How cloud telephony benefits small businesses

Imagine this, you call two businesses— one that plays a professional welcome message and immediately guides you to the department you’d like to talk to from a menu, and one that is hard to reach, makes you wait,  is attended by a clearly overworked person who asks you which department you’d like to speak to and then you ricochet between departments until you find the right one.

Which experience would you prefer?

Earlier only those enterprises with deep pockets could afford an elaborate phone system with voicemail, Interactive Voice Response, Call routing capabilities, and more advanced features. Small businesses were at a disadvantage and their customers had to suffer.  Not anymore, thanks to cloud telephony.

What is Cloud Telephony?

Cloud telephony, also known as cloud calling, is a unified communication service that allows voice communication through a third-party host. These cloud telephony services empower users to place/receive calls directly from any computer, laptop, or mobile device with an internet connection, thus replacing the need for conventional enterprise telephone systems like handsets and PBX boxes. 

Some essential and popular cloud telephony services include:

  • IVR
  • Call recording
  • Call conferencing
  • Custom greetings and a lot more. 

Small and Medium businesses stand to benefit the most out of cloud telephony, enabling them to compete with the deeper pockets of bigger businesses.

How does Cloud telephony work?

Cloud telephony solutions are delivered either by a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or Internet Protocol (IP).  VoIP, a Voice internet protocol, is used for transferring audio data. It transforms analog signals (voice) to digital signals to facilitate internet or cloud calling.

  1. Prospects or customers dial the cloud telephony number.
  2. The call is forwarded to the PRI lines of the cloud telephony server.
  3. Cloud telephony handles the call request based on the business rules – i.e., play IVR, forward call to a specific extension, ring group, etc.
  4. The cloud telephony server connects the agents based on the call routing configuration. 
  5. When agents are talking with the customers, you can also configure the cloud telephony server to perform additional functions, including call recording for future analysis, allow agents to work with the CRM via API calls, etc.

Why are small businesses moving to the cloud? 

Cloud telephony by nature has a ton of capabilities that fit the exact needs of SMBs— 

  1. They are affordable
  2. They can be set up with no technical help
  3. They require no maintenance 
  4. They can be scaled easily 
  5. They provide mobility 

Currently, a whopping 90% of companies use a cloud service of some kind, according to the Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud Transformation survey by 451Research.

The following factors make cloud telephony attractive especially to small businesses: 

1. Scalability 

Software Advice’s buyer report mentions that — “The need for scalability is the top reason for evaluating new VoIP systems.” One of the biggest challenges faced by small businesses when purchasing new technologies is – can it scale along with our requirements? 

After talking to many of our own customers we understand the benefits cloud telephony brings to small businesses especially in terms of scalability — many businesses previously used hard phones, once they opened up in different locations and started scaling, their phone system couldn’t keep pace with their rapid growth. They realized that on-premise phone systems just wouldn’t cut it.

It is here that cloud telephony can provide great relief. Adding a user in a cloud phone system is only a click away. Adding a new extension or including more agent licenses is as easy as dialing a number on your mobile phone to make a call. There is no need to make any infrastructural changes that would incur substantial costs and would also be time-consuming — two valuable resources that small businesses cannot afford to lose.

2. Integration with business tools 

Using different tools can have a detrimental effect on both your customer support and sales processes. Picture a sales agent talking to a prospect, they would have to make important notes, maybe fix a follow-up, they may have to keep track of their numerous prospects. Similarly, a support agent would have to follow up with customers multiple times to ensure a query has been resolved. 

Hard phones cause hiccups in the process — an agent or rep cannot link their calls to prospects, there would be no way to keep track of their queries and things can become chaotic really quick. This will affect their productivity and more importantly their morale. 

With cloud telephony they can easily integrate their phone system with their CRM or help desk — each call can be attributed to a customer easily. They don’t have to shift between multiple tools and all their data would be in one place.

A streamlined workflow can do wonders for a business. One of our customers was scaling rapidly and ended up missing many calls. Since shifting to a cloud phone system, in their own words — “they added much-needed order into their chaotic workflow” and were able to reduce their missed calls by up to 35%. 

3. Analytics and Reporting 

In today’s world,  data is king. Easily accessible data is important to analyze and make business decisions. According to a study by Deloitte, 72% of companies believe they can use analytics to improve their customer experience.

Most on-premise phone systems lack analytics, there is no way to know or understand the performance of your teams or measure customer satisfaction. For a small business, this can make all the difference, businesses that are proactive in their approach and those which set targets and closely monitor their performance tend to fare better than those which don’t. For small businesses being in the dark is a risk they cannot afford to take. 

A small business phone system empowers them with data using features like call recording, they can go back and analyze what they are doing right and where they are going wrong. With valuable analytics in their hands, small businesses can now quantitatively measure their performance and deliver better customer experiences. 

4. Mobility 

Customers expect a prompt reply when they have queries — not being at your desk is no excuse for missing customer calls. Small businesses can score big points when it comes to customer service, while bigger businesses may find it hard to provide personalized and prompt customer service. 

Businesses that are stuck with an on-premise system are tied to their desks (and the past). Small businesses can leverage cloud telephony to respond to customers quickly no matter where they are — all they need is a working internet connection. This provides great flexibility to small business owners, they can always be connected even if they are out of the office. 

This also opens up the possibility for remote working and telecommuting. A study by CoSo Cloud shows that 77% of employees report being more productive while working remotely — remote work is on the rise and is here to stay. 

Small businesses also stand to benefit the most out of this — space can be a big factor for startups and hiring remotely means they save on rent, also it gives them the flexibility to hire agents temporarily in case they require additional bandwidth. Remote work is also good for the environment — even a big brand like Dell experimented with remote work and found that their U.S. workforce avoids 2.7 billion round-trips per year by telecommuting — this is equivalent to a reduction in commuting footprint of 30 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. 

5. Cost Savings

Small businesses have a need to be economical and when it comes to cost savings, there is nothing better than a cloud phone system. 

According to tech.co, VoIP can trim down initial costs for startup businesses by roughly 90%. Think about it — if not for cloud telephony — small businesses have to procure hard phones, get telephone cables, setup servers, hire technical help and not to mention rent out an incredible amount of space only to accommodate your phone system, add to that recurring maintenance charges and contracts that keep you locked up with this setting for at least 3-5 years. 

For local calls, a small business that moves to VoIP can expect to see 40% savings as compared to their current system, this is because most cloud phone systems provide cheaper call rates, also businesses can buy local numbers in other countries and call at local rates using cloud phone systems.

What are the key things to look for while choosing a cloud telephony provider?

As businesses are choosing cloud platforms over an on-premise setup, the cloud telephony market has grown vastly. Amidst a myriad of options available, how can companies pick the right platform to suit their business model?

Here are a few essential questions that you should ask yourself before choosing a Cloud Telephony Service for your business. 

1. What are the capabilities of the platform?

It’s important to list your business goals and how you’re trying to achieve them by picking a suitable cloud telephony software for your company.  While it might be tempting to skip this part and directly pick a cloud telephony software based on online ratings, it’s highly recommended to spend some time brainstorming the requirements with your team. 

Some of the questions that you can ask yourself or the team are listed below:

  • Does the platform provide call recordings? Is there an extra cost involved around it?
  • Is there a direct integration you can use to unify the cloud telephony software with your existing CRM?
  • What are the call rates? Is there an additional charge for a fancy toll number?
  • Does the platform support bulk message?
  • Do you have access to the agent dashboard and generate reports for analyzing team performance?

2. Will the platform provide a good Customer Experience?

A positive customer experience is important if you’re targeting a greater return on your communications investments. Thus, you must partner with a provider that displays a steadfast commitment to customer value and satisfaction. Doing so will reduce the friction in customer engagement and achieve superior customer service and assistance throughout all phases of customer interaction. 

3. How secure is your data on the platform?

Customer communication includes sensitive customer information. Hence, it’s essential to understand if the platform’s security is powerful enough to guard your data. A company’s customer database is the priority of any business, as it mirrors the brand’s integrity.

Essential security checkpoints are listed below:

  • Security certifications: ISO certifications and GDPR compliance can be a good starting point for checking if the cloud telephony platform you choose adheres to industry standards of security.
  • 2FA Authentication for accounts – Ensure the 2-factor authentication is enabled to prevent any unauthorized login.
  • Audit Logging and Monitoring – Gives you an overview of who’s accessing your platform and when.
  • Data Backup and Recovery Plan: Prevents data loss of any kind.

Security measures and administrative compliance certifications can help guarantee that a business’s communications infrastructure does not create vulnerabilities that may affect its operations. 

4. Financial Performance

Building a long-term business with a cloud communications provider can help evade disruptive changes to new and unplanned communications software, user experiences, and devices. Thus, to select the ideal partner for the long run, businesses must evaluate the provider’s financial stability using essential metrics such as revenue growth, profitability, market share, and customer-instated base expansion and churn. Companies must also request performance data and customer references to assess provider viability and market strength better.

 


About Freshdesk Contact Center

Freshdesk Contact Center is a modern-day reimagining of our everyday phone system for customer support, sales, IT, and HR teams. With Freshdesk Contact Center’s cloud-based architecture, it brings together the best of legacy features like IVR and advanced capabilities like Smart Escalations, Custom Call Center Analytics to help you set up a state-of-the-art business call center. Freshdesk Contact Center offers phone numbers in 90+ countries, requires zero phone hardware, and is extremely easy to use.

If you want to find out more about what we do, check out www.freshcaller.com.