VoIP Phone System Setup Guide

With the power of modern technology and, specifically, VoIP, setting up a new phone system for your business should be easy. In the past, you would have had hundreds of phones to configure and lines to connect. Each small error would have haunted you for weeks, unnecessarily compounding the growing pains associated with moving to a new office.

To make matters worse, these errors entail downtime during which your customers cannot reach you. Such downtime is often completely unavoidable if you’re using an analogue phone system. When your customers and clients need to reach you urgently but can’t, you’ll drive down customer satisfaction stores and potentially even net yourself a few negative reviews.

Fortunately, this outcome is entirely avoidable if you use a VoIP phone system. By virtue of being programmatically developed, your VoIP provider can make VoIP apps available with which you can continue to make and receive business phone calls in high definition audio no matter where you are in the world, making the location of your office a non-issue.

Even if you prefer to use a hardware VoIP desk phone, having the option of moving your staff to VoIP apps on their personal devices for a brief period, whilst you get moved into your new building, will allow you to keep the wheels turning until your hardware is configured in its new location.

The embedded video gives an overview of the Yay.com VoIP phone system sign-up process.

With Yay.com, there are no contracts and you’re not locked to any hardware. You are free to come and go as you please, as well as to use whatever device you like to make and receive your calls.

Getting Started With Yay.com

Package Selection

At Yay.com we have three plans, each aimed at businesses of varying sizes.

Our Starting Out plan is perfect for solo entrepreneurs and small-to-medium sized outfits that don’t expect heavy use of their phone system. A simple service for those with simpler needs, Starting Out users will get 100 free minutes per user, 5 free phone numbers, 30 days of call recording, caller ID selection and more.

Our Flying High plan is for those who expect to be making more phone calls, somewhere in the region of 750 minutes per month per user, who need more powerful features. Some features unlocked with an upgrade to the Flying High plan include IVR call menus, Conference Bridges and Call Monitoring features such as whispering, barging and listening to calls. Your account administrator(s) can configure permissions for such powers from your Yay.com dashboard.

Our Enterprise plan is for large or call-centric businesses, such as recruitment firms and large corporations that need all of the most powerful features. Unlimited minutes to the UK and 54 other countries, 50 free phone numbers plus a ton of premium features including unlimited call recording, call statistics reports and wallboards for performance tracking, and cloud storage sync for auto-backups of all your call recordings and other important data.

Compare voice plans for a complete feature-by-feature breakdown.

The Yay.com Voip Plans offer features at different price points for businesses of varying sizes.

Phone Numbers

During the sign-up process, you’ll be able to choose some free phone numbers for use with your account. Sometimes referred to as ‘virtual’ phone numbers, our phone numbers will work just as you’d expect with any other phone number. They just won’t be bound to a SIM. From your device you’ll be able to change the caller ID you’re calling out from as frequently as every call if you wish.

Any number you already own can be added to your account for use as a caller ID, effectively ‘unbinding’ it from its SIM. All you have to do is prove to us that you own the number by uploading some standard documentation to your account dashboard.

On top of the free numbers you get access to by virtue of being signed up with us, you can add additional phone numbers for a monthly fee. This fee is determined by the number itself. Certain numbers are considered more premium than others and this will be reflected in the price. Memorable phone numbers, such as those with repeating numbers, will cost more to reflect the higher demand for them.

VoIP App Deployment

Once you’ve chosen your plan, your phone numbers and have finished checking out, you’ll be able to sign into your Yay.com account dashboard and begin getting your VoIP phone system truly configured.

Getting yourself set up to make calls on our industry-leading VoIP apps is a logical first step.

Head to Voice → Apps and enter the email addresses and mobile numbers of all staff members you’d like to get started and click ‘invite all’.

Those with a large staff will be happy to hear they can import a CSV file with contact details and these will automatically be populated in the email address and phone fields.

The process is simple and easy. At our YouTube channel we have a VoIP app deployment playlist with one video for each deployment method. We also have a dedicated blog post walking you through our VoIP app deployment process.

The Yay.com VoIP app represents a logical first step in your VoIP phone system setup process.

VoIP Phone Configuration

If your staff prefer to use hardware deskphones, then you’ll want to get these set up with your account. SIP usernames and passwords can be found under Users → Users in your account dashboard. Once you have access to these, it’s just a matter of following the instructions for your particular make and model of VoIP phone.

Alternatively, we have a blog post and accompanying video on the generic process of how to set up a VoIP phone.

Call Routes

To create your first call route, follow these steps:

• Head to Call Routing → Call Routes
• Drag the desired routing modules into your call route flow until finished.
• Assign the call route to one or more of the phone numbers cleared for use with your account.
• Save your changes.

The first module in the list to the left is suitable for most simple call routes and will send an incoming call to one or more specified users when a number assigned to this call route is rung. If you have created a hunt group already, you can also use this module to send calls to the entire hunt group.

If you have a hunt group configured for your customer support department, for example, you can send calls through to every member of the support team hunt group simultaneously.

For a full breakdown of the function of each call route module, view our dedicated article on call routing.

Intuitive, modular call routing makes it easy for you to get your VoIP phone system up and running.

Final Steps

Once you have yourself and your staff set up with VoIP apps, desk phones and call routes, it’s time to iron out the one or two creases left in your VoIP phone system.

By now, you should have at least one address listed on your account. This is a crucial step since we need at least one address listed for you in case someone calls 999 or another emergency number from one of your phone numbers. We are legally required to have at least one address on record by law, so must pass this obligation onto you and ask that you ensure that at least one address is listed on your account. Don’t worry about missing or forgetting this step, though, as we’ll be sure to remind you!

As for other features you might want to look into next, Time Diaries, located under the ‘Call Routing’ tab of your account dashboard, can be used to toggle call routes by the time of day, as well as to configure exception days, such as bank holidays and other occasions, where you want your phones to operate differently than they do by default.

Call Queuing and Custom Audio can be leveraged by those on the Flying High or Enterprise plans to capture more callers during particularly busy periods, increasing your level of customer satisfaction and giving you an opportunity to solidify your brand.

Any further questions about setting up your VoIP phone system can be expertly fielded by our excellent customer service team, so contact us directly to speak to a member. To see what our customers have to say about the service they’ve received at the hands of our team, as well as for more general feedback about our service, you can read our customer reviews. Welcome on board!