Mobilize With Virtual Telephony

Business has moved a long way from its traditional form. The place of business or work is no more restricted to a single location. Technology has not only eased our work but it has also made it more flexible, efficient and effective, and most importantly accessible at all times. Today we have the luxury of working from anywhere other than work place either from multiple sites or even from home and yet be more efficient and productive. This is because of cloud telephony, cloud based unified communications which delivers automated telephone applications to any phone, at any place and any time. Cloud telephony, the latest innovation in the VoIP segment has made tele-commuting a reality which is also quick, easy and affordable for any size of business.

Does your employees' nature of work involve spending at least 30% of their time away from desk? Then it is apt to consider the deployment of cloud based unified communications. Cloud telephony gives an option of creating a consistent communications experience across multiple devices using wireless or wired connections. It employs a range of mobile devices viz smart phones, tablet PCs, laptops, etc, to do their work. It may also have an interface with a variety of connectivity methods, including WiFi, wired connections in hotels or at the office and 3G. It will also help in eliminating costs, responsibilities and risks of ownership of traditional premise-based phone systems. Liberating workers from cubicles potentially means that more will get done and better customer service will be delivered. The basic concept of cloud telephony is a virtual telephony solution which extends advanced features and services typically associated with a PBX.

A few cloud telephony applications include virtual call center (it can be accessed anywhere within a few minutes), hosted IVR (interactive voice response phone system using web forms), voice broadcasting (this is an automated application which records a message), call tracking (once it is activated, it will help in running real-time reports with details about calls) and store locator (this will route calls to a nearest place either store or franchise). It helps it tracking calls received from a newspaper ad, TV commercial or pay-per-click campaign, with the option to customize how you greet and route each caller. A businessman can confirm scheduled delivery time of goods or to reschedule by conversing with a live agent automatically. It is a sophisticated and specialized application which enables to update databases, initiate calls, manage contest voting, update or query databases and much more without the need to purchase specialized equipment or capacity.

Each and every business be it small, medium, large, public or private follows a sole agenda pf maximizing working capital and minimizing total cost of ownership, for this a key technology to increase efficiency and profitability is to adopt service based offerings, mobility and unified communications ie, cloud telephony. This type of solution is represented in a single, unified inbox that eliminates missed phone calls, faxes and e-mail messages. This will aid workers regain 30 or more minutes each day in time that would otherwise be lost in looking for information or attempting to contact colleagues and customers. It will assist to track down and engage the specialist that can best meet customers' needs, drawing on a geographically distributed pool of specialists.

There are a few challenges though-firstly, at times it is difficult to manage and there is also a tendency where employees become less productive while dealing with communication and other workforce tools. Secondly, it will pose a problem to reach out to the right person for relevant information while closing a deal or operational problem.

Malini N
malinin@cybermedia.co.in