Troubleshooting Sound Quality Issues

May 9th, 2023

Common examples of sound quality issues include:

  • Delays or long pauses in sound causing you and your caller to speak over each other (click here for detailed information on this specific issue)
  • Garbled or choppy audio
  • Echoing sound
  • Dropped or cut off calls

Sometimes, these issues happen as a one-off bad connection or other circumstantial factors with a particular call, but if you’re noticing repeated and consistent issues with the sound quality of your calls, there may be something bigger at play.

Sound quality issues are most frequently encountered if your business number is hosted by a Voiceover IP (VoIP) service. VoIP service is delivered through internet lines rather than traditional phone lines, which means that the quality of your internet connection effects the sound quality of your phone calls. If your internet connection is poor, your phone connection will be poor as well.

Typically, your phone provider can assist you in improving the quality of your calls, but the Customer Happiness team is happy to help guide you in the right direction. Feel welcome to pass the answers to the following questions along to our team at staff@ruby.com and we're happy to start sleuthing! Once we have this information, we may want to set up a time to do a series of test calls and potentially reach out to your phone provider directly.

Information for Troubleshooting Sound Quality 

  1. Who is your phone provider? VoIP lines tend to have poorer sound quality than hard lines.
  2. How are you forwarding your lines and what number are you forwarding to? Each time a line is forwarded, it loses a bit of information on its way, which can affect the sound quality or volume.
  3. What number(s) do your callers use to reach you? Are you only experiencing issues with calls to a certain number or numbers?
  4. How is the sound quality before the caller is connected over to you (when receptionists announce calls to you)?
  5. Once the caller is on the line, is the sound quality the same for both of you or can one hear better than the other?
  6. Do you know if all calls have poor sound quality or only some?