure your system settings.