Imagine that you call two businesses. One plays a professional greeting message and directs you to the appropriate department from a menu. The other, which is difficult to reach and makes you wait, is attended to by an overworked individual who asks for your preference and you bounce between departments until you find it. If you do have not cloud telephony software.
Which experience would you choose?
In the past, only large corporations could afford a sophisticated phone system that included voicemail, Interactive Voice Response, and Call routing capabilities. Customers and small businesses were left behind. Cloud telephony software has changed that.
What is cloud telephony? How does it work?
Cloud telephony software lets you move your business’s phone system to the internet. Cloud telephony can be used by any business regardless of its size. It is somewhere close to cloud computing technology.
Functions are same as regular business telephones except that your calls are routed through the internet.
- Cloud telephony services
- You will receive a virtual number
- This number can be used for outgoing calls.
- VoIP is used for routing calls between two ends.
Why are small businesses moving to the cloud? Cloud telephony software, a natural phenomenon, has tons of possibilities that can be customized to small businesses’ needs.
- They are also affordable
- These can be installed without any technical assistance
- don’t require any maintenance
- Easy to scale
- Allow mobility
According to the Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud Transformation survey conducted by 451Research, 90% of companies currently use some form of cloud service.
These are the factors that make cloud telephony appealing to small businesses, especially:
Building Your Reputation
For business growth, it is essential to have a solid reputation.
Your brand’s reputation can be improved by providing high-quality services over the telephone to customers. However, if your customer service is poor and you drop calls frequently or are unavailable when they need you; it can quickly destroy your reputation.
Cloud telephony software lets you pick up calls wherever you are. This gives small and medium businesses access to features that large companies only have. It also allows you to keep delivering the best service possible to your customers.
Integration with existing software seamless
Exotel’s cloud-telephony solution is easily integrated with existing ERP or CRM software if your team is used to working in a dashboard. Exotel also offers custom integrations to popular CRM and helpdesk tools such as Freshdesk, Zoho, and many more. Employees can also “click to call” customers from the app, and not have to dial their number every time.
Scalability
Techimply’s buyer reports state that “The need to scale new VoIP systems is the main reason for evaluation.”
We have spoken to many customers and learned that cloud telephony software is a great option for small businesses, especially when it comes to scalability. Many businesses used to use hard phones. However, as they grew, their phone system could not keep up with them. They discovered that traditional on-premise telephone systems were not sufficient.
Cloud telephony is a great solution. It is easy to add a user to a cloud-based phone system. It is easy to add an extension or license more agents. All you have to do is dial a number from your mobile phone and make a call. It is not necessary to make costly or time-consuming infrastructural modifications that would be expensive for small businesses.
Cloud telephony allows for high-quality communication at scale
Cloud telephony software can be used by any size business, whether it’s a startup, large company, or multinational MNC. It will deliver consistent voice quality and low latency, regardless of whether you are a small business or startup. Cloud telephony is flexible enough to scale with your organization.
You can easily scale up for seasonal needs during festivals or sale times, and then scale back when necessary, without having to invest heavily in infrastructure.
Cloud Telephony software grows with your business
You can add extensions to your phone system easily from the Cloud. This allows you to grow your system with your business. This is also useful if your business needs to be streamlined and you need to reduce usage.
It is far more efficient than an in-person system. All it takes to add or subtract users from the system remotely is a quick email or phone call to your service provider.
Analytics and Reporting
Data is the king in today’s digital world. Data is essential for business decision-making and analysis. Deloitte’s study found that 72% of businesses believe that analytics can be used to improve customer service.
On-premise telephone systems are often lacking analytics. This means that there is no way for you to measure customer satisfaction or know the performance of your team. This can be a huge advantage for small businesses. Businesses that are proactive set goals and monitor their performance closely tend to do better than those that don’t. Small businesses cannot afford to be in the dark.
Small business phone systems empower them with data. With features such as call recording, they can look back at their past and find out what is working well. Small businesses now can quantitatively measure their performance, and provide better customer service.
Multiple locations can be served by one phone system
Many businesses have multiple locations, sometimes in different countries. This meant that the company had to manage multiple phone systems and contracts. Cloud Telephony allows you to have one system, and the same cost for multiple locations. This allows you to save both time and money. If your company expands, you can easily extend your Cloud system.
Cloud telephony can help agents increase productivity
Employees will do more when their tools are better. Cloud telephony can help you remove operational hurdles in several ways.
This saves time for employees
Agents no longer have to manually enter customer data into their phones. Cloud telephony allows the agent to make one-click calls from within their ERP/CRM.
It guarantees timely activity
Inbound calls and trigger action notifications for leads help overcome the human tendency to forget to follow up or get overwhelmed by long-to-call lists. This can negatively impact productivity.
Increase conversion rates
Sales teams can speed up the response time to leads by automating follow-up and increasing pick-up rates using a dynamic caller ID.
It automates repetitive tasks
A ‘virtual receptionist can greet customers and perform the first-level screening to determine the customer’s problem. After that, the automatic contact distributor can direct them to the right person.
Is your data secure on the platform?
Sensitive customer information is part of customer communication. It is important to know if the platform has sufficient security to protect your data. The priority of any company is its customer database. It mirrors the brand’s integrity.
Below are the essential security checks:
- Security certifications: ISO and GDPR compliance are good options to check if the cloud platform you select is compliant with industry security standards.
- Two factor authentication must be on for better security
- Audit Logging and Monitoring: Provides a view of who is accessing your platform, and when.
- Data Backup and Recovery Plan: Protects against data loss.
Conclusion
Cloud telephone systems work seamlessly wherever your staff is located. You can also switch between devices while you are on the go and not miss a call.
This will not only save you money but it could also help you make more money by having more staff available to call customers and follow up on leads that you missed when working from an office with a smaller team.
You can invest your money in digital marketing and other avenues that will help you grow and run your business successfully, even if you don’t have to pay for premises.
