It all began back in 2008, when Google stepped into cloud services and started hosting their services at very feasible prices to start-ups. This in turn, paved the way for many startups to adopt and render cloud based services at affordable prices to small medium enterprises (SMEs). That’s one of the recognisable milestones in the history of cloud services.
Though there were reputed players in the industry prior to Google, offering their cloud services, they weren’t feasible for the start-ups to afford them. So, when Google started providing the services at feasible scopes, usage of cloud communication drastically increased.
Increase in the use of cloud services has opened wings to transition of voice and Messaging based services to cloud, opening up doors for scalability, security and ease of access.
Let’s look into how voice based cloud services revolutionised the communication industry:
1. Multi Language Support
Voice based cloud solutions are the incomparable platforms that provide seamless support through multiple languages. 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 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 Punjabi or Kannada, the calls are routed to respective departments and queries are resolved subsequently.
2. 24/7 Availability
What’s most unique feature about voice-based telephony service is that, the functionality is available and accessible 24/7. Even if the customer care teams work for fixed office hours, there are several options through which you can provide alternatives to customers. Like recording the voice message and once the representatives are back to work, they can initiate call back. Emergency supports through emails are also alternative options that can resolve customer queries during non-working hours. Contrary to this, if the teams work 24/7, routing the calls is just cakewalk.
3. Reliability
Scalability
The Voice based cloud services are highly scalable. Most of the voice-based cloud solutions come with real time analytics making it easier, to take simple, realistic and accurate decisions that drive business and revenues.
The real time analytics help you track features like duration of the calls, missed calls and more reliable features that will help understand the customer behaviour.
Flexibility
The cloud based voice solutions are flexible and can create the voice flow as per your requirement. The Voice flow can have 10 different transactions recorded in a flow (or even more) or just a simple two level flow. It’s all up to the business requirements. This high-end customisation enables easier communication between the agent and customer.
Security
Security is kept in check as the voice services are hosted on a cloud platform. As the cloud services pitched in, the clutter of space availability and storage are long gone!
4. Personalised interactions
One of the open source reasons underlying the success of cloud-based voice solutions are the level of personalised interactions. There’s nothing more comfortable than a person personally addressing a problem and finding a feasible solution. Also, the solutions in most of the cases are instant and doesn’t need hours of waiting.
5. Ease of access
The ease of access is undeniably one of the most preferred reasons of customers opting for cloud telephony. All you have to do is call on the given number. Since the numbers are toll-free the usual call charges do not apply. What more? The best part is the advancement in the call features; with features like “Sticky agent”, the call is routed to the same representative who addressed the problem initially. This makes it easier for the customer to follow up in case of unresolved queries. “Smart Dialling” is a feature that enables the IVR to connect to the representatives in chronological sequence, or to non-engaged representatives.
The Inference: Finding key takeaways
With technology throwing its trump cards, cloud telephony is pitching the right services making the conversations between the agent and the customer, simple, light and meaningful and hence gaining the customer trust, which is the key to drive any business.
(Author is Aniketh Jain, CEO & Co-Founder of Solutions Infini)
Source: Sunday Gaurdian Live
