The internet is constantly buzzing with what the cloud can accomplish and its evolution.
The enormous popularity is due to its excellent advantages, such as flexibility, scalability, reliability, and affordability, which have been important factors in business adoption of the cloud.
Cloud-based business phone system is an important component of cloud strategy. Cloud telephony helps streamline and optimize critical business processes. Employees are now significantly less likely to be in the workplace, especially since 2020.
Today’s professionals will spend time working from home, clients’ offices, or cafes, as well as on the go. So it’s a high time for replacing the plain old telephony system and move to the cloud.
But what are things you need to consider while choosing a cloud telephony service for business? To find that out, stick till the very end!
What is Cloud telephony?
Cloud telephony is a virtually hosted technology that transforms a traditional phone system into a cloud-based phone system.
Every call that your company receives is routed through Cloud Servers. All vital data, such as customer databases, can be stored in the cloud and accessed at any time using a mobile device or a web browser.
Cloud telephony is a telephony system, which builds, operates, and maintains standardized phone platform solutions on its servers. In this type of phone system, the clients get remote access through the internet.
You can make consumer calls using a web browser or a mobile app using a cloud-based phone system. It allows you to easily handle inbound and outgoing calls with your customers.
Whether you decide to go cloud or not, you’ll need to do a lot of studies. You’ll be able to make smarter decisions equipped with this knowledge of what you can do and what you should avoid.
Things to do while choosing cloud telephony services
How will you choose the right service provider for your business with so many alternatives?
When choosing a cloud computing company, there are a few things to consider.
Here are a few crucial things to address before selecting a cloud service provider.
1. Gather more information
Even if you’ve moved to the cloud and the vendor handles everything, it’ll help your organization if you’re informed of technology trends.
This will assist you in making well-informed judgments and developing superior plans to propel your company forward. Attend cloud computing conferences, seminars, and workshops as much as possible.
2. Double Check on its Quality and Reliability
You’ll begin by deciding on a platform and then looking for providers who can offer it. Since call quality is so important in telephony, you need to look for companies that can deliver a premium voice network.
In order check its reliability and quality, you can request a free trial. You can also look at the reviews dropped by the customers on the various review sites. If you get a satisfactory result while cross-checking its quality and reliability, you can make a decision accordingly.
3. Ensure the system is safe and secure
Security is always the matter of utmost concern in a cloud telephony service. So when choosing a cloud service provider, you must examine several security risks to your data, customer and employee identities, apps, and devices.
The sensitivity of your data will influence your risk tolerance level, but any provider you select should at the very least provide encryption, firewalls, antivirus detection, and user authentication.
Things to Know:
- i. Antivirus detection: What methods are used to detect dangers (e.g., behavioral-based scanning)? Is it updated regularly? Is there a high number of false positives?
- ii. Encryption: Is data automatically encrypted before leaving the cloud services facility at the physical layer?
4. Customer Support
Support is also crucial to remember once the service is up and running. Is the service provider available 24 hours?
Do they promise a specific response time? If you’re a multinational corporation, do you want a provider with global operations that can provide local support?
It’s also crucial to consider the ease and availability of reporting issues, so inquire about phone, email, and live chat support options. You might also inquire about your provider’s typical response and resolution times.
5. Pricing Structure
Because you only pay for the resources you use, cloud computing is a great way to save money. However, before deciding on cloud migration, have a look at how much money you’re currently spending on your current working plan.
Also, because cloud computing pricing varies a lot, be sure you know how and for what you’ll be charged.
Inquire about setup fees and the possibility to add services as needed. Will you bill hourly, monthly, semi-annually, or annually for your services?
6. Check out the feedback from customers:
Companies make claims about customer satisfaction and usability every day, but these statements aren’t wholly true.
Should constantly check customer feedback against company claims. You’ll be able to obtain a quick product summary, complete with a list of features and consumer comments, thanks to customer reviews.
Things to avoid while choosing cloud telephony services
1. Don’t be too picky
There’s nothing wrong with utilizing both the private and public cloud simultaneously. However, conduct a thorough examination of the cloud security concerns that are commonplace.
That isn’t to say you have to be overly picky. While security is crucial while transferring programs, don’t forget to create numerous backups to ensure you don’t lose any data. When it comes to cloud storage and hosting, though, you must be picky.
2. Don’t move too many apps to the cloud
Hundreds of programs, data, and documents may need to be migrated to the cloud in some cases. While it may be tempting to relocate them all at once, this is not a good idea.
Certain applications require significant adjustments, and making all of them before migrating would be prohibitively expensive.
3. Transferring everything to the cloud isn’t a good idea
It’s great to have a new functioning database, but it doesn’t mean you have to shift all of your information to cloud storage.
You may need to save certain files for various reasons, including security and efficiency. Your chief technology specialist can advise you on what to migrate and what not to migrate.
Benefits of Cloud Telephony
Cloud telephony is a good solution for almost any organization. A cloud-based phone system provides various benefits for enterprises, which is why so many of them are quickly adopting it.
So, let’s look more closely at cloud telephony’s advantages.
1. Cost-Efficiency
Not only can cloud telephony save you time, but it also saves you money. The conventional landline phone system, unlike its modern version, requires costly gear, installation, and upkeep.
There’s nothing like long-term fixed deals with a cloud-based telephony solution. It’s all about flexible payment arrangements.
2. High Scalability
When you engage in a Cloud Telephony phone company system, you will no longer have to pay extra today for the possibility of needing more later. The system enables you to purchase a scalable solution deployed across several platforms and environments.
Cloud systems are built to scale to meet the organization’s future demands as they arise. You can edit users, add auto attendants to the system, and create ring groups and campaigns when your business requires it.
3. Reliability and Resilience
Traditional telephone systems can be severely damaged by natural calamities such as cyclones, floods, and earthquakes, while cloud systems are unaffected.
Cloud storage, in reality, keeps information safe and accessible from anywhere. Whatever occurs, you can rest assured that your business will continue to operate.
4. Updating constantly
When you host your business phone system on the cloud, you eliminate the risk of it becoming obsolete over time.
The advancements occurring in the technology domain specific to your organization are updated in your specific communication system through a good hosted solution.
This independence from manually updating your business phone system all of the time allows you to focus on other business processes without being distracted.
5. Extra features are available.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR), call recording, call monitoring, voicemail, real-time analytics, call scheduling, and many other features are available in the cloud.
Final Thought
Hopefully, this article will have clarified the things to consider while choosing cloud telephony for business.
Now that you’ve learned about cloud telephony and what it can do for your company, there’s only one thing left for you to do: Your company’s phone system will be moved to the cloud.
