Cloud telephony services enable users to place calls directly from any computer or mobile device with an internet connection and free businesses from the burden of buying and storing stand-alone hardware, like PBX boxes and handsets.
While somewhat fluid, the term cloud telephony typically denotes a multi-tenant access model, with subscribers paying to use a provider’s pool of commoditised, shared resources. In contrast, hosted telephony usually refers to a dedicated, segregated environment — essentially, an off-site PBX — that a major carrier builds, houses and maintains in its cloud for a single organisation’s use.
Cloud telephony functioning is no different from the traditional way, the primary distinguishing factor between the two is – former is located on the premise of the customer/business itself and latter is installed over service provider’s premises which is accessible through the cloud network.
When a customer dials the call — it is first redirected to the Hosted Public Branch Exchange(PBX) on the cloud. This transfer of data is made through a Primary Rate Interface (PRI) line which is connected to the telephony server with a PRI card (PRI line is a telecommunication standard used on an ISDN to carry voice, video, data, and other network services between the user and the network).
This hosted PBX (which is provided by the service provider) stores the important phone numbers and information to decide routing structure for every call. All your office phone extension is connected to the hosted PBX, so every phone call landing on PBX decides it’s best suitable agent after browsing through these the set priorities in the system.
PBX can even block specific calls — if the service provider or customer explicitly sets it in the rules. Once the server decides the best-suited agent for the request, it immediately connects the customer and the agent over the phone line.
Call transfer between the agents is comparatively a faster process as all the agents are connected to the same umbrella of hosted PBX.
Cloud telephony provides the facility to maintain and manage the entire business communications infrastructure in the cloud. In contrast, business telephones, smartphones, tablets, and computers let users access these services from wherever they are located.
Unlike old PBX telephony, this technology doesn’t require dedicated hardware to be installed at user premises.
Cloud telephony works on virtual numbers, and all the incoming and outgoing calls are stored in a dashboard
Its web application interface has a specific set of commands to perform predefined actions (playing voice file, Music on Hold, send Auto reply SMS. Record, etc.). This lets you analyse calls for better communication.
What are the components of cloud telephony and its flow of calls?
Published phone number (Incoming)
This can be a Mobile number or a Toll-Free number. This is the number where your customers call. Actually, both these numbers are virtual numbers. This number is used just to forward the incoming calls to one of the PRI lines in the data centre (cloud). The third option can be a PRI number from the Cloud setup. However, this is very seldom used.
Cloud Telephony Servers with lots of PRI lines (process)
These cloud-based servers are capable of Call Recording, IVR, reporting, API and lots of other functionalities. This is typically hosted in some reliable Data-Centers. These data centres have good infrastructure and redundant connectivity.
The calls to the published number actually get forwarded to these PRI lines.
The call distribution is done either based on some rules predefined or the basis of Caller Input for the IVR. There can be one more way of call distribution which based on real-time CRM lookup. E.g., You have two separate teams for regular customers and platinum customers.
When the calls come, Telephony server checks with your CRM whether the caller is a regular customer or Platinum customer. Calls are routed to the respective team accordingly. Extensions or landing numbers or Agent Numbers (landing the calls). These are the numbers where the call actually lands. These are also called Agent Numbers. These numbers can be mobile numbers of your Team Members or your office landline numbers.
Cloud Telephony providers like Enjay also provide Hunting number facility. If one Agent is not available, the system will dial another number.
The flow of Incoming Calls
Your customers call on the Published Number. The call is forwarded to the PRI lines on Cloud Telephony Server. Servers will play the IVR if it is configured that way. Then the server calls Agents (or extensions), according to Call Distribution logic. E.g., According to selection in the IVR by the caller; According to pre-set Call Distribution logic done on the cloud server; Connects the Caller and the Agent.
While doing all these things:
- Call gets recorded
- Telephony API communicates with your CRM (if required).
- After the call, you get an SMS notification.
The flow of Outgoing Calls
Outgoing is less frequently used in Cloud Telephony. One of the reasons is that it requires two calls. This makes it costly for outgoing calls. Secondly, it is a little slower process.
Further, Outgoing calls are generally done from a software like CRM (or a dialer). Agent Clicks on the dial icon on the CRM software. CRM software sends the API signal to Cloud Telephony Servers.
The server calls the agent first. When an agent picks up the call, the server dials the customer. Both are bridged.
Why should business go for cloud telephony?
Businesses can utilise multiple features to fasten their everyday processes and profit-making. Still, there are few key features of the cloud telephony services which makes it the best communication mode for the business:
Voicemail
Voicemail is a method of storing voice messages electronically. This feature is particularly beneficial in the cases where all the agents are busy on other line or are unavailable due to different reasons. The message is stored as a voice recording on the local storage — which is later retrieved by the agents and responded to.
Call Forwarding
This feature allows the business owner or agents to remain available for the calls— in case they are not physically present in the office. You can utilise the cloud services to forward the incoming calls to your number. Store a list of forwarding numbers in the system to automatically forward your calls to those numbers according to the set priority. The caller remains untouched by the whole forwarding process.
Automatic Attendant
Interactive Voice Response (IVR), is a smart feature which helps the business to automatically attend/answer the call with a recorded greeting message. The automatic attendant replaces the manual task of attending and transferring the calls. This feature saves a lot of human costs which used to be spent on hiring a dedicated resource to attend the incoming calls.
Call Recording and Monitoring
Once the business is set up, the next step lies in the maintenance, which can only be achieved by constantly monitoring your processes. Call recording is one such facility which allows business to record every incoming and outgoing call depending upon the business requirement. This feature helps both the customers and the business in maintaining the authenticity of the conversation and the business processes.
Ease of Use with Desktop, Web and Mobile Applications
To utilise all the above features, an interface is provided by the cloud service provider. To expand the usage and flexibility of use, this interface is easily accessible through the desktop and web platforms. Many service providers have now developed apps for easy accessibility of services for the agents. With mobile apps, agents/admins can at any time access and monitor their calls on their fingertips.
Integration With Other Systems
There are many cloud telephony software which adds value to cloud telephony processes by providing the integration flexibility. You can integrate your CRM, industry-specific management system or other software into your cloud telephony systems to maximise your usage.
Who can use Cloud Telephony?
Start-up
Start-ups face a lot of trouble setting up the Call management system . And the major issue is the cost for setting up such systems. Also, a Missing call can be a loss of business for any rising start-up
With the help of cloud telephony solution, they can cut down the communication cost by 80%.
It will also give them a chance to use fewer resources on calls as all the calls are captured and stored in a dashboard: no missing calls and no missing customers.
Small Business
Small businesses are losing a lot of customers with old EPBX lines because of telecom outages. And there is no fixed time when the lines will start working again.
Cloud telephony uses a robust infrastructure and no fixed lines. So customer communication is always up and running.
Small businesses can increase their customer base with the help of cloud telephony and avail a big brand image by setting up a company greeting when a customer is calling.
By using virtual phone numbers in conjunction with your regular phone system to give your business a presence in cities and countries other than the one, you call home.
And when the customer base is getting bigger. Easily manage large incoming traffic and extend your business without any further cost.
Big enterprises
Customer experience is a major concern for Big Enterprises. Cloud telephony can improve the customer experience for the brands as it has all the features of call transfer, call conferencing, cloud call centre setup.
Brands can easily analyse customer communication and take steps to improve it. With the help of a smart dashboard, they can easily measure an agent’s performance on the calls. Cloud telephony can be easily integrated with CRM, so it makes it easy for brands to analyse consumer behaviour and keep all the records for future conversations.
Enterprises can switch to Cloud call centre and set up calling the facility at multiple locations with one centralised operation centre.
Government Organisations
It is always complicated to reach any government contact centre. As it is not having one particular number and even people get confused about where to call. Telecom lines in government organisations are never working courtesy of old infrastructure.
Cloud telephony can be a saviour for both government organisations and people. With no heavy investment, these departments can implement a clean call management system.
By using one virtual number with multiple extensions can ease the process of complaint management. Calls can be transferred to the respective department and respective agents. Cloud telephony can be a revolution in government organisations.
Which sectors are already using it?
- Finance
- Automobile
- Education
- Tours & Travel
- IT industry
- Consultancy
- Agriculture
- Customer Service sector
- Heath/Hospital
- Hospitality
- Entertainment / Media
- Advertisement/ Marketing
- Government sectors
- NGO
How does Cloud Telephony add business value?
Cost becomes an integral part of the business. With Cloud telephony, many redundant costs can be reduced to a bare minimum.
Cloud-based telephony solutions are agile. They can adapt to the ever-changing requirements of the business. It allows businesses to lower expenses by eliminating the need for multiple vendors and network connectivity providers. Cloud-based telephony providers implement new features and provide platform/system updates from time-to-time that are managed centrally. These updates make your cloud telephony system more seamless. The changes happen in real-time without disturbing your workday and effective immediately.
As seen earlier, with traditional PBX systems, the equipment must be installed and maintained by the enterprise. Businesses must provide external voice lines or SIP trunks. But with the cloud telephony solution, the applications and management of the whole system reside with the cloud telephony service provider.
These Cloud telephony service providers allow elastic scale and provide good SLAs without the worry of licenses and regulations which traditional systems bring with them.
Businesses achieve cost savings through cloud telephony by paying only for the services used. Pay-as-you model is beneficial for start-ups who always face a cash crunch.
Cloud telephony solutions also enable reducing staff, automating processes, eliminating costly voice lines, long-distance contracts that are typical of traditional PBX methods.
What’s the Difference Between Cloud Telephony and PBX?
We touched a little in the intro on the differences between cloud telephony and a more traditional PBX system. Let’s expand on those points now.
First Tier of IaaS Services
Infrastructure as a service or IaaS is a means of cloud computing. If you’ve heard of the platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS), it belongs in the same family. IaaS deals more with the cloud.
IaaS services don’t vary too much from what we described in the prior section. Instead of providing networking and storage hardware, their own servers, and a data centre onsite for themselves, a business using IaaS services doesn’t have to do any of that. The cloud service provider does it all for them.
Compare that to a traditional PBX system. Someone using that system does have to provide networking and storage hardware, servers, and a data centre. Otherwise, their telephony system doesn’t work. The amount of time, money, and effort an endeavour like this can cost makes cloud telephony infinitely more appealing.
No Single-Server Cluster Use
Then there’s the matter of the servers themselves. If you know anything about cloud computing, you’re aware that when you save your data to the cloud, it goes to a dedicated server. The same is true of cloud telephony. The larger your company or, the more calls you make and receive, the greater your server needs.
That’s why, in cloud telephony, service providers will never limit you at just a single server. You’ll have several clusters for storing and accessing data in real-time. This goes back to the point we made in the last section about scalability. Using cloud telephony gives you that freedom to grow your business. You know you’ll have a phone system that will grow as you do.
With a PBX phone system, that’s not nearly as true. First, we have to assume you have an IP PBX system that’s using some Internet capability. Otherwise, you probably don’t have a server at all.
Since you’re not using a cloud service provider, all the servers you rely on will come from your own budget. Some IP PBX systems can get by on a single server, but what if you want to expand your business? You or someone in your company would have to shell out for a new server, and then maybe even another one after that. This gets expensive in a hurry. Also, you need the room to house these servers, which you may not have.
All that means you limit your company’s growth potential unless you move to cloud telephony.
The Freedom to Receive Calls from Almost Anywhere
While IP PBX has video calls, voice calls, and more, you don’t get as much calling freedom. As we discussed earlier, with cloud telephony, you can set it up, so calls get forwarded to your number from around the world.
This makes your company look like you have a global reach. You can also expand your customer base since you can take all the calls that come to you. How’s that beneficial?
Reduces or Eliminates the Need for Other Phone Lines
With its hands-off approach, many integrations, and awesome latency, there’s little need for additional phone lines with cloud telephony. You can set up and then add on if needed by using several servers. Cutting down on phone lines saves your company money. Isn’t that what any business wants at the end of the day?
Should You Use Cloud Telephony?
While it’s your choice, if you have a company of any size destined to grow, we think it’s smart to use cloud telephony. You can cut down on extraneous phone line costs, for starters. You can also take more calls and use less hardware while you do so.
Also, it’s 2019. As we mentioned before, many people consider cloud telephony cutting-edge. Upgrading sooner than later will help your company run more efficiently and modernly.
Which companies provide cloud telephony services? The following companies specialise in cloud telephony:
- GenVoice Telecom
- PingMe
- WePhone
How does IaaS work?
To use IaaS for your business, you first need a wide area network or WAN. The Internet is considered a WAN, by the way. Then, with the services from your cloud provider, you can add databases, middleware, and more via an application stack.
When you sign in to your IaaS platform of choice, you make virtual machines that house storage buckets, databases, and other middleware. Two such examples of IaaS services are the Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services.
Are there free cloud phone systems?
If you’re a start-up or a small business that’s tight on money, you’ll want to cut corners where you can. For instance, can you get cloud telephony services for free?
Several free cloud-based services do exist, yes. One of these is PingMe. This phone system designed for entrepreneurs and small businesses uses your smartphone in the cloud. You’ll get your own local number (for free). You can also get a business number with six extensions.
If you want to add world calling credits, remove ads, transfer a local toll-free number or local number, or get a new phone number, you’d have to pay. In that regard, PingMe isn’t totally free. Very few if any cloud phone systems are, at least completely. It’s better to pay so you can ensure higher quality service.
Cloud telephony is a cloud-based means of making, forwarding, and receiving phone calls. You can customise the scope of your services, and you can take calls from many locations worldwide.
Since you don’t provide the hardware, servers, or data centre yourself, you have lots of room for growth with a cloud telephony system. That’s not as true if you’re still using PBX. You must pay for your own hardware and equipment in that case. Scalability becomes an issue as well since it’s tough to accommodate for future growth.
If you’re frustrated with your current phone system, we’d recommend moving to cloud-based telephony. It can save money, increase customer satisfaction, and help you upgrade to a new, scalable option.