Wedding In The Time Of Pandemic: How Cloud Communications Can Help You In Planning?

Yukti Verma

Author

Phone System

December 23, 2020

7 mins read eye

Table of content

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly taken a toll on the way we lead our lives. Weddings are no exception to this.

With the priority being social distancing, organising once-in-a-lifetime celebrations like a wedding can become tedious.

If you are someone who wants to strike the right balance; take ample precautions and not lose the spirit of your big celebration, then planning on the cloud is the best thing you can do.

But how does cloud communication help you? Let us understand these.

Cloud communication is an internet-based system that allows you to store your data on a centralised repository, independent of your local storage. This communication system is hosted by a third-party service provider and can be accessed over public networks.

Having explained this, what is the connection between a cloud communication system and planning your wedding?

Well, ideally a wedding involves systematic scheduling of events including shortlisting of the guest list, menu selection, venue selection, arrangements for guest accommodation…the list goes on and on.

During a pandemic, however, this list becomes even longer. Ensuring social distancing, safety, and hygiene of everyone attending becomes a big task.

With cloud communication, you can host a virtual wedding with zero human contact—the most important factor that needs to be considered.

Here, we have compiled a few significant points on how your wedding planning on the cloud can make your special day all the more blissful and memorable. Check them out right away!

Better accessibility to data

As mentioned above, a wedding involves lots of planning which means an abundance of data that needs to be handled. When you plan your wedding on the cloud, there are several tools available that can help you categorise your data based on priority.

Moreover, you may have to travel for your wedding which means you may not be able to access your device throughout. Does that mean you should put your wedding planning on hold? No, you deserve much more!

Planning your wedding on the cloud enables centralised access to data. This means you can access your data from anywhere across the globe irrespective of the timing and location. You can easily narrow down your wedding invites, virtually, while you are shopping for your various outfits. Now that is some serious multitasking.

Improved planning

Proper planning is what you need for the success of your wedding day. An improper plan can ruin the fun of the day and leave you more stressed than ever. Doesn’t that sound hard? Cloud communication comes with state-of-the-art tools and software that help you set reminders and figure out your priorities.

You can shortlist caterers, event managers, and photographers and compare them on the go to pick the best of your special day.

Cloud can help you create an online checklist of things you have already done and what you need to do. You can plan the entire event from a single screen. This kind of clear-cut categorisation can help you eliminate errors and the possibility of missing details.

Easy Collaboration

Ideally, you may have your friends and family members to help you plan for your big day. In that case, your online wedding information will need constant updates and the ability to work on the same page simultaneously. For example, you may be busy finalising the decorations and theme while your family may be zeroing in on the menu for the different events.

Any confusion may be irreparable. Your cloud planner can help you with providing simultaneous access to files. When you update the status of the decoration as ‘to be finalised’, your family (wherever they are located) can access it. Again, edits and information transfer are made easy through the cloud thereby boosting collaboration, the key to planning any special occasion.

Option to e-invite

One of the biggest challenges while planning your wedding is inviting guests. Usually, you will need to visit every guest personally and invite them to your wedding. However, the pandemic has made travelling and socialising close to impossible.

Cloud can help you overcome this difficulty. You can freeze your guest list on the cloud, create an online invite, and simply send personalised e-invites to your near and dear ones.

You may call over your guests in person to confirm their attendance. This way, you can not only invite your guests but also get in touch with your relatives and friends easily.

There is a myriad of options to create your e-invite. You may choose to play with colours and fonts to suit your theme for the day. These options to design your invite are user-friendly and usually do not need technical help to use them.

Go for live streaming

Now that you have taken care of the guest list and invites, the next question is how do your guests attend your wedding?

With the government imposing strict regulations to restrict crowding in public places, a huge gathering for your wedding may result in serious legal consequences.

Cloud can again come to your rescue. You can come up with a list of close family members and friends to attend your wedding physically and open the option of live streaming for the rest of your guests. This may sound a bit odd but is a great way to have everyone together and be safe too.

Cloud comes with live streaming compatibility that can help your guests attend your wedding from the comfort of their home while maintaining utmost health safety-most important.

With several competent cloud service providers available in the market, you may choose any one of them to provide uninterrupted live streaming so that no one misses out.

Create your website

Though you can allow people to attend your wedding through live streaming, your guests may still want to know a bit more about your upcoming nuptials. Cloud communication can help you develop your wedding website with exclusive details.

The website can contain information about the bride and groom offering a deeper insight into their journey or could include fun segments like the bridal party or even an itinerary.

You can share information about how you planned your wedding or details about your wedding theme if you intend to set one. You can also choose to post personal pictures from your engagement party or other related events. All these options give you a chance to create a better bond with your guests and involve them in your happiness even during these testing and tough times.

Access to FAQs

You may have friends and relatives who will like to surprise you on your special day despite the pandemic. After all the government does allow a limited number of people for special occasions. In that case, your guests can get information about the venue and timings of the function from an exclusive FAQ page on your website.

Again, not everybody is tech-savvy. Your guests may have issues connecting over your wedding streaming online or maybe curious to know about how it works. An elaborate FAQ page will detail this information without having you to attend and clarify queries over call every time.

Share memories instantly

A wedding is an exclusive, special occasion. The memories of your wedding will be something you’ll cherish forever. Wouldn’t you like to share it with your close friends?

Planning your wedding on the cloud can help you send pictures to your guest list almost immediately after the occasion. Moreover, this capability helps you catch up with friends and relatives who may not have been able to directly come or attend your wedding online.

Reduced costs

So many benefits of planning your wedding on the cloud? But will it cost a fortune? Absolutely not! You will only need to finalise your cloud provider and check for options you will need to plan your day. Your cloud service provider will take complete charge of the infrastructure and maintenance of the system till your wedding is done successfully.

All you have to do is choose wisely, utilise the options provided, and enjoy your day to the fullest possible at minimum costs!

Parting words

A wedding is an occasion to celebrate and connect with your close ones. However, the current pandemic scenario has made it difficult to even think about networking with people. Cloud communication capabilities can back your preparedness for your special day. Hopefully, the above-mentioned points will offer a peek into a few ways about how the cloud can help you plan your wedding during this pandemic.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Preparing Your Contact Centre For The Holiday Season

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

December 22, 2020

7 mins read eye

Table of content

Christmas and New Year are right around the corner. While the pandemic has added a level of uncertainty to this holiday season, contact centers will still have to be prepared to handle a surge in calls.

This time of the year is certainly like a double-edged sword for the call centers. Not only does the demand for products and services increase, but there’s also an uptick in the inbound call volume. This scenario can be overwhelming for business stakeholders.

Peak seasonal times in contact centers are all about long call queues, increased amount of data from social media channels, like comments and reviews, and elevated sales through telephone calls and websites.

Undoubtedly, contact centers, especially those that are associated with e-commerce and retail, find themselves grappling with peak incoming traffic. What matters most, though, is turning these callers into loyal customers.

So, how do you begin channelising the inflow of prospects to your call center? Let us understand.

Begin with analysing the most recent trends and needs of your target audience. Learn more about customer personas based on demography, income, gender, and age. Categorise their expectations about the following aspects:

Average call waiting time
Most preferred communication channels
Expected response times
Level of adaptability to use of self-service tools

This information will give you a sneak peek into your customer expectations and any changes that you may have to make in your call center.

Having said that, here are a few things you should be doing to get your call center fully equipped to face the seasonal demand.

1. Analyse and forecast the demand

According to this survey by Statista, consumers in the UK begin festive shopping in the second half of November and the first half of December. In 2019, 21% of shoppers began their purchasing spree between December 1-15.

Forecasting the estimated amount of calls can help your contact center be prepared to face the peak times. Forecasting should be based on data from previous years.

This data should not only include the number of calls received by your call center but also traffic received through social media channels. Insights that you obtain through this data and industry projections will help you plan staffing to handle calls and social media channels accordingly.

Try launching an online survey to ask your customers about their experiences with your brand during the previous holiday season. Also, ensure that you conduct a one-on-one feedback session with your call center agents to obtain their views. Your agents work in the frontline and are the first to be informed about any glitches in the process workflows.

Accumulate and categorise all these inputs and then deliver personalised experiences for your customers this festive season.

2. Expand your staffing

Analysing data from different sources helps you understand your staffing needs better. Do not wait till the last minute to expand your support team. Keep in mind that new hires will need training and time to adapt to the ways of your contact center. Give them that time and be fully equipped to meanwhile handle calls in peak times.

Another effective way to make the most of new hires is tagging experienced agents with these teams. This way they will learn effective and efficient methods of handling calls.

Furthermore, customers expect around-the-clock availability across time zones. You should make sure that your agent pool is available across demographics and time zones.

3. Offer omnichannel support

Providing omnichannel support to your customers comes with its advantages. With your contact center queues brimming with customers, redirecting a few to other channels like email, social media, or messaging is not a bad idea.

What you should be taking care of is that you offer: an omnichannel and consistent experience across these channels.

It is important that these channels be synchronised so that returning customers can start from where they began rather than beginning all over again. Remember, it is holiday time and your customers are likely to become annoyed even faster!

Have a competent Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system in place. This system should be updated and in alignment with your seasonal service offerings. An IVR system can help offer self-service options to your customers and this can take care of a major part of the long call queue.

Though channelising the number of calls received in call centers is a good way to handle peak times, you must deliver the same quality of services across all the channels you use.

4. Make use of technology

Yet another important aspect to cracking this peak time is being equipped with the right technology and tools. Check if you have sufficient systems, hardware, and software. Request additional infrastructure if there is a need.

Again, ensure that your agents have access to tools that makes their work-life easier. For example, an integration with a CRM system or any other customer database can help them fetch customer information in a snap. Furthermore, call transferring options allow them to get help from their superiors in case of urgency.

You may also try incorporating call back options. The call back tool enables agents to handle large call volumes by scheduling a call to your customers at a convenient time. It helps decrease the average call abandonment and controls the waiting time.

Furthermore, though customers are not provided with a resolution for their query, they disconnect with the assurance that their concern has been noticed. This results in a pleasant customer experience.

5. Pay attention to promotions

This time of the year is ideal to offer discounts and special coupons. However, you must plan these promotions well in advance and begin spreading the word about them. This will help attract the right type of customers around the festive time. You should also be prepared to face this increase in the demand for products tagged in these promotions.

Along with that, your agents should be provided with details about upselling and cross-selling these promotions. Sufficient training about these offerings like pricing information, size, colour, shipping, and availability along with appropriate scripts they will need to use is required to hit the nail during this season and boost revenue.

6. Dive into quality monitoring

You may be monitoring and tracking your calls regularly but you must pay extra attention during peak times. On-going measurement of call center analytics will help you determine if your plans for the festive season are going right or not. It will also help you identify bottlenecks at the appropriate time and fix them.

In addition to calculating the average call waiting time and call handling time, advanced techniques help judge the many moods of customers during voice interactions.

For example, speech analytic tools search for specific keywords to understand customer behaviour. If the customer uses words like “cancel” or “drop”, the system may prompt the agent to offer a special discount or gift to reduce the possibility of losing the customer. This approach helps handle frustrated customers during heavy call inflow.

7. Effectively manage your inventory

When you are expecting demand for your products, it is a given that you will stock up enough inventory to be able to serve your customers. Ensure that you deliver your products on time. If not, make sure that you handle delayed items and backorders with utmost care.

This will determine whether your customers will remain with you even after the festive season is over or not. Make sure that supervisors have a hold on the status of the inventory. Also, agents handling calls should be updated with the inventory status so that they can inform the customers about the availability of products.

Parting words

Planning and handling the festive season can be a herculean task for a contact center. There are several nuances that, if ignored, may harm the reputation of your brand.

Keep in mind to always be proactive and not reactive––stock up before you run out of inventory, reach out to customers for feedback before they call with a complaint, and so forth.

Hopefully, these points will provide a glimpse into a few aspects that should be taken care of while planning for the holiday season.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

3 Ways Cloud Kitchens are Set to Revamp the Food Industry

Acefone Editor

Author

Uncategorized

December 21, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

The new normal has changed every industry, and the F&B (Food and Beverage) segment is not an exception. Thanks to social distancing, dining out is not an option anymore. Those who love eating out, unfortunately, have to make do with getting food delivered to their homes. This, of course, has led to an upsurge in the popularity of the concept of cloud kitchens. And the trend is not only here to stay but is all set to get bigger in the coming times.

Even before COVID-19 set in, commercial cooking facilities that lacked a physical dining space were already in. According to RedSeer Management Consulting, cloud kitchens are poised to cross the $2 billion mark by 2024.

As per a research survey conducted during the lockdown, 21% of the respondents said that they were likely to increase online food ordering after the restrictions were lifted, while only 9% would have wanted to visit restaurants more often. With businesses re-opening, these estimates are becoming a reality.

If you are planning to enter the restaurant segment or already run one, embracing a cloud kitchen seems to be the best move right now. However, before doing so, it is vital to understand the technology that keeps them up and running.

Remember, when it comes to cloud kitchens, the tech infrastructure is just as important as the products and services.

Let us first answer a few questions about cloud kitchens to cover some basics.

What is a Cloud Kitchen?

Essentially, a cloud kitchen refers to a delivery-only restaurant which does not offer a dine-in facility to the patrons. These are known as cloud kitchens as they depend on cloud services that leverage the Internet to take online orders.

More often than not, the food outlet functions from a small kitchen space without any investment in the dining space or restaurant. Businesses can save even more by sharing the same space with other catering services.

How can you Start a Cloud Kitchen in India?

Starting up a cloud kitchen business in India is amazingly easy—both in terms of investment and effort, as it does not involve huge infrastructural costs. Instead, all you need is a basic cloud phone system and a kitchen space where you can cook quality food and deliver it to your consumers.

Considering the simplicity and minimal investment requirements of this business model, it becomes an attractive option for new entrepreneurs. At the same time, existing restaurants can easily switch to this model. This will help them counteract the impact of the pandemic and keep operations running while cutting down on various costs.

Are Cloud Kitchens Profitable?

Pandemic or no pandemic, there is no doubt that cloud kitchens are a profitable business model for budding and established restaurateurs. Here are some reasons why you should consider them today and, in the future, as well.

Minimal Investment

This one is a no brainer. You need not buy or rent an expensive place in a prime location, so there are big savings in terms of real-estate cost. You can even start a business from home and expand to a commercial space as the business grows.

Additionally, you can save on wait staff, fancy interiors, and all regular maintenance work. Comparatively, cloud-based solutions cost only a fraction but let you start a full-fledged business.

Scaling Opportunities

With a cloud kitchen, scaling operations are simpler and quicker than you expect. Since the investment is smaller, you can open several outlets around the same time even with a limited budget.

Shared spaces and operator-managed kitchens play an important role in helping these businesses achieve scale. The model is ideal for a restaurant trying to enter new markets or expand operations as they only need a small space and can start operations without any delay and hassles.

Easy Experimentation

Another reason why cloud kitchen is profitable is that it offers the ease of experimentation with multiple concepts without burning a hole in your pocket. You can run multiple brands or offer a range of cuisines from the same space while using the same resources.

To start a brand, you only need to get it listed among the food aggregators, and you are good to go. The best part is that the listing is free, and you start getting orders right away. If the new brand or scheme does not match your expectations, you have the freedom to remove it from the food aggregator list.

Why do we have Cloud Kitchens?

There are several reasons why cloud kitchens are gaining popularity in India. Although services were temporarily shut down during the pandemic-induced lockdowns, these businesses are back with a bang.

And now, it’s food quality over the dining experience as people are more confident about staying indoors and avoiding any exposure. Moreover, the convenience of having food delivered quickly at a reasonable price right to your doorstep is unmatched.

At the end of the day, it is this convenience that working professionals look for, rather than having to cook themselves.

As the demand for cloud kitchens surge, they present a huge business opportunity for startups and even established brands. There are several online aggregators expanding operations across the Indian cities, and this has led to immense growth in the market size.

COVID-19 has also contributed to make cloud kitchens an in-demand business model, even for the restaurants that were flourishing in the pre-pandemic era. Hence, it is an opportunity that no business would want to miss.

Get Started

Although you may want to capitalize on the cloud kitchen boom in the COVID era, doing so requires an initial infrastructural investment. Beyond a kitchen space to prepare the food and an aggregator collaboration to receive and deliver orders, you will also need some technology solutions in place.

Furthermore, you will require cloud-based solutions to get the operations going.

While your needs may vary depending on the size and scale of the business, a basic setup is a must. Everything boils down to collaborating with a reliable cloud service provider who is capable enough to address all the needs of your virtual kitchen.

Acefone is a name you can rely on because it has diverse experience with clients from various industries, including the food and beverage segment. Getting your cloud kitchen up and running can be easier than you think!

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Acefone Editor

Author

Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK's leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.

Why Are Cloud Services Great For The Legal Industry?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

7 mins read eye

Table of content

Businesses that constantly modify themselves based on the shifting trends of their industry are bound to be successful. The growth of your business may also depend on your ability to adapt to the latest technologies.

The same holds true for the legal industry as well. The field of law is undeniably quite intricate—involving numerous simultaneous clients, a myriad of important documents, and confidentiality of the clients.

Your reputation as a reliable legal representative may hit hard if your firm isn’t able to accomplish any one of these capabilities.

Cloud services for the legal industry can help you deliver seamless services. Read on to know-how.

Cloud computing for the legal industry

The cloud is a massive storage space for accessing important information in a flash. Its advanced features ensure continuous business operations even in challenging situations.

Even though the concept of sensitive data on the Internet initially seemed daunting to legal firms, quite a lot of them have benefited by shifting their operations to the security of the cloud.

Having said that, let us delve deeper into the benefits of cloud for the legal industry.

1. Round-the-clock access to data

Cloud services allow you to store your data in a centralised repository. This repository can be a server in any one of the data centers maintained by your cloud service provider—across the globe. With this kind of data storage mechanism in place, you have access to information from anywhere, at any time, without any restrictions.

This capability is especially important for the law industry which is extremely time-sensitive, demanding round-the-clock availability and streamlined processes.

Moreover, the capability of cloud services does not stop at providing quick data access. Users can access documents and work on them simultaneously from distributed locations.

Your team will be able to interact with the data—edit, save, or delete information—from wherever they are and produce collaborative efforts. And with multiple data back-ups, you can rest assured even during natural calamities. Your data can be retrieved from the cloud servers after any mishappening as the data centers are located at different places to prevent any kind of data loss.

In a remote or work-from-home setup, you can use cloud services to better control documents, boost the efficiency of processes, and facilitate uninterrupted business workflows.

2. Stepped-up data security

In a legal environment, you deal with highly sensitive client information, and hence data security is vital. You cannot afford to leak any data with cyberattacks. Cloud services ensure that your storage is compliant with the latest safety protocols and measures. Your service provider will update security patches periodically to safeguard client interests. You can even enable multi-factor authentication to ensure maximum security.

All these attributes are provided to you at zero or minimal additional costs. This ensures that your data is in safe hands. Again, it saves you the time and effort spent to hire a separate team to maintain and update security protocols periodically. Instead, you can focus on other core aspects of your business.

3. Zero costs for infrastructure and maintenance

This is a significant advantage of adopting cloud services. When you have a storage space on-premise, you face huge infrastructural set-up costs, along with maintenance and storage expenses.

However, since the cloud infrastructure runs on the Internet, all you pay for is the services used. You can use any pre-existing or personal infrastructure as well and save on such costs.

Furthermore, your service provider takes complete charge of maintaining your solutions regularly. This involves automatic updates of the latest features and technologies, and upkeep of the security protocols in accordance with official guidelines.

Some providers will even provide you auto-provisioning feature to link your IP phones directly to their services within a few minutes without any technical hassle.

This frees you from the trouble of hiring a separate technical team to maintain and keep your infrastructure in place, thereby reducing costs further.

4. Improved scalability

When your data is on the cloud, you have the added benefit of being able to scale up and down your infrastructural capability with changing requirements.

For example, if you unexpectedly face a surge in cases and need to increase the number of lines in your communication system, you simply inform your service provider and wait for the changes to be implemented. You are free to bounce back to your original infrastructural capability once the demand reduces.

Relocating your business is also easier as there is no need to move heavy hardware from one place to another. All it takes is a call to your VoIP service provider and they will set you up in the new location in a jiffy.

If instead, you had an on-premise server, you’d have to make a considerable investment to scale up—with new infrastructure, devices, extra storage, etc. Moreover, this added space would remain idle once the increased demand dies out, acting as a wasted expenditure.

5. Higher flexibility to integrate functionalities

Your legal proceedings may demand inputs from several sources on the Internet. To simplify and better collaborate with your team, you may need to incorporate several third-party apps.

This may include time management, practice management, customer relationship management (CRM), and bill tracking system. These add-ons not only simplify management but also help your entire team stay on the same page irrespective of their locations.

For example, consider one of your team members is working from home, another is with the client, and yet another is in the office. A change in the case details made in the office should be instantly intimated to the client and home offices.

This may not be possible in an on-premise setup. However, with a variety of third-party integrations, the distributed team can collaborate and work as one.

Furthermore, with all the add-ons available on the same screen, you have instant access to all the information. This supports improved productivity and also helps in delivering efficient resolutions to client concerns.

6. Boosted disaster recovery

One of the first rules of business is to always be prepared. Even the best of predictions cannot help you prevent disasters—but you sure can prepare to recover from them. For example, if your data was hacked and blocked due to a cyber-attack, your legal firm may come to a complete standstill.

When it comes to disaster recovery procedures on-premise, you will need to regularly maintain a backup of your data that includes additional cost and workforce.

If you opt for the cloud, your data is stored in a centralised and secure server. A copy of this data would also be available on request. Your service provider will have a readily available backup of your data repository on multiple back-up servers that can be retrieved in a short period. This ability of the cloud helps legal firms to provide uninterrupted services even in case of a data crisis.

7. Stays light on IT budgeting

Your legal firm will necessarily need a technical team to take care of in-house and third-party software. It is also important that these be updated, maintained, and stay on par with the latest technological trends. This will include considerable expenses in an on-premise setup.

However, when you employ cloud services, this process will be automated or handled by the provider—and off your hands. Most providers will assist you 24×7 too.

Conclusion

Legal firms have a great burden on them. They are involved in highly time-bound, sensitive work that affects the lives of many. All the data they work with has to be safeguarded with the best security measures, and their workflow needs to be smoothened and simplified.

Cloud communications are the way forward for many legal practices—for the sheer convenience of these solutions. Whether you’re a private consultant, the legal team of a conglomerate, or a specialised law firm, cloud capabilities have got you covered.

Still curious about the use and impact of cloud solutions for your own business? Just dial up our experts at 1888-859-0450 or drop an email at [email protected] and we’ll be right with you.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Why Cloud Services Are Essential For The Banking Industry?

Acefone Editor

Author

Business Communications

December 18, 2020

7 mins read eye

Table of content

The banking industry is an ever-evolving ecosystem. Since this industry deals with sensitive data and involves a huge customer base with varying needs, it is prone to frequent changes. Needless to say, financial firms strive hard to keep themselves up-to-date with the shifting trends and demands of the customers.

Moreover, customers often provide information that is highly critical for banks. A simple misuse or leakage of this information may adversely affect the reputation of the bank and result in huge losses for, both, the bank and the customer.

Owing to these concerns, banks are leaving no stone unturned to eliminate the chances of any fraudulent activities or misuse of sensitive information. And aiding them in this endeavour, cloud services have emerged as a lifesaver.

Let us delve deeper into this.

According to a Forbes report, cloud computing is expected to jump from $67B in 2015 to $162B in 2020. This is an annual growth rate of 19%.

What Are Cloud Services?

Cloud services offer banks and capital market leaders the opportunity to save, access, and share sensitive customer information via the cloud. Since, cloud access is centralised, it enables financial firms to securely store data and applications and access later––anytime, anywhere––via an Internet connection.

Furthermore, it helps banks to get rid of the silo effect, motivate enterprise-wide synchronisation, and obtain high-end analytics for deep insights.

Below, we have put together for you some ways in which cloud services benefit the banking industry. These are:

Helps provide better client services

Cloud services have a significant capability: they have the ability to facilitate centralised access to business-critical information for various stakeholders. This means that your bank staff can retrieve relevant information from anywhere across the globe without any restrictions or hassles.

This capability plays an important role specifically if the bank has a distributed network. It allows changes, edits, and collaborative work on documents. Employees can also transfer crucial information via the cloud in a secure manner.

This helps both the customer and the bank representatives to remain on the same page. Any updates and changes reflect instantly and all the customer information can be obtained on a single screen, without having to switch between apps or even tabs.

This helps representatives deal with customers efficiently and also eliminates the chances of providing incorrect information due to the lack of timely updates.

Boosts operational efficiency

Cloud computing helps you stay on par with the latest technologies in the market. Your cloud service provider will keep updating your system, thereby helping you remain efficient. With the help of this capability, you can deliver services with a high level of operational competence.

Furthermore, your cloud service provider will be responsible for these timely updates and overall maintenance of your cloud infrastructure. Thus, you don’t need to hire an IT team exclusively for the maintenance of your cloud infrastructure.

From the initial set-up and maintenance to ongoing updates and scaling, your service provider will take care of everything. All you have to do is focus on your core business activities.

Improves scalability

Every day is not the same for a banker. On some days, there may be a sudden increase in the number of customers trying to reach out to you for query resolution. This will affect the balance between customer-facing operations and core business processes.

Cloud computing can help you deal with peak traffic and resolve customer queries with absolute ease and professionalism. These services are scalable and can be stretched based on your specific requirements.

For example, if you need more infrastructural space due to an increase in the demand for customer-facing services, you will simply need to inform your cloud service provider. Later, when peak traffic has reduced, you may scale down to the original infrastructural capability.

The flexibility to scale up and down based on particular needs allows effective infrastructural utilisation. It also eliminates the chances of infrastructural wastage. Moreover, you will need to pay only for the infrastructure that you used rather than paying for a generic specification. This does not burn a hole in your pocket.

Enables better agility

Cloud services help banking firms remain agile. In a distributed environment, bankers need to work on multiple tasks from different locations. Centralised access makes this easy.

You may access updated information from anywhere across the globe and serve your customers. It also allows banks to easily move representatives between locations and projects based on current demand and requirements.

With such flexibility and agility, it becomes easier to focus on customers’ demands and take quicker and more informed decisions. Additionally, you’re also able to focus better on your goals since you’re not distracted by other concerns.

Improves security

Since financial institutions deal with sensitive information day in, day out, it is important to make sure that your bank has established state-of-the-art security measures to safeguard customer information. The slightest leniency in this regard may severely impact the operations and reputation of your bank.

Cloud services lend a helping hand in this scenario. Cloud technology comes with high-end security protocols that reduce the risk of data leaks or breaches. Cloud services are necessarily security compliant and stay on par with the market changes.

Moreover, your cloud service provider will perform patching and update the security system to guarantee the absolute security of all your data.

Provides business continuity and disaster recovery options

What do you think will happen if your bank server crashed suddenly? Doesn’t the thought scare you? However, no matter how hard we try, there are times when this does happen.

An unexpected downtime, cyber-attack, or natural disaster may disrupt your business operations completely. You should note that the banking sector is highly sensitive to such disasters. Even the slightest interruption may bring everything to a halt, causing irreparable loss and unrest among customers.

Cloud services remove this challenge. All your information is stored on servers that are situated in several locations across the globe. So, downtime, due to any reason, may not impact the data on the cloud.

Moreover, there’s always a copy of all the data on the cloud that can be retrieved at any time if there is a need. In case of a natural disaster or downtime, your service provider will be able to easily restore your data, thereby facilitating uninterrupted business operations.

Reduces infrastructural costs

As discussed earlier, your cloud service provider ensures to set-up your infrastructure while also taking care of maintenance and updates.

If you intend to take care of your IT infrastructure in-house, be ready to shell out a fortune. After all, not only will you be investing in bulky hardware and software, you will also regularly have to pay for maintenance and repairs.

You will also need a special team of IT agents to get you started and then look after your systems. And hiring the right pool of IT talent may be another herculean task. With cloud computing, you don’t need to worry about this, since set-up and maintenance are looked after by your provider.

This aspect of cloud services saves you costs and, also, enables better inclination towards your operational workflows.

Offers better flexibility

The needs of the banking industry keep on changing and evolving, and it is wise to adapt to the latest trends. This may require knowledge about updated technologies or integration with state-of-the-art tools.

It may be difficult for a banking firm to take care of these changes that need technical expertise. And recruiting talents for this purpose may result in heavy expenditure.

Your service provider can help you with integrations and system updates based on your specific requirements. All you need to do is simply communicate your list of requirements and then rest assured that things will be taken care of effectively.

Parting words

Cloud services have become a buzzword in the world of business. The banking space has also experienced a positive impact owing to the capabilities of cloud services.

Hopefully, all the qualities that we have discussed will offer a sneak peek into a few of the many benefits of cloud services that help ease banking operations.

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Why Omnichannel Business Model is No Longer a Choice, But a Necessity?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

December 17, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Today, customers expect your business to be easily accessible from wherever they are. They want integrated support across all channels—whether it is email, social media, or phone calls. This means that an omnichannel business model is essential to ensure that you can be found wherever customers are looking.

With increasingly high customer expectations, businesses today have a hard road ahead of them. They need to implement an omnichannel model to facilitate day-to-day communications. Moreover, each channel has to be well-managed and smoothly run to be of good use.

According to research, as many as 65% of consumers actively take steps to use brands that have consistent online and offline customer service. This shows just how important a consistently good omnichannel strategy is.

This article will explore why an omnichannel business model is essential for modern businesses, and how cloud communication can make this possible.

1. Reach customers at all touchpoints

If your business is available for customers at all the touchpoints (social media, email, telephone, WhatsApp, etc.), you’ll have more opportunities to sell your products or services to those users.

Before making a purchase decision, customers prefer to interact with your business on different channels. This is an essential part of their research process and gives your business an opportunity to engage with them at this crucial decision-making stage.

With cloud communications, not only is managing your communications on each of these touchpoints possible, it is much simpler as well.

Employees can access all kinds of communications and handle tasks on a single integrated platform. With a cloud admin portal, all communications are in one central location, making it easy to engage with customers—wherever they feel most comfortable.

An added bonus is that you can pick up the conversation right where you left off, with the ability to add detailed notes in the online portal. Any agent can then take over the call with minimal disruption and repetition of client details.

2. COVID-19? No problem

Once you’ve established your presence at all major channels, you can start building meaningful connections with clients all over. COVID-19 has completely changed the face of customer service and has left many businesses going above and beyond to connect with the consumer base.

One such measure is the adoption of omnichannel strategies to maximise customer interactions and therefore, enrich relationships with them. With all your communications in one place, you can easily identify any rising customer issues. For example, if you come across a complaint on social media, you can use your cloud communication system to follow up via a phone call or email.

Or if a customer gives you feedback, you can log into the channel to follow up with them and show that you value their input. You can perhaps present a special offer or intimate them about how you’re implementing their suggestions. Cloud phone systems help you create a strong and really personal relationship with your consumers which will keep them engaged, even through difficult times.

By keeping in touch in this way, even if a customer is not keen on a purchase right now, they are much more likely to remember this great service and the way you value them once the pandemic is over.

3. Reduce customer waiting times

If a customer has a quick question about your services, then putting them on hold for hours may just deter them from purchasing anything at all. If they have already purchased a product from you and want to clear a simple doubt, you can provide them with answers on multiple other channels, reserving your phone lines for new sales and more intricate inquiries.

With an omnichannel communication strategy, your customers can interact with you at multiple touch points which frees up your phone lines for faster query resolutions of complex issues. Customers get prompt and dedicated replies and your agents can save time, only focusing on critical tasks and calls. It’s truly a win-win situation.

Taking this further, you can even use automation to answer frequently asked questions without ever having to involve human agents. Just feed in critical data and the AI-powered system will take care of basic queries on your behalf. You can add AI to your social media messaging or deploy an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) right on your hosted phone system. With this, you can communicate messages and common answers en masse to callers.

Cloud communications make it really easy to deliver excellent customer service in a timely manner, by giving agents access to critical information and equipping them with the proper tools for staying in touch with customers. People expect different waiting times on different touchpoints, so it is important to ensure that staff can deliver great service within an acceptable time frame.

4. Increase agent productivity

With agents’ time freed up, they have room to become much more productive. If customer inquiries are spread out over different channels, agents will be able to deal with queries more efficiently and will have more time to spend on perfecting the first call resolution rate.

With a hosted phone system, it is easy to see messages coming into multiple inboxes across your channels in one place. Besides, managers can ascertain which agents are free and delegate the incoming workload accordingly.

A customer may send their inquiry via email, and then follow up with a phone call. Without an omnichannel communication strategy in place, supported by your cloud communication system, this may trigger two agents working independently to respond to one customer.

Not only does this waste valuable time and manual effort, but it also causes confusion for all the parties involved. On the other hand, if all your communications are visible in one place, you can simply leave notes, check the progress of fellow agents, and capture each lead with zero hassle.

Omnichannel communication can save your agents plenty of work and time. Such a model is the way to stand out from the crowd and ensure you stay connected with customers—no matter what difficult times you face.

To implement a successful omnichannel business model, you must ensure that your service and information on each platform is consistent and that responses are timely. Don’t risk losing customers before they’ve even made a purchase from you!

A cloud-hosted phone system can help you run the most effective communication strategy by giving your staff access to everything they need in one central location—easily accessible from any device they choose.

To find out more about cloud communication tools and how to build a proper omnichannel strategy with said solutions, don’t hesitate to contact our experts at 1888-859-0450. Or simply drop us an email at [email protected], and we’ll be with you in a jiffy.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

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Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Earth Calling: Befriend The Climate With Cloud Communications

Diksha Gusain

Author

Contact Center Service

December 16, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

We have one earth and one chance to do it right.

Undeniably, nature gave us resources aplenty to sustain life. But with rampant misuse and destruction of our home planet, where do we see ourselves in the next fifty years?

Needless to say, it’s time to take action. Climate activism is the talk of the town, especially among the younger generations. People realise that our current practices are not viable to secure a healthy future. As traditional practices are failing the environment, it’s time to take a look at healthy solutions like cloud communications.

Consumers are very smart and conscious these days. Just as they’ve uncovered the ugly truth of fast fashion—the second-largest water polluting industry—it’s not long before they dig into climate policies in other sectors as well.

They want environment-friendly economies, and they want them now. So what do you need to do?

The name of the game is sustainability.

What is sustainable development?

We need to meet human development goals without depleting natural resources. Essentially, attend to present needs without compromising on the future requirements.

This includes keeping a check on CO2 emissions, reducing carbon footprint and global warming, and using resources judiciously.

As companies and factories continue to mass-produce, they deploy heavy hardware at the workplace, which increases their carbon emission. But there is a way to reduce this by cutting down the need for physical hardware at offices.

With the help of cloud communication, a ‘no-hardware office’ can be set-up.

A lot of firms have already made strides in their efforts to curtail harmful practices. In fact, Google just made an incredible pledge for the climate. In September 2020, CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the firm plans to run operations totally carbon-free by the year 2030.

Additionally, Google —via its carbon-neutral policy (circa 2007) and purchase of carbon offsets—managed to cancel out all CO2 emissions made by the company since its founding in 1998.

Other major companies like Facebook, Apple, and Netflix have made pledges to bring down their carbon emissions by 2030 as well.

All the cool kids are doing it, so why not you?

Well, yes, they’re big companies with large emissions, but they also have huge resources to help them achieve their goals. However, you need not be left behind.

Cloud communications are set to reduce your carbon footprint and boost energy efficiency significantly. With Internet-based phoning solutions, voice broadcasting, data storage, SMS solutions, etc., not only do you save costs and widen your reach, you’re able to do it all sustainably.

You can check out your greenhouse emissions using Microsoft Azure’s sustainability calculator tool. With this information, you’ll be better equipped to prepare a green strategy for your business model.

Let’s take a look at how cloud solutions help you run an environment-friendly business.

Bring down your carbon footprint

As a business leader, you want to leave a mark on the world. But as responsible citizens, we need to ensure we leave the smallest possible dent on the earth.

Carbon footprint refers to the level of greenhouse gas emissions made. The more gases released, the hotter our atmosphere becomes. Therefore, firms need to minimise their harmful practices and invest their time in greener practices.

With the rise of IoT (Internet of Things), data-users have grown exponentially over the years. However, this doesn’t have to result in an equally high CO2 discharge—if users switch to the cloud.

It’s been found that cloud operations can reduce carbon emissions by 90% for startups, 60-90% for mid-sized firms and 30-60% for large enterprises.

Needless to say, large data centers use massive amounts of resources. Through a process called dematerialisation, you can convert your high carbon physical resources into virtual ones!

By shifting to a non-physical server, many people are able to connect on one network—even from far apart. With the right business practices, you can boast of environment-friendly operations with high productivity as well.

Use less electricity, get more output

At home, we like to follow conservation practices like switching off devices when not in use or switching to energy-saving appliances to do our bit for the environment. However, huge office spaces are much harder to keep track of.

Nonetheless, since less equipment and storage space is required in a cloud-powered office, you save up on exorbitantly high electricity bills right off.

There’s no energy being wasted on powering rooms and buildings full of heavy machinery when everything is virtual. Moreover, with smart automation taking over mundane tasks, you’ll need less space and workstations to achieve the same level of productivity. So you won’t have to power too many desk systems, and people can simply work on the go.

Low hardware refresh rate

Those who stick to sustainable lifestyles would shudder at the ‘buy once, use twice’ school of thought. In fact, the three R’s we learnt in school have now expanded to include “reuse” as the first step.

But how do you reuse bulky hardware that’s become miserably outdated?

The good news is: you don’t have to.

If you opt for cloud solutions, you don’t have to keep up with a high hardware refresh rate. Instead, you can update and maintain your cloud infrastructure with the latest advancements in technology—at a truly low cost.

This means you don’t have to keep using outdated equipment for long periods of time and can enjoy high-speed updates at the same time.

An added advantage is that new technologies come with better energy-saving features, which further boost your climate conservation efforts. And these updates are implemented by your VoIP provider, so you don’t have to hire an IT team either.

Renewable and clean energy sources

One part of the green equation is to reduce the energy requirement and increase efficiency. However, the other (and equally important) part is ensuring that the energy you do use is clean.

Renewable energy has been on the rise for a few years now, but it needs more attention as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

You can power cloud solutions with clean energy sources. It’s much easier to implement this in a cloud-based office than a traditional office with heavy equipment that has extremely high energy consumption.

A wireless and paperless office

It’s not only heavy machinery that gets ditched if you move to the cloud. With virtual operations, a lot of regular office supplies are cut down as well.

So you no longer need to print out multiple copies of every document, nor do you need to save files on CDs or hard drives. All your data can be safely stored on the cloud. Moreover, you also get multiple backups to ensure that you never lose crucial information. This helps reduce plastic use and limit deforestation for paper supply needs.

Since many coworkers can work on the same document simultaneously, there’s no need to water resources on transferring information in these preliminary stages. With lesser paper, you also have lower requirements for folders, storage, etc.

Looking ahead

No matter how we dealt with climate issues in the past, the need of the hour is to look ahead and create a sustainably growing economy. Not just to appease environmentally conscious citizens, but also to leave a better world for our future generations.

In this effort, cloud technology has emerged as the frontrunner. It allows you to meet global business growth levels while taking measures to protect the planet.

The cloud will dominate the future and serve as the major mode of business in a world with scarce resources. Therefore, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and establish climate-friendly operations right away.

There’s no point in delaying, is there? Contact our experts at 1888-859-0450 or [email protected] to clear all your doubts about migrating to the cloud. We’ll set you up in no time, and you can count on our 24/7 support with dedicated agents.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

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Diksha Gusain

Author

Diksha is a junior content writer at Acefone. As a tech-lover, she aims to bridge the gap between tech articles and non-savvy readers. She’s equally interested in pop culture and worldly affairs. And in her free time, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or discovering new music for her chaotically diverse playlist.

Handling Unhappy Customers Is Now Easier Than You Think. Here’s How. [Infographic]

Kritagya Pandey

Author

Infographics

December 15, 2020

3 mins read eye

Table of content

Handling customer calls all day long can be daunting and tiresome.

You will come across a variety of customers. While some of them are really courteous, others can be a nightmare and an unpleasant experience altogether.

Sometimes, you may have to deal with irate customers who are unhappy with the product or the experience they may have had with the company.

However, you can pacify such irate customers through the skillful use of language and presence of mind.

Golden rule of customer service: Show empathy

While this may sound a bit obvious, it is essential to empathise with your angry customers. You have to understand that their situation arises out of their purchasing experience, failure of the product, or maybe due to the quality of service.

After all, it can be really frustrating for customers to spend money on products and services that do not live up to their expectations. What can be worse is an unsympathetic and non-helpful approach of the agents.

The first way to calm down your infuriated customers is to acknowledge their problems. Ask them questions to understand what about the product upsets them and then look for the possible solution.

The next step would be to apologise to customers for the inconvenience even if it is not the firm’s fault. You can say something like, “I am sorry you had to deal with this; I will just resolve the problem.”

What else can you do to prevent customer rage?

1. Apologise – Sincerely and personally

The key is to be a ‘truly empathetic-not sympathetic’ customer service agent. Take into consideration the customer’s problem and pacify them with a sincere apology.

2. Stay calm and courteous

To deliver high levels of customer service, it is essential to stay calm and polite. Shouting back at the customers is a big no-no as it will definitely worsen the situation.

3. Develop a common ‘answer-database’

To maintain an equilibrium between the frontline and backline employees, develop a common answer base. It will help the backline employees to coincide with the turnaround time quoted by the customer service agents and hence, improve the quality of service.

Let’s walk through the infographic to understand some ways in which you can effectively handle unhappy and angry customers-

Handling Unhappy Customers Is Now Easier- Infographic

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Kritagya Pandey

Author

Kritagya Pandey is a creative and technical content writer, editor, and strategist. She has been writing on customer experience, customer service, artificial intelligence, cloud communication, and more. She invests her time researching the current business, market trends, and studying about social media strategies.

Delivering Perfect Customer Experience With Netflix: See What’s Next

Kritagya Pandey

Author

Operations

December 14, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

It’s a cold, lazy Friday night, and you have no plans whatsoever—thanks to the exhausting week at work.

But who said Friday nights are meant for parties anyway?

No, instead imagine this: You curl up in bed in your cosy pyjamas, get some snacks, and binge the latest content on Netflix—all alone, enjoying every bit of it.

Founded less than 20 years ago, Netflix has now become the biggest OTT (over-the-top) content platform and streaming service in the industry. It has been reported that Netflix, as of the third quarter of 2020, had 195.15 million paid subscribers worldwide—not even counting the people sharing accounts. This popularity is due to Netflix’s huge catalogue of films, documentaries, TV series, and even original content—all personalised according to the viewer’s preferences.

But as many of you veteran movie buffs may know, Netflix did not start off as a content streaming company.

When Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded Netflix in 1997, its business model was based on a DVD rental system sent by mail to the entire United States. That is, in their initial years, they mainly sent physical copies of films, shows, video games, and other media through the American standard mailing system in a pay-for-use model.

What started as a frictionless DVD rental business evolved into a gamechanger for the industry—pioneering the popularity of online streaming and original content.

However, one thing remained constant through all these years—Netflix is customer-obsessed.

Todd Yellin, Netflix’s VP of Product Innovation, in an interview with The Guardian, stated that “We own the Netflix customer experience from the moment our customers sign up, and for the whole time they are with us, across TV, phone and laptop.”

Keeping its user-base at the core for all decision-making and business strategies have worked wonders for the brand. Netflix has emerged as the undisputed king of the entertainment industry.

Let’s dig deeper and explore some customer service lessons we can learn from Netflix and how they perfect their user experience.

1. Personalisation all the way

“If the Starbucks secret is a smile when you get your latte, Netflix’s secret is that the website adapts to the individual’s taste.” – Reed Hastings

Think finding the perfect binge-worthy series on Netflix is a coincidence? Think again.

It is all due to multiple AI algorithms that identify and present personalised content to each user. (yes, your own customised home screen!)

When you browse the homepage, the first thing you see is a list of media to “continue watching”, followed by categories like “see it again”, “you may also like” and “because you watched XYZ”.

Netflix’s key to personalisation is offering content to users based on things they’ve already enjoyed—so they end up binge-ing one series after another.

The company has developed cutting edge machine learning algorithms to determine its users’ preferences. In fact, if you open up a certain movie or TV show summary on the site, you can see a percentage indicating how much the chosen media matches your interests.

Such dedication to personalisation and customer experience keeps the clientele happy and loyal.

This formula can be applied for businesses of every type. If you know what your audiences like, you can tailor their needs accordingly and build better relationships.

Here’s how to do it:

Deploy AI algorithms and feed recommendation engines with relevant and sufficient data to learn from.

Essentially, allow your customers to choose their story and their journey with your brand.

2. Keep the customers engaged

Customer retention and engagement are two really important factors when it comes to a subscription company. If customers start doubting the product, become dissatisfied, or fall out of love with it, you risk high abandonment rates.

To battle this issue, Netflix has strived to keep changing and improving. It incorporated a new viewing experience for users with its children shows (kids mode), while the release of the interactive movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was a fresh move to engage adults.

Netflix is the best example of the use of data in the media industry. It conducts over 250 A/B tests each year, to gather data and analyse how customers respond to it.

Here’s how to do it:

Offer new value to customers every time they visit your site. Conduct surveys to gauge public opinion and create more accurate buyer personas. You can use this data to add elements that will appeal to your target audience especially.

Keep them engaged by enhancing their product experiences and offering more than what they asked for.

3. Use the right tools for the right job

Technology plays a crucial role in creating memorable customer experiences. The only reason Netflix has been able to cater to such a wide array of audiences in a personalised manner is because of its heavy technological investments.

Simple, yet essential tools like accurate landing pages, personalised emails, and complex tools like live chat and artificial intelligence can all be used to create the perfect experience.

The recommendations on the site are based on customers’ searches, views, scrolls, and rating data, as well as the time, date, and device to predict viewers’ interests.

They also incorporate open-source software tools like Hadoop, Java, MySQL, and dozens of other systems, and hire ReactJS developers, along with other experts to enhance the digital experience. All this effort finally brings us great shows like The Black Orphan and The Walking Dead (and much more).

And what’s even better is Netflix’s efforts to engage customers through collecting data and providing content via customer devices. For example, Netflix is finding ways to connect with IoT devices like Fitbit and even socks (to monitor if the user has fallen asleep).

Here’s how to do it:

Invest in the latest technology—it will not disappoint. Cloud-based tools are the way forward for improving customer experience across industries.

4. Be customer-obsessed from day one

Netflix is a customer dedicated company. They are well aware of the fact that each viewer has a unique preference and experience while choosing their own narrative.

Moreover, the company has made it easier for customers to navigate through the app and explore the content of their choice.

Overall, they extend exceptional customer service and help their users onboard smoothly while giving them complete autonomy to cancel their subscription anytime they want.

Wrapping Up

Netflix’s technological and innovative transformations have always kept customers at the center point of consideration. Experiments with deep learning technologies bring extended personalisation to the way it delivers content.

Providing best-in-class customer service is synonymous to a company’s growth. Thus, organisations must focus on creating client-centric brands that keep consumers at the heart of everything they do.

Explore our content repository to gain access to more customer focussed content: visit https://www.acefone.com/blog/.

Or get to know more about the scope of cloud communications for your business by getting in touch with our experts at 1888-859-0450 or [email protected].

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A Complete Guide To Cloud Calling US Phone Numbers From The UK

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

December 11, 2020

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Many businesses in the United Kingdom work closely with organisations in the US, being two of the most influential Western powers. If your business is frequently calling the US, you need to find a way to hold these transactions at minimal costs and with the maximum quality.

Another important consideration is the time difference between the UK and the US. The last thing you want to do is call at an unsociable hour and ruin a potential deal.

This blog helps you explore all the aspects you need to know to make successful calls from the UK phones to the US. These aspects are discussed below.

1. Use the right dialling codes

To make a call from the UK to the US, you need to follow certain international dialling formats. The format mentioned below allows you to call any number—landline or mobile phone—in the US.

To call the United States of America from the United Kingdom, dial:

00 – 1 – Area Code – Land Phone Number
00 – 1 – 10 Digit Mobile Number

All you need is to add the number of the business or person you are trying to connect with to this template, and you are ready to connect. This can be done from a traditional office phone, mobile phone or even your hosted phone system.

With a hosted phone system, you can make international calls to anywhere in the world, including the US. These calls can be made on any device with an Internet connection and can often offer a more reliable connection to the US than a standard landline phone would.

This also means that you can make the call on the go. Considering the time difference, this benefit becomes increasingly useful. You need not stay at the office till the wee hours to connect with your international contacts.

2. Check the time before calling

Not only does the US have a different time zone than the UK, but it also has different zones within the country. Depending on the coast you have business with, you need to be mindful of the timings.

Check the time zone of wherever you are calling, and make sure your meetings are synced well. This will avoid any awkward conversations between you and your American clients.

With a hosted phone system, you can make detailed notes for all customer accounts, which are accessible by all your agents through an online portal. These notes can be used to detail the time zone of the customer and other such preferences so that whoever is making the call has all the information they need to hold a successful meeting.

3. Keep costs down

With the hosted phone system, all your calls are made over the Internet. This means that your calls, even long-distance ones, are much cheaper compared to when they are made over a traditional telephone line.

Therefore, if you frequently dabble in international networking with American firms or clients, you can enjoy significant savings with a cloud solution at your disposal. Business owners or managers can keep an eye on costs wherever they are through the admin’s portal.

The online portal gives you access to all kinds of information, such as your performance, plans, usage, and much more. If you find any bottlenecks or wastage of resources, you can simply upgrade or downgrade the plan in a jiffy.

4. Ensure your connection is strong

Nothing is worse for business than a weak connection. If your clients and agents can’t hear each other’s voice, it’s difficult to do business. To remain professional and keep your connection strong, investing in a hosted phone system is necessary. With Internet-enabled connectivity, you can communicate with anyone in the world—at crystal clear quality.

Your connection isn’t limited to your official premises, you can take your hosted phone system anywhere with you. All it takes is a compatible device with an internet connection and you can enjoy the same high-quality communication.

You are free to do business wherever your customers are based, hire remote workers in the US, or even create local numbers to allow your clients to call you cheaply.

It is as simple as ensuring that you have the right area code, use the correct dialling code, and you are connected to the US in seconds!

This is the age of complete globalisation. Open your mind and business to international connections by taking your operations to the cloud.

If you’d like to find out more about calling the US from your hosted phone system in the UK, call us today on 1888-859-0450.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Wedding In The Time Of Pandemic: How Cloud Communications Can Help You In Planning?

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Improved planning

Easy Collaboration

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Create your website

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Why Are Cloud Services Great For The Legal Industry?

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Earth Calling: Befriend The Climate With Cloud Communications

What is sustainable development?

Bring down your carbon footprint

Use less electricity, get more output

Low hardware refresh rate

Renewable and clean energy sources

A wireless and paperless office

Looking ahead

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Handling Unhappy Customers Is Now Easier Than You Think. Here’s How. [Infographic]

Golden rule of customer service: Show empathy

What else can you do to prevent customer rage?

1. Apologise – Sincerely and personally

2. Stay calm and courteous

3. Develop a common ‘answer-database’

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Delivering Perfect Customer Experience With Netflix: See What’s Next

1. Personalisation all the way

2. Keep the customers engaged