VoIP Headsets: Before You Buy

With the rise in remote working, many employees are using personal sets of wired and wireless headphones to conduct business phone calls. Whether you want to make sure your staff have the best tools available to them for doing their job, or you just want to maintain a great standard for caller experience across the board, it makes sense to invest in dedicated equipment for your teams to use.

In this article, we’ll discuss what to consider before you purchase a set of VoIP headsets, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of certain key models.

Before we get started, refresh your knowledge on what VoIP is and how it works by checking out our guide: What is VoIP?

The Advantages of VoIP Headsets

If your staff are already using their own equipment to take and receive business calls, what’s the harm in saving on cost and letting them continue this way?

Audio Quality

In any voice call, the quality of the audio heard by the call recipient is dependent on both the hardware used to capture the voice signal and the technology used to transport it. Your business phone system provider handles the second part of that equation, meaning the other half comes down to the equipment your staff are using. If you’ve already invested in a business phone system with great features to maximise the quality of your call experience, allowing staff to use headphones with poor-quality microphones is a waste of the investments you’ve already made and will negatively impact the call quality experienced by your customers.

An affordable, monaural, wired VoIP headset from Eartec.

VoIP headsets are purpose-built for use by busy professionals making and/or taking high volumes of calls each day. High-end headsets will offer superior build quality and microphone technology, ensuring your voice is transmitted to the other side with crispness and clarity.

Hands-free Productivity and Reliability

Versus desk phones, VoIP headsets have the distinct advantage of keeping both the user’s hands free, meaning members of your team can type notes and deal with customer queries with maximum efficiency, reducing call times and boosting customer satisfaction scores.

Various other quality of life features are built into VoIP headsets to improve the experience for both caller and callee. Since they’re purpose-built to solve the problems involved with making large numbers of business phone calls every day, the overall experience with a VoIP headset promises to be much smoother. Superior battery life of 10+ hours for a wireless VoIP headset is common, as should be expected of a product that needs to be used for a full working day of talk-time.

Specialty Features

VoIP headsets also incorporate other measures to better protect against interference and interruptions, resulting in a better call experience. Active noise-cancelling microphone technology is offered by VoIP headsets including the Jabra Evolve 65 UC Mono, ensuring background noise is not transmitted to the caller. Additional useful features like Jabra’s Busylight function act as an unobtrusive means of letting others in the office know when you’re on a call.

Unless your staff/colleagues are using very high-end headphones they’ve purchased personally, some or all of these critical features for maximum office productivity and caller experience are likely to be missing, meaning investing in dedicated VoIP headsets for staff is guaranteed to improve the caller experience for your customers whilst making it easier for staff to perform their roles effectively.

A binaural, wireless VoIP headset from the Jabra Evolve range.

Types of VoIP Headset

Over-ear Headsets vs Earpiece Headsets

Two primary types of VoIP headset are available: over-ear headsets and earpiece style VoIP headsets.

Earpieces are more like traditional Bluetooth hands-free sets you used to use while driving. This earpiece style is perhaps the least obtrusive since they don’t wrap over the head with a band, but the earbud will sit in the ear, offering some measure of passive noise isolation. This is a good thing for those trying to speak in noisy environments, helping you to zone in on what the other side is saying.

Despite the lack of a headband, stability shouldn’t be an issue with earpiece VoIP headsets. That’s thanks to the small rubber arm these models invariably incorporate, which wraps around the top of the ear, giving insurance against slips or bumps that could dislodge the earpiece in the middle of a call.

A Plantronics earpiece-style wireless VoIP headset. Its rubber arm sits around the top of the ear to provide stability.

Over-ear headsets, meanwhile, look more like traditional headphones and you’ll have the option of monaural (ear cup on only one side; mono) or binaural (ear cups on both sides; stereo) headsets. The over-the-ear cups these styles feature won’t provide much, if any, passive noise isolation from the environment compared to earpiece-style headsets and any such isolation will be even more reduced with monaural models.

For businesses that require continued switching between in-office collaboration and business phone calls, then, such monaural over-the-ear VoIP headsets could be an excellent choice but, for noisy environments where phone calls are being conducted all day, it may be easier to focus with models that offer a more immersive audio experience, like a binaural (stereo) over-ear headset, or one in earpiece-style for its passive noise isolation.

Wired vs Wireless VoIP Headsets

Whilst all earpieces are wireless, banded, over-ear headsets are available in both wired and wireless options.

When it comes to cost, wired VoIP headsets have the distinct advantage of a much lower price tag than their wireless counterparts. Without the need for a powerful built-in battery and Bluetooth technology, wired headsets can offer a good experience for a low cost. They’re also likely to be lighter than wireless Bluetooth VoIP headsets for the same reason, meaning greater comfort when wearing them for prolonged periods.

Many wired VoIP headsets are powered over the USB cable they’re shipped with too, meaning there’s no chance of your headset running out of power mid-call with an important client, though any good wireless VoIP headset should ship with an impressive battery life of 8 hours at a minimum.

Once prices reach around £100, though, wireless and wired VoIP headsets tend to balance out in terms of the features they offer, with active noise-cancelling microphone technology usually a given. At this price point, then, choosing a wired or wireless headset comes down to personal preference and the specifics of the model you’re considering. Some will offer better build quality or additional features like Jabra’s Busylight. Others will offer greater battery life and greater wireless range, which may be important to you.

Conclusion

If cost is no issue, it’s worth looking into the various wireless VoIP headsets available on the market, though premium wired headsets tend to offer many of the same advanced features, if wired headsets are your preference.

Particularly busy, loud environments would be well-matched with headsets featuring noise-cancelling microphone technology, to ensure the quality of the caller experience remains as high as possible.

If cost is a factor, lower-end wired VoIP headsets will be better for call centres, sales firms and other businesses which are looking to purchase headsets in bulk due to their affordable reliability.

Whatever you’re looking for from a VoIP headset, you’re guaranteed to find what you’re looking for available for purchase at Yay Store or over with our sister company NetXL. Discount pricing is always available for bulk orders and NetXL even offers next-day delivery for orders placed until 7pm, so you’ll always have time to place your order.