A Nation Online

The British used to be known as a nation of small shopkeepers. Now apparently we are a nation of online shoppers with 89% of UK internet users visiting online shops in 2011. According to an Ofcom report, this makes us the most online nation in Europe.

Our love affair with the internet is not confined to shopping either. Between February 2010 and August 2011 smart phone ownership doubled to 46% with a quarter of us regularly using our phones to access news and 34% using our phones to play games. In addition, 27% of us watch TV online every week and 79% of us regularly visit online social networking sites.

In fact, virtually the only area where we are lagging behind in the use of the internet is in making calls online. Only 19% of UK broadband subscribers use the internet to make calls online compared with 28% in Italy and 26% in France.

One area which the Ofcom report doesn’t cover is the use of the internet for making business telephone calls. The advent of the internet has revolutionised the way in which business can make and receive calls, slashing their phones costs in the process. Even putting aside services such as Skype, basic VoIP calls over the internet are far more cost effective than equivalent landline calls. This is true whether the recipient has an internet phone connection or not. VoIP to landline calls are still cheaper than landline to landline calls whilst VoIP to VoIP calls are either a fraction of the cost or even free.

Those businesses who have taken advantage of the internet telephone revolution tend to magnify their advantage by installing a virtual switchboard. Again at a fraction of the cost of a traditional switchboard, the virtual switchboard casts a whole new light on the way in which telephone systems are managed. From auto-call divert to telephone recording and from multi-call queuing to the use of international and local numbers the virtual switchboard enables businesses to take a fresh look at their marketing and sales functions.

For example, businesses trying to break into a new market may benefit from having a local number for potential clients to call. Linking that local number into the virtual switchboard means that businesses can benefit from multiple numbers across the UK or even the globe whilst retaining a single business office. Alternatively, the switchboard can be programmed to automatically divert calls around international offices depending on the time of day.

This latest Ofcom report shows that we have mastered the internet for the fun things in life. Let’s hope that the next report shows that our businesses have also taken note of the internet telephone revolution.