Why organisations in India are moving from traditional PBX to Cloud Telephony

Cloud Telephony in India is seeing a rapid growth thanks to the adoption of this technology by SMEs and new age startups. The rapid surge of E-Commerce companies in India has led to the faster adoption of the cloud as an overall platform for technology and more so in telephony space. Many of the new and upcoming E-Commerce companies are choosing to use cloud telephony for their communication needs and call management systems. As we see the key drivers of this adoption are following inherent advantages that cloud telephony has over traditional PBX systems:

Affordability:

The most important aspect of cloud telephony is that it provides the enterprise class PBX and communication features and services even to the start-up organisations at a very low initial investment. Added to that is its hassle free maintenance as the customer doesn’t have any expensive physical hardware to maintain and is protected from obsolescence. The entire system is hosted on cloud and thus saves the organisation from getting maintenance, training etc. of the physical equipment

Scalability and Portability:

Another aspect that catches fancy of the organisations both large as well as small organisations is its scalability. The system can be upgraded and enhanced as the size of the organisation grows. You do not have to invest into the system that you may require 5 years down the line and by the time it starts operating at its optimum capacity, the system goes obsolete. As the system is hosted the relocation of office premises is also hassle free and smooth.

Customisation:

As it is hosted on cloud, the customization is very easy. The end user can define the call flows as per his process flow and not the other way round where the customer customizes its process flow as per the call flow pre – defined in the system and then change the process as and when the change of system is required. The call flow set-up process is also very simple and can be done with a click of the mouse.

CRM and ERP Integration:

Its integration with the other hosted CRM applications like Salesforce, Zoho etc. makes it a real powerful tool in helping improve the employee productivity.

24*7 customer contact:

Cloud telephony’s smart features allow organisations to be always in touch with your customers. Its features allow you track all your calls even your missed calls and the inbuilt voice mail services allow the callers to leave a message in-case the person is not able to receive the call.

Projects a professional image:

Every number that you use for your business has a corporate image for a product or service associated with it. The greeting message to a caller, the automated response system and the intelligent call routing are some aspects that project a professional image of the organisation and reinforce that identity to the brand / product / service.

 

Given these advantages, some of the key applications that are driving the usage of cloud telephony amongst the organisations are:

Unified communication:

Cloud telephony integrates all channels of communication on a single platform and makes it easier for the organisations and their employees to communicate with their clients. The single platform allows using sms, email or the voice call to communicate with the clients and internally thereby eliminating any lags in communication. Some of the large organisations are using it for their internal communications as well.

Insights:

As all calls are tracked and recorded, the features of cloud telephony provides you geo based and category-wise insights on your product or service penetration basis the number of calls from each territory and the call duration of each call. As each call is recorded:

·         The same recordings are being used to design the training programs for the call handling agents.

·         Customer feedback is used for future product design and

·         Altering the communication message.

RoI tracking:

Every organisation spends a lot on its marketing campaigns to draw attention of their prospective clients to its products or services. In order to achieve this goal, they use multiple channels to communicate their message to the end customer. It is important for every organisation to track the effectiveness / RoI of each of these channels. Organisations are using Virtual Calling numbers to track the RoI of each of their channels across category and geography to enable organisations to alter their marketing campaigns as per their goals. This is not only saving them huge costs but also helping them design their campaigns better to be more effective.

Multi-Channel Marketing:

Organisations are using cloud telephony to send bulk SMS, Bulk emails or Bulk voice calls through a common platform. Toll free numbers are integrated through Interactive voice response system to generate instant response to the marketing campaign and are very effective as there is no cost to the clients on the calls made on toll free.

Monitors Employee productivity:

Cloud telephony can be integrated with hosted CRM and ERP applications. This is enabling organisations to monitor their employee productivity and take corrective actions accordingly.

Process Automation:

Features like CTI Integration are allowing organisations to automate their ticketing process on interactive voice platform.

There are many operators in India that are offering Cloud telephony services and with the current boom of SMEs and new age start-ups the need to adopt modern and new age technologies will only go up. The question is no more about should we or not, but is about when? Sooner the better.