As most of you already know, the former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin has joined Exotel as a mentor and angel investor. Arun is a telecommunications veteran and served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Group from 2003-2008. His career began in 1984 at...
Since March 2020, businesses have rapidly adopted cloud telephony to enable remote work. When customer-facing teams can no longer come to the office, organisations needed a solution that can enable them to receive calls on their mobile devices at home — securely and efficiently. Cloud telephony met this need.
However, this is only the most basic function that this technology can perform. Organisations can gain at least eight more benefits from adopting cloud telephony. Here they are –
1. Markedly better than EPABX systems
Quick to install, easy to use: Unlike a PBX system that comes with a tangle of wires, telephones, switches and routers, cloud telephony needs only an internet connection. You can use your existing landline or mobile devices to make calls. Set up takes less than an hour, where EPABX systems would take days.
No infrastructure required: Exotel maintains the cloud servers and takes responsibility for uninterrupted service. So, you spend less time running the infrastructure and more time using it.
Seamless integration with existing software: If your teams are used to working from the dashboards within an existing CRM or ERP software, Exotel’s cloud telephony solution can simply be integrated into it using APIs. We also have custom integrations with popular helpdesk and CRM tools like Freshdesk, Zoho, and more. This way, an employee can also ‘click to call’ customers directly from the application, without dialling their number each time.
Simple ways to make instant changes: You can make changes like adding or removing agents instantly, reflecting changes on-the-go, with no downtime.
2. Enterprise-grade communication for all teams
A significant part of work in various industries is done by field staff. Today, most field staff use their own mobile phones to make calls. Some of them maintain two mobile devices to separate work from personal calls. While this is not only inefficient, it is also unsecured and undocumented.
With cloud telephony, everyone in your organisation who needs to interact with customers can have access to the technology they need: Field sales agents, logistics and delivery personnel, pop-up shops and promotions teams, events teams etc. These calls too can be tracked, monitored and recorded with cloud telephony.
3. More than just calls
Cloud telephony can support marketing initiatives beyond calls. Exotel lets you set up missed call campaigns and SMS marketing, which have proved to be popular engagement tools in India. It also supports paid advertising with channel or campaign-specific virtual numbers, which you can use to measure performance.
4. Quality communication, at scale
Whether you’re a small business, startup or a global MNC, you can leverage cloud telephony to consistently deliver high voice quality and reduced latency. As your organisation scales, there is no need to buy ‘bigger’ infrastructure as the cloud platform can easily be scaled to accommodate any number of agents.
In fact, you can also easily upscale for seasonal needs — during sale times or festivals — and scale down when done, without investing heavily in infrastructure.
5. Increased productivity
When the tools improve, employees invariably get more work done. Cloud telephony removes operational obstacles in a few ways.
It saves employee time
Field agents no longer need to retrieve customer data and manually enter it into their mobile phones. With cloud telephony, the agent can make a one-click-call from within your ERP/CRM.
It ensures timely activity
Triggered action notifications for leads or inbound calls help in overcoming the human tendencies of forgetting to follow up or getting overwhelmed by long to-call lists, which affect productivity.
Improve conversion rates
Sales teams can reduce the delay in responding to leads by automating follow up, and improve pick-up rates with a dynamic caller ID.
It automates repetitive processes
A ‘virtual receptionist’ can greet customers and conduct a first-level screening of a customer’s problem, after which, the ‘automatic call distributor’ can route them to the right person.
6. Better data security
If you’ve believed that the cloud is not secure, allow us to debunk that myth for you:
1. At Exotel, we make sure that our cloud telephony system follows best-in-class security practices across asset, network and infrastructure monitoring.
2. Exotel is ISO 27001:2013 certified.
3. Exotel complies with all the legal and regulatory requirements of the geographies we’re operational in.
4. To comply with data protection laws that some of the sectors like BFSI mandates, we ensure that data in transit and at rest stays within the country.
5. When you use Exotel, all calls are made through a virtual number. Our number-masking system ensures that even your organisation’s own staff will not have access to your customer’s data, protecting their privacy.
7. Better visibility into day-to-day operations
Cloud telephony automatically captures operational data such as call volumes, channels of inbound calls, the timing of calls, response times of agents, duration of calls, the average number of calls each employee makes etc., in addition to recording all calls.
This enables operations leaders to monitor SLA compliance, make data-driven strategic decisions, monitor and train employees, as well as maintain records in case of customer disputes later.
Automatic updates
Being an internet-based service, cloud telephony constantly upgrades itself. This means that you get best-in-class communication tech always and are never in the danger of infrastructure turning obsolete. Exotel also informs you of product updates in simple terms, so that you can make sure new features are put to good use.
Stay competitive in the post-pandemic world with Exotel
The pandemic has expedited the adoption of cloud telephony among Indian businesses. At Exotel, we’ve enabled dozens of organisations to work remotely, leveraging cloud telephony. Yet, if there is one thing we notice often, it is that many organisations stop at using cloud telephony for calls.
Given how much more it can do, it’s time to see beyond the obvious. To find out how your business can use Exotel, set up a call with us today.
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