Things to keep in mind when choosing a Cloud telephony platform (Must Read)
Things to keep in mind when choosing a Cloud telephony platform
More and more businesses are choosing Cloud platforms over on-premise setups. With cloud telephony, there’s no infrastructure CAPEX costs involved, and it's highly flexible and scalable. This makes it an ideal fit both SMEs and enterprise businesses. As a business once they start looking within the market, there are many platforms to settle on from.
So, the matter is how can one find the simplest cloud telephony platform that's the proper fit their business? The aim of this guide is to assist guide you through an inventory of parameters you ought to evaluate cloud telephony against, so you'll find the one that matches your business goals the simplest.
1. Is the service provider DOT licensed or not?
DOT means Department of Telecoms — Govt. of India which offers multiple licenses when it involves Cloud Telephony licensing. There are many vendors in India which supply 2 leg calling as cloud telephony as admin panel is cloud based. But pure cloud telephony involves calling from mobile application to a PSTN number or vice versa. For example — Imagine you call a landline or mobile number from WhatsApp or Microsoft Teams.
2. What are the platform capabilities?
There’s a step zero that we'd like to tackle before we get into the question about the platform’s capabilities. As a business you should list down what you wish to achieve using cloud telephony for your business. While you may skip this part, We would recommend brainstorming your requirements or challenges together with your team. Our recommendation would be to narrow down your requirements as clearly as possible to assist any service provider to understand your requirements ticking all the boxes.
For example, if your issues are as follows —
Routing sales calls (In and out of office hours)
Routing support calls (In and out of office hours)
Measuring Customer satisfaction
Identifying ROI of specific campaigns
Getting updates of missed calls
Sending updates to customers (Order or service updates)
Does the solution offer call recordings?
If the CRM you are using for your business can be integrated with Cloud Telephony?
Does the platform allow sending SMS or WhatsApp?
The more detailed your requirements are, the better it will be for you to gauge the correct platform. It is also important to know your requirements from a futuristic perspective. For instance, if you anticipate your sales or support teams to grow within the foreseeable future, it's important to factor that in also. This may certainly change the dynamics of how well the platform can serve you also.
3. How reliable is that the platform?
When it involves communication, reliability is everything. Most cloud telephony platforms are transparent in sharing their uptime. For instance, one operator uptimes range around 99.5% and second shows around 99.99%. Realistically, no communication platform can promise you 100% uptime since it depends on lots of other factors like data centers, Internet connectivity, Phone lines, etc.
4. Are you able to do a POC before making a decision?
As a user, POC (proof of concept) or test period may be a good way of exploring a service. It provides the reliability and functionalities of the service without the financial risk. Try to make the foremost of the platform by creating communication flows and testing within the POC period. This may assist you to understand the capabilities of the service and whether it’s the proper fit of your requirements.
Here are a couple of points to make the most of POC period —
Make sure to spend enough time exploring the platform. Make sure you spend time on the features and platform capabilities that directly impact your business. Request a 1:1 demo. A demo may be a quick way of understanding about features. It also allows you to clarify your doubts.
5. How easy is to set up and migrate from another platform?
A cloud telephone system should be effortless to set up and manage. This offer advantages over an on-premise solution. Ideally, you ought to be ready to start without having to spend days thereon.
Here are some questions that you simply can ask yourself:
Does this platform need a specialist to provision and maintain?
How easy it's to integrate with your existing applications like your CRM, Helpdesk, Web apps or mobile apps?
Was the knowledge domain helpful in understanding the product?
Are the APIs clearly documented?
In case you have already got a cloud telephony setup and are looking to replace the platform, understand how this will can be achieved with minimal disruption.
6. How secure is your data on the platform?
Customer communication involves sensitive customer information. Hence, it’s vital to know if the safety of the platform is robust enough to guard your data.
Here’s what you must check before signing up for any cloud telephony platform:
Security certifications —
Does the platform adhere to industry standards of security?
ISO certifications and GDPR compliance are often an honest start line. Just in case your industry requires certain security parameters, please make sure that you check about those also.
2FA Authentication for accounts —
To stop any unauthorized login Network Encryption (TLS 1 and above) to assist you protect the info in transit Audit.
Logging and Monitoring —
Helps you understand who’s accessing your platform
Data backup and Recovery plan —
To stop any loss of data and learn about the safety features of the cloud telephony platform.
7. How does pricing structure work?
Most of the Cloud Telephony platforms pricing structure is SaaS (Software as a service) where you pay for what you use. It’s important to understand the pricing, in case their pricing details aren't publicly available, make sure to ask if any hidden charges. Pricing differs for various platforms.
Note — At Telecoms Supermarket India, we offer unbiased and transparent advise for Cloud Telephony to our customers. Call us today to understand more.
Also read - Why businesses need Cloud PBX?
