VoIP adoption is getting a boost through advanced features such as broadcasting, presence, find-me/follow-me, and conferencing. But the real promise of VoIP, they say, is in the integration of voice and data applications.

VoIP also gives advanced CRM (Customer Relationship Management) power to SMBs (Small to Medium Businesses) and even SOHO (Small Office/ Home Office) owners.

By treating VoIP as a data application, some incredibly sophisticated CRM experiences can be produced. Throw in auto-answer attendants and CCXML and VoiceXML support, and you have a powerful voice-driven VoIP-based IVR (Interactive Voice Response).

You can also take advantge of VoIP data. For example, if you are an SMB that sells services or products over the phone, each VoIP call becomes data you can store: which country or city the call came from, how much and what they purchased, etc. All of this data can be quantized, stored, and then geo-analyzed. For larger businesses that have multi-language operators, you can transfer calls to the correct operator by applying language defaults based on IP addresses.

It is not that you cannot do this via existing phone systems and computers, but it is not integrated, and thus requires more human data entry. With VoIP data applications, most of the process becomes automated and thus less prone to error. Imagine getting a monthly report, via, email, from your VoIP system showing sales by region. This is just a glimpse into the potential of advanced VoIP data applications.