Significance of cloud telephony services
- Cloud customer support solutions – keep your communications going smoothly
For maintenance and communication issues, cloud telephony software has your back. You may rely on a cloud-based contact center solution to set up an effective contact platform that links remote personnel, all the while requiring no infrastructure investment. It is a significant benefit now, when keeping in touch with customers and clients is more crucial than ever.
An analytical dashboard allows you to remotely analyze, monitor, and oversee the productivity of your team. Better outgoing and incoming communication enable you to give smooth services to clients during an emergency, which can enhance your reputation significantly.
- Seamless management of business calls through IVR and virtual numbers
Aside from monitoring customers’ calls in real-time, an IVR allows you to optimize marketing. You also get exposure to call recordings, which may assess the quality of client interactions and the effectiveness of team members who speak remotely. Installing virtual numbers allows you to divert sales calls to the agent’s phone lines, removing location as a barrier to interaction.
- CRM Integration enables you to serve your clients better
While you must maintain contact with your clients in a better way, supporting them throughout the crisis can establish successful connections with them and build confidence in your company. You can link a cloud telephony system with your CRM program to enhance the way your agents serve clients. It allows you to streamline the lead process flow, which has a beneficial impact on the team’s sales and efficiency.
- Orchestration of workflows across conversations and SMS
Create a workflow, such as call masking, click-to-call or OBD that comprises separate interaction primary components of cells linked to executing business rules.
- Configurable APIs
Specify which participants to include, which announcements to play, and any other runtime settings.
- Real-time event alert
Send real-time alerts for call status, IVR, sound, and storage.
How to Choose a Cloud Telephony Provider (5 Things to consider)
With many providers offering cloud telephony services, it’s important to create a plan to help you shortlist those that fit with your business goals and give the right level of ongoing support for you and your team.
Here are a few of our top tips for selecting, and appointing a cloud telephony provider:
· Service quality and SLA’s
Look carefully at the SLA (service level agreement) of your provider. An SLA should outline service level objectives, caveats and exclusions and remediation policies and penalties related to the objectives. You’ll want to look for suppliers with an SLA that is clearly outlined, unambiguous and also tangible, so you know who is responsible for which aspects of your system maintenance.
If a provider’s SLA looks too good to be true, ask around; request evidence or case studies to give examples of your provider resolving any issues quickly and in line with their SLA, so that you know they can be trusted to deliver. In essence, to get the best level of reliability from your cloud provider, you’ll want to look for an SLA that promises 99.999% uptime.
· Technology requirements, features and integrations
First, it’s important to assess the essential requirements of your team. Establish which capabilities are non-negotiable, starting with the very basics before delving into the more advances features of unified communications.
You’ll want to ensure your system has the basic calling functionality required for day-to-day integrations to work well. Assess whether your teams make more calls or receive more inbound calls for example, and does your cloud system need to span multiple office locations? Does it need to account for a global customer base of callers? Consider your customers and your employees’ immediate impact and establish clear objectives on any day-to-day challenges your cloud telephony system will mitigate to make sure these stay front of mind.
Make sure your new system will easily integrate with your CRM, project management tools and platforms such as any Microsoft Office or G-Suite platforms that are used company-wide. You might then want to delve deeper to establish whether your cloud system offers integrations specific to your teams, such as marketing automation platforms.
· Security and compliance
Before you commit to any particular provider, you’ll want to ensure they value security as much as you do. Check that your supplier offers call encryption, allowing you to use transport layer security (TLS) and secure real-time transport protocol (SRTP) to ensure you’ll get enterprise-grade security throughout your contract.
Do your research to check how any data will be stored, and check any specific compliance needs following your business needs. You’ll want to check that your supplier meets the global standard for security threat responses: ISO/IEC 20071.
· Vendor lock-in and migration support
While the credentials of your new provider might bowl you over, there will likely come a time when you might, for whatever reason, want to part ways. You’ll want to make sure that process will be as easy for you as possible, to avoid future complications concerning migrating to a new system or supplier. Look at any lock-in clauses and details of before you commit to a supplier.
· Reputation and financial health
In this digital age, it’s effortless to research the reputation of a potential partner. Rather than simply taking credentials and accolades at face value, look around for unbiased customer reviews, case studies and testimonials to ensure you have chosen a reputable supplier. It’s also important to ensure your know a little about your potential provider’s financial health to ensure that they have a sound, stable foundation you can rely on for the long term.
