The desk interface of Aircall VoIP switchboard
Now that mobile work has become a necessity for many, perhaps you are also embracing the idea of choosing a VoIP PBX.
Smart working teams are on the rise, which is prompting many companies to move from a physical phone system to VoIP, while others have already started with one completely in the cloud.
Before we continue, we want to dispel a cliché and point out that a VoIP phone system is not just for dealing with difficult times such as those caused by the pandemic.
VoIP is avaluable ally in daily work, increases the efficiency and productivity of your teams and helps employees achieve a good work-life balance.
In the previous article, we introduced 7 reasons why you should choose VoIP.
We return to this topic in detail because we want to help you choose a quality phone system while aiming for the best price. What is needed? A few things: the right people, processes and tools.
Activating a VoIP switchboard is not difficult, after all, if T-Mobile organized its remote customer service team, involving some 12,000 employees, almost overnight, you can do it too.
Don't be frightened, all the cloud solutions that we propose only scalable, chosen by startups as well as multinationals thanks to the flexibility of costs and opportunities.
A cloud application is like a tailor-made suit, it is custom built, but requires minimal investment, in fact it is much cheaper than the costs that average companies incur, without the benefits we will tell you about shortly.
The cheapest VoIP phone
If you are considering cloud services we are happy for your business because it is the first step to new opportunities, however, remember that not all VoIP phones are the same.
Always start with the needs of your reality and compare them with what telephony systems offer.
Over the years we have built partnerships and adopted cloud solutions that address different needs but are common to many realities.
Switchboard management, e-mail, CRM, help desk, online sales, data storage, and more, in fact, are some of the aspects that we solve without losing sight of the integrations between all business applications.
When you are not working in silos, compartmentalized, you can centralize data collection, keep teams updated in real time, and transform applications for their own sake into productivity tools, optimizing resources and costs.
Have you ever heard of Aircall? Among the VoIP solutions available on the market, this one is perfect for realities in every sector and with numbers of employees ranging from three to several hundred.
power2Cloud is not only partner of Aircall in Italy, we use this VoIP solution daily, so we can show you all the strengths and best practices. Take advantage of this and ask for a no-obligation a free trial to see VoIP in action, you will never leave it again!
Flexibility, integrations and centralized information optimize costs and opportunities
The phone system in VoIP sounds like a complicated and technical topic. B You have to go beyond that to understand that it is an easy-to-use application that offers automatic updates. It is also cheap, useful to sales, marketing, and customer service teams, not just IT reps.
A telephone system in the cloud with native integrations is much more competitive than others and can provide a positive experience before, during, and after any purchase, return, and information interaction, increasing efficiency while saving costs.
As you know happy customers are loyal customers and this can only promote the growth of your business.
VoIP also allows you to converse with customers on the channels they prefer, without losing sight of the context of information needed to offer a personalized approach.
This is especially important today as communication has become omnichannel, i.e., it moves from email, to the phone, from the phone to chat, via social and without a precise and predictable pattern.
Reading calls anywhere, from your cell phone as well as your computer, givesyou and your team the flexibility to improve your services, making work less frustrating and more challenging.
The lack of physical hardwarein fact enables you to work from home and anywhere else, ensuring uninterrupted continuity.
Reporting is also simple, you can monitor calls and do coaching in real time (useful for onbording and handling more complex situations), consulting useful data to improve the performance of each agent.
Do you know how many manual and complex actions you can avoid with VoIP? Prevent data loss and create more connectivity for all your teams, with new and more ambitious goals to achieve.
Last note. When evaluating a VoIp remember to choose phone software that in addition to the native integrations of the Marketplace also have Open APIs, so endless opportunities to meet specific needs.
How to compare VoIP telephony solutions
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Before we tell you about Aircall, however, we continue to solicit appropriate thoughts for your evaluations.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself to compare VoIP telephony solutions and choose the one that's right for you:
- What functions does my company need, does this application offer them all?
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- This phone system has features that I am not considering, does my company need them? What benefits can I get?
- Will it support the number of employees we have now or plan to have in the future?
- If my company's needs change in the future? Is the phone system scalable?
- Do I need only basic features such as caller ID and voicemail, or is it time to add more such as automated attendants, call recording, analytics dashboards, and more?
- How easy will it be to synchronize my phone system with my CRM or other software programs we are already using?
- Will a unified communication system improve our sales or support functions? How will adding features such as chat, video, text, create efficiencies for our workflows?
Why should my company use a VoIP PBX?
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If your company is not yet ready to set up a virtual switchboard, you might consider activating one in the near future.
According to a Gartner report, over one-third of Customer Service Agents will be working from home by 2023. This is a considerable increase when you consider that only 5 percent of Customer Service employees worked from home in 2017.
Let's take a look at some of the reasons why companies choose a VoIP PBX.
1. Ability to extend working hours
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Many companies service clients globally, but it is not always possible to open offices in every geographic location.
A VoIP PBX allows you to extend the hours when users can contact your company. Don Don forget that better Customer Service equals better retention.
2. Reduces overhead costs
With a virtual workforce, you eliminate costs associated with leasing office space, equipment, utilities, expense reimbursements, etc.
3. Reduces employee turnover
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Many employees like smart working. In fact, the vast majority said they would like to continue working in this mode for the rest of their careers, even if part-time.
4. Facilitates switchboard management and monitoring
Administrators no longer have to query Customer Service representatives to know that they are working and with what results.
Using the right software allows you to listen to calls and view all activity on a live feed with great ease.
5. Enables virtually the collaboration internal
A VoIP phone system opens multiple communication channels such as email, chat, and text, in addition to phone communications. Omnichannel communication offers many opportunities to collaborate and interact remotely.
6. Allows access to a larger talent pool
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When you choose a VoIP PBX, you are not limited to choosing talented employees within the specific radius of your office.
Obviously there are many good reasons to move to a virtual phone system, so let's take a look at the IT managers' perspective as well.
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Why should IT managers choose VoIP software?
As they said, VoIP represents a cutting-edge business telephony technology, why is it so important?
A phone system in the cloud allows you to use software with lots of voice calling features and native integrations.
Your business has new opportunities. Integrations, with a modern phone system, allow you tostreamline workflows and improve efficiency and productivity.
For example, VoIP often includes a voice system that works with a CRM such HubSpot or Salesforce and synchronizes customer data automatically.
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The best VoIP software will be fast and easy to install. The software service provider will be able to offer you 99.99% security and reliability.
To better serve your business needs today and in the future, IT managers will ensure that VoIP has the ability to set up local, toll-free, national, and international phone numbers to give your business a local presence.
It is also essentialto monitor data: choose a VoIP that offers analytics dashboards and the ability to access multiple metrics and KPIs.
The next step, after configuring the VoIP infrastructure, will be to start it.
How to start a VoIP switchboard
At this point it is clear to you that you no longer need a physical office if you choose a VoIP PBX.
Having said that, there are many other things you should consider to start off on the right foot:
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- What is the purpose of your VoIP PBX? Will it be dedicated to sales or customer service? Of course you can contemplate both.
- In addition to a VoIP system, you will also need software integrations to support the work of your employees. Can your vendor offer you a Marketplace of Apps in which you can leverage other applications to manage sales and support activities and improve the customer experience
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- Set up workflows based on the purpose of your PBX. For example, for a sales phone system you may want to use software integrations that allow you to set up automated emails to guide customers through your sales funnel.
- Take advantage of voice calling features and those that help you provide the best customer experience. Consider aspects such as IVR, a skills-based routing feature, and self-service options so that customers can quickly get the help they need.
- Decide what tools your agents need to work remotely, whether your company will provide them with a computer and a headset or they will have to get them themselves.
- Hire talent. When you choose a VoIP phone system, you are not limited to talent near your office, if you have one. You have the freedom to review resumes of people living anywhere in the world.
- Design onboarding for new agents in your switchboard.
- Set metrics and KPIs to monitor and track the performance of your PBX.
- Establish a program to evaluate the performance of switchboard agentson an ongoing basis and determine how to reward them when goals are met.
How to integrate VoIP software
We are sure you will like VoIP integration: you don't have to worry about hardware or physical workstation installation, it's as simple as downloading an app. We're not kidding!
You can complete the process in just a few minutes and start using the software immediately, power2Cloud can support your IT team in this process.
Depending on what you choose, here are some steps to remember:
- Get familiar with your VoIP dashboard
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- Create your own virtual phone numbers
- Create IVR numbers
- Create teams and users and configure their profiles
- Set up your analytics with metrics and KPIs
- Get familiar with the phone system activity feed (to monitor your activities)
- Configure call tagging (tag calls by support, sales, technology, etc.)
- Enable integrations (additional applications with a single data source)
How to take care of onboarding
Next we come to onbording. Among the resumes you review to choose new agents, you will undoubtedly find candidates with diverse industry experience (some companies prefer to train candidates who have none).
In addition to your preferences, think about the tools, policies, and procedures that your switchboard agents need to know in order to do their jobs well on the move.
In fact, there will be no shortage of people who prefer smart working. The important thing is to make sure they have a reliable Internet connection, a quiet place for calls, and follow onboarding.
Internal, digital knowledge can be an extremely useful tool for finding relevant answers while customers wait for your agents to fulfill their requests. You can get one!
Zendesk for example, as omnichannel help desk software, it also helps to build customer-dedicated knowledge and other internal knowledge, reachable only by employees, to foster onbording.
In this way, the company can offer appropriate standards for resolving tickets, even the most complex ones, in an efficient, autonomous, and timely manner if something suddenly changes.
Weekly meetings with agents can help you answer frequently asked questions, comparing work done, while virtual coffee breaks will help with team building.
Although VoIP systems allow you to be clear at all times about your agents' productivity metrics and thus goals achieved, cultivating human relationships and staying connected is most important especially when working on the move.
The advantages of a VoIP PBX
Now that you know the details of getting started with VoIP, let's look at the benefits you can expect:
- reduced costs for harware, maintenance and upgrades
- greater reliability, up to 99.99%
- scalability: increase or decrease your phone system licenses quickly and easily
- choose talented employees, no matter where in the world they are
- free IT managers from redundant and repetitive actions; software vendors take care of security issues
- increase the productivityof your PBX with tools such as call routing, click-to-dial, power dialing, etc.
- consult real-time insight to understand how your PBX activities are progressing, make quick changes if needed
- unify all the information collected from your customers for the internal team as well.
VoIP helps agents handle large numbers of calls and provide an excellent customer experience.
Administrators can stay up-to-date at every step of the process, even if they never meet with referrers from that department.
power2Cloud has the right experience to activate the VoIP PBX you need and prepare your company for new opportunities, let's get started?"
The benefits of VoIP for sales teams
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For sales agents, productivity is a necessity, because time is money.
Some VoIP features help salespeople make more calls, minimizing downtime between calls and providing data to help respond more quickly to user requests.
Here are some features that can make your sales team more competitive:
- Power dialer: allows you to make calls in rapid succession from a list on your computer.
- Click-to-dial: quickly dial calls by clicking on a computer icon.
- Call Recording: Listen back to conversations to confirm details, monitor the quality of services provided, and assist in training salespeople.
- CRM integrations: connects the phone system with CRM so that customer sales data is accessible.
- Routing based on skills to agents with specific experiences.
- Tag calls: assigns custom labels to requests to improve workflow.
- Call whispering: allow you to listen in on a call and "whisper" advice, especially during onboarding operations.
- International Numbers: create local and international phone numbers to build trust with customers in distant locations.
The benefits of VoIP for Customer Service teams
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VoIP features can enhance your help desk and gratify the work of agents:
- Configuration with one click: manage all integrations from the cloud phone dashboard.
- Set working hours: automatically open phone lines during scheduled times.
- Integrate with the CRM and the help desk to provide a single data source for calls.
- Hot transfer: Quickly converse with your colleagues before transferring calls.
- Call routing: set rules for call routing and ring distribution.
- Mobile accessibility: answer from your cell phone (iOS and Android) wherever you are.
- Call conferencing: engage multiple people.
- Shared Contacts: create and share contacts with team members .
- Feed in time real time: monitor call activity so that they can set up call flows and instruct new team members.
- Call whispering: "whispers" advice to less experienced team members while on calls with customers.
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We hope this article has been interesting for your evaluations.
You can ask our team for information, we will be happy to show you all the opportunities for your company.