The Ultimate Guide to Cloud Telephony

Were you aware that cloud systems enable start up businesses to trim down initial costs by up to 90%?

As of recent times, cloud telephony has become quite an important tool for businesses across industries. It allows businesses to automate business phone systems and boost their efficiency.

Not only this, but cloud telephony systems allow you to place calls from any mobile device or computer. As a result, incorporating cloud telephony into your business can help you greatly reduce manual costs. 

In this article, we will learn more about cloud telephony, how it works, its many benefits and more.

What is Cloud Telephony?

Cloud telephony can be described as a phone system that works over your internet connection. Also known as cloud calling, it is a type of unified communications as a service (UCaaS).

Essentially, cloud telephony enables your business to run your phone systems through your internet connection. Alongside this, it also offers business voice services. These are typically managed and run by a host or a third-party operator. 

The Importance Of Cloud Telephony

Cloud telephony plays an important role in any business. In fact, it allows you to streamline business communication as well as grow with your business. 

Moreover, in case you’re hiring remote workers or opening new offices, cloud telephony makes the whole process cost-effective. It can also make the entire expansion effortless.

Not only this, it also helps your employees stay more focused alongside fostering better team connections. In fact, remote work capabilities such as video conferencing or team chat can even improve your business’ productivity. 

How does Cloud Telephony work?

Typically, cloud telephony works with the use of a VoIP service provider. Firstly, you dial the phone number you want to call. It is your service provider that then handles the routing part. 

Secondly, your service provider converts voice signals into data packets. After this, it then transmits them using your internet connection. This is how your phone then connects to the person you were calling.

From your business perspective, you would have to start by replacing phone extensions with VoIP desk phones. Instead of connecting to a landline, you then plug your agents’ phones into your current network. 

Alternatively, you can also use a softphone – an application on your computer or mobile, like NeoDove, to do this. Either way, you can conduct calls from a modern easy-to-use interface as well as swiftly set up calls.

As it is cloud-based, you can manage your business phone system through an online dashboard with cloud telephony. In fact, this gives you complete control over call forwarding, phone numbers, adding new users, etc.

Cloud Telephony vs VoIP

Although a cloud telephony system and business VoIP may appear similar,  there is a difference. 

In reality, the majority of cloud telephony solutions utilize VoIP technology. However, a cloud system is only one type of platform that can use VoIP. Quite simply, not all VoIP systems must be run in the cloud. 

VoIP basically means that your calling data and other communication packets all travel over the internet. 

As such, businesses can incorporate VoIP by choosing to host their system. You can do this by outsourcing to a cloud provider or by using an on-premise Private Branch Exchange (PBX). 

6 Benefits Of Cloud Telephony You Never Knew

With more developments in technology, the way businesses work has become more diverse and dynamic. As such, you must adapt your technology accordingly to keep up. 

Here are some of the most important benefits of using cloud telephony for your business:

• Easy and quick implementation

With cloud telephony, you don’t need any on-site infrastructure. As such, your business can get up and start running within just a few days, maybe even just one. 

You won’t need to wait for the installation of phone lines or technicians. Moreover, you won’t have to worry about hiring a full-time employee just to configure your new system. Your cloud provider will handle everything. 

Additionally, you’ll also have instant access to a dashboard to manage the entire phone service and virtual phone numbers.

• Robust and powerful calling features

With cloud telephony, there are certain advanced features that help you work smart and effectively. Furthermore, they allow you to focus on the right tasks at the right time. 

With cloud telephony features, avoid repetitive and manual tasks while also enhancing your customer support and team collaboration. Some of its most important features include advanced IVR, call forwarding, video conferencing, call recording, toll-free numbers, and more.

• Lowered phone operational costs

Cloud telephony can help your business save money in many ways. In fact, you can save up to 65% of your traditional phone bill. Aside from this, you’re saved from limited calling minutes, maintenance contracts and paying for separate business SMS services.

When using cloud telephony, you don’t have to deal with any unexpected bills or maintenance costs. Moreover, to get started with minimum expenses, you can simply use laptops with headsets through a softphone app. This alternative works when you want to skip buying VoIP phones.

• Scalability and flexibility of your phone system

Cloud telephony can make your growth seamless. A VoIP solution enables you to add more users in a few simple clicks.

With traditional PBX, your growth will always bring extra costs or delay it. However, a cloud-based PBX is not just scalable, but also easy to manage. You don’t need any expert IT skills.

With the flexibility of cloud telephony, you can easily customize based on when your business needs shift. Furthermore, it helps you maintain your customer experience on an overall basis.

• Simplify work with integrated communications

Cloud communications allow you to access and store all your information on one platform. 

When compared to using separate systems, here you may have important notes/ details kept at many different paces. As such, locating past interactions may be challenging or disrupt your workflow.

To solve this problem, cloud telephony centralizes everything into one user interface. In this way, you can easily analyze real-time data, manage customers, collaborate and move projects forward. 

For all these reasons, cloud telephony allows you to streamline your business workflow and improves business efficiency. 

• Improved mobility and reliability

In recent times, more and more companies have switched to remote working options. As such, hosted phone systems are the perfect solution to this trend.

Your employees can access business phone lines from wherever they are as long as they have an internet connection. Not only can they answer calls, but they can also access voicemails, or setup/ change call routing on the go. 

For these reasons, cloud telephony is perfect for remotely working companies and businesses with multiple office locations.

In addition to this, cloud telephony systems also provide 99.999% uptime. This means that you can continue working unaffectedly in case of any technical or communicative issues. 

Alongside this, it also comes equipped with built-in redundancy. In the case of jitter, your calls stay online and you also have a backup that you can utilize.

5 Things To Consider When Choosing Your Cloud Telephony Provider 

When it comes to telephony, there are many providers offering cloud telephony services. As such, you should first prepare a plan that helps shortlist the ones that best suit your business goals. 

Here are a few tips to consider when selecting your cloud telephony provider:

• Technology requirements, integrations and features

First and foremost, you should assess which of your team’s requirements are essential. Start with the basics and then move on to your more advanced features.

You’ll want to make sure your system is equipped with basic calling functionality. This enables your day-to-day integrations to work well. Then assess whether your teams make or receive more calls. 

Keep your customer and employee’s immediate impact in mind. Then, you can set up clear objectives based on the daily challenges your cloud telephone system will resolve.

Ensure that your new system easily integrates with your CRM, platforms and project management tools, etc. You can even examine if your chosen cloud system has team-specific integrations like marketing automation platforms.

• Service Quality and SLA’s

Carefully examine the service level agreement (SLA) of your provider. You’ll want a supplier with a clearly outlined SLA that is tangible and unambiguous. As a result, you can then know who is responsible for different parts of your system maintenance. 

If your provider’s SLA appears too good to be true, then you should ask around. Try to find evidence or examples of your provider quickly resolving issues keeping in line with their SLA. 

Overall, just try to get the highest level of reliability from your cloud provider. Ideally, you’ll want an SLA that promises your business 99.999% uptime.

• Security and Compliance

Another important aspect is making sure that your provider values security. Check if they offer call encryption. This allows you to secure real-time transport protocol (SRTP) and transport layer security (TLS) to ensure enterprise-grade security.

Research how they store data and check for specific compliance needs following your own business needs. Your supplier should meet the global standard for security threat responses.

• Reputation and financial health

In these digital times, it’s easy to learn about the reputation of your potential partners. Look for unbiased customer reviews, testimonials and case studies to confirm that you’ve picked a reputable supplier. 

More importantly, you should also be informed about your provider’s financial health. This ensures that you can rely on them for a very long term. Additionally, it also establishes that they have a stable and strong foundation in place. 

• Vendor lock-in and migration support

Say you want to part ways with your provider in the future, for whatever reasons. In this case, you’ll want the process to be as quick and easy as possible. 

To avoid future complications, you should examine all lock-in clauses and details before committing to a supplier.

Conclusion

Overall, cloud telephony allows you to lower communication costs, boost productivity and improve your reliability. As such, choosing the right cloud telephony provider that’s best suited for your business is especially important.

Take your time to properly research and consider various different options. Keep in mind the different benefits of cloud telephony and how they can specifically help with your business efficiency. 

At a time when the majority of businesses are working remotely, you should consider incorporating a cloud telephony system. With our informative tips, you can definitely make the right decision to help grow and improve your business!