The Evolution Of Cloud Telephony
Over the past decade, the increasing presence of digital technologies coupled with the all-pervading email and social media might have pushed traditional customer support to the backseat. But, surprisingly, the statistics show a different picture with a staggering 68% of all contact center communication being handled via phones and adding more credence to this fact, voice communication is expected to be the fastest-growing channel (72%) with web chat, email, and social media clearly lagging behind.
Phone calls are still the most popular and preferred medium for customer support across the globe while the new emerging technologies have slowly and significantly become an inherent factor in the telephone ecosystem instead of replacing it.
The Emergence Of Cloud Telephony
Today, businesses require connecting with people on the move and are the norm. Gaining more control over the conversation carried on by the people involved is something traditional phone systems couldn’t fathom about.
Cloud Telephony has evolved as the smartest way for enterprises to manage phone calls without compromising on price and quality. It provides the platform to integrate with all the other systems that an enterprise was using to provide a seamless customer engagement and experience.
How Does Cloud Telephony Work?
Cloud Telephony harnesses the power of cloud computing by hosting a soft switch or phone system( with the advent of SIP trunks and VOIP, traditional telephony hardware has become redundant) along with applications like IVRS, ACD, call recording, data analytics and live monitoring, collectively known as “Contact Centre Platform” on powerful cloud servers from service providers such like Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud and others, to provide easy-to-manage, affordable, and unified communications systems for SME and large enterprises.
The increasing need for cloud telephony is no more limited to big players in the market and now is open to anybody, anywhere. Its service has proved to be time-saving, productive and the best means to cut costs for SMEs including Startups.
In short, cloud telephony gives enterprises a “big company” experience on a budget.
Innovation For Evolving Business Models
From a simple technology to empower businesses, power customer communication, and engagement, has today come a long way. Cloud telephony, with its powerful and innovative adaptations, has evolved far beyond its expectations.
Cloud-based contact center or telephony service providers such as Amazon Connect, five 9's, Vonage, Twilio, Nice InContact and so on offer services that have transformed the industry. However, the ecosystem is still evolving and requires further innovation to address real-world problems and concerns like data security, complying with local government regulations, seamless integration with other third party applications, licensing and remote management.
Closing The Gaps In Cloud Telephony
As more and more enterprises move their office communication and customer care infrastructure to the cloud, an ecosystem of cloud telephony is fast evolving to meet the demand. Big brands like Amazon Connect, Microsoft office 365, Twilio, Nice InContact, Vonage and similar service providers are vying for the leadership position in this space, some of them leveraging on their existing data centre infrastructure.
Parallelly, a marketplace consisting of SaaS companies offering business applications like CRM, Lead management system, digital marketing and broadcasting services is piggybacking on these large cloud players to address the complex business requirements of enterprises. However, there are a few critical gaps in this evolving ecosystem when it comes to key technology modules that are missing in the preferred price range, which can make cloud telephony both competitive and effective in comparison to conventional on-premise telephony solutions.
Epicode's "Cloud Telephony Enablers" with products such as IraDialer, IraCPA and IraLicense are designed to address some of these gaps. For more information click here
The Future Of Cloud Telephony
The advent of these API-based middleware products in conjunction with service providers will transform the cloud telephony landscape into a unified platform and leave no stone unturned in achieving maximum customer satisfaction.
The roadmap for businesses seeking to deploy cloud telephony looks promising and has the potential to be the liaison in every strategy of enterprises involving customer support and engagement.