After the news of the launch of Google Voice in Italy, we want to return to the topic and tell you about cloud-based PBX.
What it is, why you prefer it to traditional phone systems, and what options are available on the market, we will look at together, to help you choose the best cloud PBX for your business.
The first piece of good news is that a cloud-based PBX requires no hardware or maintenance, costs little, and is a productivity tool.
So why doesn't everyone use it?
Some companies are not fully aware of its potential, others are very much anchored in anything physical because it conveys more reliability to them. Although they have paid dearly, especially during the pandemic and smart working, for the immobility of the on-premise solutions they use.
Others are wondering: to switch or not to switch? Can I do portability? Who knows if I'll have downtime and who I'll have to refer to if something doesn't go as I hope.
If these doubts concern you too, we want to reassure you. A cloud-based PBX offers much easier and more secure management and usability than what you are used to*.
Besides, do you know what freedom? You can make and receive phone calls on any device, on your computer, as well as on tablets and cell phones, all you need is an Internet connection and a pair of headphones. But it doesn't end there.
A cloud switchboard integrates with the tools you use for work, such as a CRM or help desk, and allows you to collect useful data for your business strategies. This makes it really easy to analyze the metrics you collect every day from your touch points.
This saves you from all those manual processes that are often time-consuming and complex to follow especially if you have to carry them out in a short time and in real time.
If the old dear and beloved traditional PBX can only handle phone calls, the cloud PBX is customizable, flexible and gives you many more opportunities for your business as we will explain in more detail now.
What this article is about:
The phone is still the tool of choice for your contacts
Every day we send hundreds of emails, use chat and WhatsApp for the fastest communications, but nothing replaces a good old-fashioned phone call.
In fact, the telephone still remains one of the main touch points, not only for communicating with colleagues, but also with customers. Think, for example, of how many phone calls your Customer Service Department receives for requests for information or assistance.
Whether you have a business entity subject to IRES or IRPEF, you can always take advantage of the VAT deductibility provided on cell phones and landlines.
But have you ever wondered how to make your investment profitable over time and flexible for your business growth?
A traditional switchboard soon becomes obsolete and forces you to continually invest, while you are hostage to binding contracts, which discourage any other initiative.
You can optimize the purchase and operating cost, thus the subscription fee, usage, repair and maintenance expenses, by choosing a new PBX, cloud-based PBX.
Within a few years, new technologies have opened up endless opportunities for startups and enterprise companies, demonstrating that the PBX can and should become a tool for business work and productivity, not just a means of receiving and making phone calls.
Have you ever considered the benefits of a cloud PBX?
Before evaluating which is the best cloud PBX for your business, choose a cloud telephony tool and embrace a new way of working.
We will never tire of reminding you of the advantages of this solution:
- instant and simple activation
- no hardware or maintenance (all you need is an internet connection)
- automatic updates constants
- Simple and centralized user and device administration
- Integrations with your favorite tools such as CRM, help desk etc.
- collaborates anywhere at any time
- Use all the devices you already have for calling (tablet, pc, mobile)
- Scalability according to your needs
- Does not burden the IT department , which can devote itself to more important projects
Beyond these aspects, which are certainly not only by no means taken for granted, there are many considerations that affect not only the IT team anymore, but also colleagues in sales, marketing and customer care.
What we would like you to know, in fact, is that while the choice of switchboard was once the prerogative of the technical departments that had to deal with it, today it involves many other teams.
That is why in power2Cloud we talk about PBX as an opportunity that a company should know and evaluate comprehensively.
Let's see in detail.
Aircall, Zendesk Talk and Google Voice: choose only the best
There are so many offerings on the market involving telephone switchboards. Our advice, as always, is to start with your business needs and the way you work.
We also use this approach in power2Cloud when we counsel our clients by talking about partnerships and our solutions.
How to choose the best cloud PBX for your business?
In our incipit we started with the newest thing, Google Voice, but in this article we will also tell you about Aircall and Zendesk Talk.
Aircall: the outbound switchboard for marketing and sales
Aircall is the SaaS cloud PBX natively connected to all your business tools.
More than 5 thousand companies and organizations around the world already use it, from call centers to large organizations such as Uber, Glovo, sendinblue, BlaBlaCa, Brussels Airport, untruckit, and Trekksoft.
Aircall is a switchboard that is activated in minutes and allows you to automatically synchronize all data between your phone and applications such as CRM, helpdesk, and marketing automation software.
If you don't use these tools yet, maybe it's time to think about it, because they can help you sell and engage customers and stakeholders more effectively by personalizing services and support.
Another important aspect is centralized management; Aircall offers analytics dashboards to consult metrics and improve the performance of teams or individual agents.
This way nothing can escape you, even if you work with your colleagues on the move. Moreover, thanks to call recording you can retrieve specific conversations (depending on the activated version you can keep them for a year or forever).
Aircall's switchboard is also a perfect tool for onboarding. Thanks to the Call Whispering feature, you can listen in on conversations between an agent and a customer, without the customer noticing, suggesting best practices to the less experienced colleague if he or she is just starting out in his or her job or is dealing with complex situations.
Convenient and useful, no?
Zendesk Talk: the phone created for customer service
We then come to Zendesk Talk.
We cannot talk about this feature without first introducing Support Zendesk, the omnichannel customer support system.
It is a cloud-based application that allows you to centralize all the interactions you send or receive from your customers across all your channels (email, phone, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram).
You can activate the Zendesk Talk module if you already use Zendesk Support for your customer support. This helps you deliver a seamless customer experience. What it means. Smoother user experiences that go beyond a single channel and help you build a more meaningful relationship by integrating offline and online and all the touch points you make available.
Zendesk Talk PBX allows you to identify your caller's needs before responding to their requests. This is important because it always gives you the context you need to ensure the best approach.
With just a few clicks and without switching from one window of your applications to another, you can quickly reconstruct the history of all the conversations he has had with your company about purchases, returns, complaints. This is important for everyone, but we think especially of those who run an eCommerce business.
Of course, you don't have to worry, with Zendesk Talk you don't miss a single call thanks to interactive phone menus, group routing, andout-of-hours forwarding.
What are you waiting for? Totally revolutionize your company's customer service to take more personal, high-performing marketing and sales actions right away in just a few moves.
Google Voice the voice of successful Italian SMEs
So we come to the new feature unveiled by Google just in the past few days, the Google Voice telephone switchboard.
Let's start by dispelling a myth: you don't have to have a lot of employees, a very structured company, or an IT department at your disposal to activate a cloud-based PBX. This argument applies not only to Google Voice, but also to the solutions mentioned earlier.
With Google Voice, you can leverage Google's artificial intelligence and machine learning for your business telephone system.
You can quickly activate it and add it with an add-on to the Google Workspace suite to make your work applications omnichannel, effective and secure.
Google Voice only works if you already have Google's collaboration and productivity apps active.
So you can count on an omnichannel platform that allows you to make calls, write emails, quick chat messages, and hold video conference meetings from a single dashbord.
Cloud switchboard has an edge because it integrates with your business apps
The cloud-based PBXs we have presented to you so far work as a team with your work tools and allow you to optimize communications with your colleagues as well.
It is unthinkable to consider a PBX without taking into account the business dynamics or the world in which your work is organized.
We like to think that choosing a cloud-based PBX can inspire the digital transformation of your business even more extensively.
We also want to assure you that the benefits associated with this new way of working will not be long in coming.
Those who use the cloud leave room for new initiatives and lots of opportunities, not only for internal processes, but also for your customers.
Using market-leading solutions such as Aircall, Zendesk Talk and Google Voice also demonstrates another important aspect.
Your company has the same opportunities as the multinationals already using these solutions-you only pay for what you need.
In addition, optimizing investments with scalability and flexibility in mind helps us think big day after day. Every challenge is ready to be overcome, every goal is ready to be met.
power2Cloud is a partner in Italy with Aircall, Google Cloud and Zendesk.
Ask our team for a no-obligation demo to understand the differences between these cloud PBXs and understand how they work.
