So it’s happened. Most businesses are now using hosted telephony, either through natural technology evolution or by necessity for those who hadn’t made the switch before the pandemic. Sure there’s a few hulking legacy systems rotting away in comms cabinets here and there but on the whole things seem to be moving in the right direction.
Like cloud computing, cloud telephony has been around for years but it’s only now that businesses are really seeing the differences. Pre-Covid, many companies saw the switch as a like for like replacement for their aging on premise phone system missing many of the more advanced features. This could be down to business owners being resistant to change, but probably more so, the laziness of telecoms providers. The new enhanced features mean additional configuration, increased customer interaction, a more complex sales process and project all of which result in resistance from the sales team to “muddy the waters” and complicate what would be otherwise be a quick and straightforward sale.
Now, providers and businesses are truly harnessing the technology and seeing the returns, mainly the more flexible nature of the service and the support it delivers to new hybrid ways of working. Beyond this we see more conference calls taking place, more video calling, Teams telephony integration, CRM integration allowing screen popping and click to dial, the list goes on…
With more sophisticated telephony, as well as more flexible working practices we see more efficient and productive workforces, companies able to collect more relevant information about their customers resulting in more strategic touchpoints and better CX results. We can interact with customers across multiple platforms such as chat, SMS, email, and social media across a range of use cases from handling service queries to e-commerce, and sales pipeline management.
As the pandemic forced the move of IT to the cloud, it’s also forced a more serious and 360 degree approach to the real benefits of VoIP, Hosted IP Telephony and Unified Communications.
This wave of tech allows businesses to ask the question, am I getting the right service for my business? Am I using it in the right way? Are we riding the wave of drive digital transformation and make our business easier to communicate and buy from?
If the answer to any of these questions is no or maybe, get in touch with us at CS Group and we’ll get involved.
