How SMEs and Start-ups can leverage the success by Cloud Telephony
SMEs are said to be the lifeblood of any vibrant economy. India has been a storehouse of some power packed startups that have kicked off right from the inception. Before the days of cloud computing, life for them was a lot less convenient and a lot pricier. Simple tasks such as storing and saving files, or just finding the name of a song you like took a whole lot of effort. But the arrival of cloud in the picture has entirely changed life for the world and businesses we see today.
Cloud Telephony is the smartest way to manage business calls without compromising on quality and cost. In a nutshell, cloud telephony harnesses the power of cloud computing- using powerful cloud servers from providers such as Amazon Web Services Inc., and Microsoft Corp.-to provide a seamless, affordable, easy-to-manager and unified communications system for individuals, professionals, and businesses alike.
It all began in 2008, when Google entered the Cloud based business and offered its hosting services to start-ups at affordable prices. This in turn, paved ways for many start-ups to adopt and render cloud-based services at affordable prices to small medium enterprises (SMEs).
Looking at the present-day scenario, large scale cloud telephony is now accessible to everyone. It’s not just limited to big players in the market and now is open to anybody, anywhere. Its service has proved to be time saving, most productive and the best means for cost-cutting for start-ups, SMEs and enterprises. Here are four of the ways through which cloud computing has bought SMEs to a whole new level. Here are the few of the biggest benefits of modern cloud telephony (a.k.a. cloud phone systems). Which of these is most important to you?
SMEs face a cash crunch and may not want to spend much on resources. There comes cloud telephony as a savior that can help SMEs manage businesses more efficiently by providing details on customer engagement, campaign response, automate most of the repeated queries through simple key-press options customized through IVR solution. It enhances the productivity of your support agents by allowing them to manage call flow since it distributes call equally to all agents. With faster resolution to queries by customers, SMEs can utilize resources smartly and achieve customer satisfaction easily.
It’s indeed true that, customers would love to get their queries resolved in the languages that they are comfortable speaking in. Especially in a country as huge as India, where almost every region has a tale to talk about, in their regional language, multilingual support is no less than a comfort to customers. With Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions coming into picture, the calls are routed respectively to the concerned departments. So, if a customer wants to speak in a regional language like Marathi or Gujrati, the calls are routed to respective departments and queries are resolved subsequently. Multilingual IVR helps you penetrate in the global market and compete the local service providers by connecting to your customers in their native languages, which can be a unique selling proposition (USP) for your business.
The most unique feature about voice-based telephony service is that, the functionality is available and accessible 24/7. Offering support to your customers whenever they want helps build trust for your brand. Even if the customer care teams work for fixed office hours, there are several options through which you can provide alternatives to customers.
Cloud telephony has introduced the concept of virtual phone system. A cloud-based telephony system is rooted on the internet. This allows users to make calls from laptops or smartphones. Cloud-based phone systems provide a certain amount of mobility, the flexibility of working from any locations, and some robust features making it an affordable solution for small businesses and startups. You can change answering rules, access voicemail and fax messages and view call activity, regardless of your location.
A cloud phone system minimizes charges for long-distance calls and eliminates separate landlines. It also provides a monthly invoice that includes all lines for your entire workforce, including remote personnel. That translates into a simplified billing process that not only frees your employees from spending time preparing expense reports but also eliminates the need for managers and corporate accounting to approve numerous phone bills. Such leverages enable entrepreneurs to receive developing trend setting innovations without making various expensive buys, eventually enabling these startups to be more powerful and skillful in the commercial center, which means huge changes for small businesses.
Web-based customer portals enable IT staff to manage their system more efficiently. With insight into the installation, service configuration, trouble tickets, training, billing and call analytics, this full access to a customer’s system and account allows them to spend fewer resources on project management and focus more on work that adds to the bottom line.
Cloud telephony bring the agility to the startups and the SMEs by allowing them to collaborate not only with the employees but with their vendors and customers also. This endeavours and advances profitability to maintain minimum office space and allocate the saved capital resources into investing either for employee development programs or any other activity which will help in increasing income for the businesses.
Now a day’s cloud computing and its services are the talk of the town in the world of businesses amongst which cloud telephony is creating a buzz. Cloud telephony is the driving force behind delivering value to your customers and reducing costs, all at once. It is exactly what you need to grow your business in the 21st century.
