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Why is Cloud Telephony Ideal for Small Businesses

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What’s the quickest way to gather a first-impression of a business? By calling them up, of course. It will immediately tell you how dedicated that business is to customer service.


If you call up a business and you get a custom greeting messaging, and a system with which you can direct yourself to the right department, and seek the answers you’re looking for, you know that they genuinely care about helping their customers.


It used to be that only larger businesses with more resources could afford to setup a phone system that could do those things. But, with Cloud Telephony, any business – even small businesses – can have a professional system with everything from voicemail, to call routing, and much more.

 

What is Cloud Telephony?


Cloud telephony is a means for calling telephones using digital technology. With this technology, users don’t need to exclusively use a landline, or PSTN-connected device – they can use their mobile device, and even a laptop or desktop PC, provided it is connected to the internet.


Lots of businesses are converting to Cloud Telephony nowadays, due to its versatility and mobility. We spoke with a company that provides IT support services in London, and uses cloud telephony themselves. They have been a remote businesses since 2020, when they got rid of their offices; and without an office, they could not use a conventional PSTN phone system, so they converted to cloud telephony.

 

How Does It Work?


Most people are familiar with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN); it is the infrastructure that connects landline phones all over a nation, and all over the world. For a long time, business phone systems needed to be connected to this network. Not with Cloud Telephony, however.


Using a public cloud service, analog signals – in other words, your voice, spoken into a phone receiver or microphone – are converted into digital signals. The digital signal can then be transmitted over the internet and then converted back into an analog signal for the recipient to hear.


Let’s say an individual calls up a business using cloud telephony, below is a basic summary of the process:

·        The customer’s call is forwarded to a dedicated telephone line that connected with a cloud server.

 

·        The server then executes whichever function has been specified. For instance, it might initiate an Interactive Voice Response (IVR), or forward the call to a specific number, or a ring group.

 

·        If the function is to forward the call, for example, the cloud telephony server would then route the call to the appropriate agent.


What’s great about cloud telephony is that, while a call is in progress, other functions can be performed at the same time. While this is also true with conventional telephony, it is much more complicated and expensive to setup.

The kinds of functions that can be performed during an active call include call recording, or perhaps have the call interface with another application – for instance, an IT support company might use this function to deliver support via another app whilst they are on a call with a customer. All of this means that a business can provide a more efficient service for their customers during phone calls.

 

Why Cloud Telephony is Ideal for Small Businesses


As we have discussed above, the capabilities of cloud telephony are much easier and cheaper to enable, compared to if one was using a conventional PSTN-based phone system. As the majority of the Cloud Telephony infrastructure is management by a third-party provider (namely, a public cloud service provider, such as Microsoft, or RingCentral), the business using the phone system has very little setup to contend with.


As well as being very affordable, and easy to setup, there are additional benefits to Cloud Telephony. For example, the service can be scaled very easily. If a business’ workforce grows significantly, they don’t need to invest in adding to their phone infrastructure, purchasing new headsets and devices, etc. With Cloud Telephony, it really is as simple of paying to onboard additional users to the service – it couldn’t be easier to scale up.


Finally, one of the biggest benefits is the mobility you get. Cloud Telephony can be used via nearly any device connected to the internet, so professionals can take business calls whether they’re in the office, at home, or out and about.

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