How Cloud Telephony Works?

Acefone Editor

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Cloud Telephony

June 20, 2018

6 mins read eye

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Technological changes are a continuously evolving process which keeps every business on their toes, and one such revolution has been the introduction of “cloud” in the communication sector. Prior to the cloud telephony technology, every business had to maintain a separate IT personnel to handle the array of wires and hardware in order to ensure a smooth communication — in and outside the organization.

As technological changes started capping the industry, these wires, hardware, and software became obsolete. With the cloud, a business becomes independent from the installation, IT personnel or system maintenance cost. The cloud telephony service provider now handles all the setup, maintenance and upgradation of the telephony infrastructure on the cloud. As consumers of these services, business only needs an interface to connect with the telephony server to get started.

What is Cloud Telephony?

Cloud telephony is the technology where communication devices are hosted over service provider’s premises and are made accessible to the customers through the cloud. Further, a web interface is provided to the customers to connect with this cloud-hosted system.

In the past, when the businesses planned to scale or migrate their office space, then concerns like the cost of buying a new telephone line or time delay in the infrastructural setup would start to surface their mind — making the whole migration process a cumbersome task. But, with cloud telephony, businesses simply need to inform their service providers of any such change, and the rest is then taken care of automatically.

Cloud telephony offers many more seamless benefits to your business. Let’s look at few of them below:

1. Lower Cost of Ownership

Most companies save around 15-30% on operational expenses. The need for resources is lowered as the whole set up is virtualized which directly affects the overall spending of the enterprise. The pay-per-use model makes it more affordable for the small and medium enterprise businesses to adapt.

2. Reliable with High Uptime

Multiple servers are kept in data centers to handle any unexpected technical failure. If one system fails, another set of the system automatically takes its place to starts the services with no time lag.

3. Easy Scalability

Shape of no business remains constant – every business is bound to grow or shrink. To keep up with the ever-changing need, cloud telephony services come very handily. Any no. of users/channels can be added or removed from the server as per the requirement.

4. Always Updated

Software industry keeps expanding and adding new features for better performance. To sync your communication system with these changes, service providers keep updating the software and hardware at the backend without affecting the user’s usage. Keeping your services updated without investing any extra effort or time is the major benefit of cloud telephony technology.

How Does Cloud Telephony Work?

Cloud telephony functioning is no different from the traditional way, the major distinguishing factor between the two is – former is located on the premise of the customer/business itself and latter is installed over service provider’s premises which is accessible through the cloud network.

how-cloud-telephony-works

When a customer dials the call — it is first redirected to Hosted Public Branch Exchange (PBX) on the cloud. This transfer of data is made through a Primary Rate Interface (PRI) line which is connected to the telephony server with a PRI card (PRI line is a telecommunication standard used on an ISDN to carry voice, video, data, and other network services between the user and the network).

This hosted PBX (which is provided by the service provider) stores the necessary phone numbers and information to decide routing structure for every call. All your office phone extension is connected to the hosted PBX, so every phone call landing on PBX decides it’s best suitable agent after browsing through these the set priorities in the system.

PBX can even block certain calls — if the service provider or customer explicitly sets it in the rules. Once the server decides the best-suited agent for the request, it immediately connects the customer and the agent over the phone line.

Call transfer between the agents is comparatively a faster process as all the agents are connected to the same umbrella of hosted PBX.

Why Should Business Go for Cloud Telephony?

Businesses can utilize multiple features to fasten their everyday processes and profit-making, but there are few key features of the cloud telephony services which makes it the best communication mode for the business:

1. Voicemail

Voicemail is a method of storing voice messages electronically. This feature is particularly beneficial in the cases where all the agents are busy on other line or are unavailable due to other reasons. The message is stored as a voice recording on the local storage — which is later retrieved by the agents and responded.

2. Call Forwarding

This feature allows the business owner or agents to remain available for the calls— in case they are not physically present in the office. You can utilize the cloud services to forward the incoming calls to your number. Store a list of forwarding numbers in the system to automatically forward your calls to those numbers according to the set priority. The caller remains untouched by the whole forwarding process.

3. Automatic Attendant

The Interactive Voice Response system is a smart feature which helps the business to automatically attend/answer the call with a recorded greeting message. The automatic attendant replaces the manual task of attending and transferring the calls. This feature saves a lot of human costs which used to be spent on hiring a dedicated resource to attend the incoming calls.

4. Call Recording and Monitoring

Once the business is set up, the next step lies in the maintenance which can only be achieved by constantly monitoring your processes. The call recording feature is one such facility which allows business to record every incoming and outgoing call depending upon the business requirement. This feature helps both the customers and the business in maintaining the authenticity of the conversation and the business processes.

5. Ease of Use with Desktop, Web and Mobile Applications

To utilize all the above features, an interface is provided by the cloud service provider. To expand the usage and flexibility of use, this interface is easily accessible through the desktop and web platforms. Many service providers have now developed apps for easy accessibility of services for the agents. With the mobile apps, agents/admins can at any time access and monitor their calls on their fingertips.

6. Integration With Other Systems

There are many clouds telephony software’s which adds value to cloud telephony processes by providing the integration flexibility. You can integrate your CRM, industry-specific management system or other software’s into your cloud telephony systems to maximize your usage.

Final Words

According to Indian VoIP Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017, “The market will witness phenomenal growth (CAGR) of 27% for next five years regarding the number of VoIP subscribers.”

So, as the number suggests, there is no denying to the fact cloud is the new revolution in the market. And customers are welcoming this revolution with open mind and arms. So, it’s high time to adopt cloud telephony into your business to amplify your customer experience and profits.

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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 Indian Real Estate Companies Should Use an IVR?

Acefone Editor

Author

IVR Service

May 11, 2018

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Leads, leads, and more leads!

This line makes every business owner face shine with glee, and why not? Isn’t business all about leads and their conversion?

One such industry that remains flooded with leads is Real Estate. A constant demand and supply throughout the year keep this industry thriving and this outpour of customers, many times leads to delayed response. According to a study conducted by Prof. James. B. Oldroyd at MIT, your chances of reaching leads within 5 mins versus 30 minutes drop by 21 times.

With the advent of mobile phones and affordable calling rates, phone calls have become the most favored option of all the other communication medium. So, the need of the hour lies in opting for a comprehensive solution which can handle a large number of customer calls simultaneously and streamline the lead management process of the real-estate industry.

Interactive Voice Response – A Proven Solution

Cloud-based Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems has solved the lead collection and management trouble vastly by automatically attending, managing, and routing the calls. It broke barriers restricting the growth of the real estate business. Let’s understand how every process in the real estate business can exploit the unlimited benefits of IVR.

Promote Your Pre-Bookings

As a Real Estate owner, you have already fought many battles starting from land negotiations to paperwork complexities and from selecting an excellent construction design to finding workforce. Now, the next step towards your success lies in your pre-launch booking promotional strategies.

IVR here cements promotions with your prospects by utilizing its features such as Toll-Free numbers, Text/Voice Broadcasting, Click-to-Call or API Integration in every stage.

How can you exactly use these services in your processes at different stages?

Once your land acquisition and construction details are finalized, broadcast the details of the site over Text/Voice to your collected leads.
Give a Call-to-Action in your text messages by providing a Missed Call number to collect interested leads.
Integrate your IVR system with CRM software and store information of your interested leads for a smooth follow-up process.
Buy a Toll-Free number and release it on your banners and billboards.
Send Voice Broadcasts to potential customers in their local language to increase your reach.

Manage Your Leads

Once you are done with the pre-booking campaign, it is time to reap the benefits of promotion. Handling incoming pool of calls is a humongous task. However, after opting for IVR solution, many tasks get aligned that help agent automatically to channelize their efforts in lead management.

How can you utilize these services in handling leads?

Design your toll-free routing structure in a way to direct your queries of different geographical areas to various A caller that wants to inquire about the “A” state will be redirected to the department “A”, on the selection of the correct option.
Keep a log of all the missed calls not to miss any potential customers and return a call as soon as possible.
Track the success or failure of the marketing campaigns through different virtual numbers assigned to every campaign.
Send constant SMS updates of site development to the interested leads and keep them engaged with your services.

Ensure Customer Retention

As soon as a lead is converted into a customer, your yardstick of customer satisfaction starts to stretch or shrink. Converting a lead inevitably defines the success of your sales process, but customer retention and satisfaction shape the foundation of many future successes.

In fact, even a 5% increase in customer retention can boost your profits between 25 to 95 percent. So, following up with your existing customers is an indispensable factor in your business. How to strive for customer satisfaction with IVR features?

Send regular construction SMS updates of their property to the customers and remove any skepticism that might be circulating their mind.
Broadcast your toll-free number to all your customers so that they can inquire whenever in need.
Send a voice broadcast, in case of any major changes or decisions of your business and build trust among customers.
Create a separate option in your IVR for customer grievances and record them for thorough analyzation for action.
Conduct customer surveys regularly through a voice broadcasting channel or SMS broadcast to remain updated of your customer’s expectations.

Conclusion

The real estate industry is undoubtedly the most precarious and loaded sector, which increases the relevance of adapting to IVR solutions even more. With the increasing number of real estate customers and owners, IVR is sure to automatize half manual processes and decrease the day-to-day challenges of this sector. Hence, you definitely can’t overlook the importance of profit yielded or lost from every lead.

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How A Missed Call Service Helps You Get More Customers

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Contact Center

April 19, 2018

4 mins read eye

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In the busy 21st century, everyone is running out of time. Technology, therefore, has to be constantly improved to meet the demands of the masses and allow them to do more work in less time. In the business world, every second of attention to your product counts, and so it is now far more essential to make the best use of the technology.

To effectively combine technology with business management, cloud-based telephony companies have come up with smart solutions like Missed Call Service, SMS Alerts, and others to keep your customers updated without significant time investment.

People across the world are using Missed Call Service for a variety of reasons which goes in proportional to their personal & professional needs. Let’s look at some of the compelling features of this service which can help you gain more customers with minimal efforts:

1) Optimization of Time

Save your potential customers from the pain of filling up lengthy forms. Instead, ask them to give a missed call on your number, and let your agents give them a call back to understand their requirements.

This saves you many disappointed customers who might face a tough time connecting with your agents. The ease of connecting to your leads without adding an extra burden of money or time caters to a large number of potential customers, who can be either a small-town farmer having a basic phone or a business owner having very less time.

2) Verification of Data

According to research, 15.4 million consumers have been the victim of identity theft in 2016. Fraudulent practices over the internet have always been a cause of worry for the enterprise owners while running their businesses through an online platform. Missed Call Service is providing a protective shield to these enterprises by authenticating every approaching customer.

You can ask potential customers to give a missed call if they are really interested in your service or you can ask them to give a missed call to verify their details. As soon as a customer makes a missed call, the IVR automatically verifies the number with its intelligently designed algorithms. This feature is particularly helpful to filter out the unwanted and spam calls to enter your system.

Restaurants and other businesses can use this feature to verify customers opting for Cash on Delivery option. If a caller inputs incorrect data on your application or website, then sending them your product may incur a huge cost.

Hence, a missed call service verifying a customer’s authentication through their mobile number can save a lot of money and avoid delays in your services.

3) Flexibility

In 2017 February, India’s telecom subscriber base touched the 1.18 billion mark including mobile & landline users. So, connecting with your customers over landline phones still remains a count which cannot be overlooked.

Here, missed call service becomes worthier for the business owners as customers from the platform can reach out to you through a missed call, leaving no target customers untouched. This feature in specific helps in reaching out to non-tech savvy customers or customers residing in remote places. They can give a missed call to your cloud-based number to show their interest in your products.

It’s flexibility to provide varied functionalities increases its usability and flexibility to be used in different of ways. Integration of the missed call data with CRM enhances your follow-up process, as it stores your missed call contacts in the database along with their follow-up log.

4) Cost Effectiveness

Missed Call Service also comes easy on the customer’s wallet. Internet-based and SMS-based campaigns incur costs. A Missed Call-based Campaign, on the other hand, costs nothing at all and yet works in an equally effective manner.

Cost-effectiveness makes missed call service attractive to the potential customers. As customers face no restriction while approaching you.

5) Conduct Surveys

Sending an SMS to participate in a poll has always been a costly affair for the voters. Spending 3rs/vote acted as a barrier to the process of voting which eventually started affecting customer’s enthusiasm.

Stepping in here, missed call service greatly revolutionised the e-voting & surveys. It simplified the whole process by replacing the message responses with a missed call response.

SMS voting only allowed the customers with a mobile phone to participate. The introduction of missed call voting overcame this setback as well and allowed customers with landlines to be an active participant of surveys/polls.

6) Lead Generation

Generating leads is essential to any profit-oriented enterprise. Here, Missed call service acts as a bonus for your sales team. Facilitating your customers with the option of missed call organically inclines them towards your service, as now their process of approaching you becomes hassle-free and eliminates many intermediate levels of communication.

RoI of missed call lead generation is easily trackable against various marketing campaigns. It also enhances your lead management process and keeps you updated of customers who could be re-targeted in future.

If you would like to get an easy to use, reliable and economical missed call service of impeccable quality for your company. Call Now.

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Top 5 Benefits of Voice Broadcasting for Your Business

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Voice Broadcasting

March 9, 2018

3 mins read eye

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Gone are the days when putting a company’s life-size banner on the roadside shinning billboards or distributing pamphlets were the only options to make a long-lasting mark on customers’ minds.

Nowadays, cloud technology has largely influenced the publicity strategies being developed by businesses and whipped away the traditional methods by offering more cost-effective solutions to a far-reaching target audience.

Voice broadcast has emerged to be the most efficient way and it has also overcome the limitations of traditional ways for advertising. Voice broadcast allows you to connect instantly with customers in various languages and get your messages across with minimal human intervention in the process.

Voice broadcasting has made it possible to cut the cost by eliminating a large number of staff handling the calls and removing the hardwired phone connection lines with the cloud-based digitized approach.

Let’s see how voice broadcasting helps your business grow by making an efficient customer outreach.

1. Customer Friendly

If your target customer resides in distant corners of the world, voice broadcasting gives the flexibility to personalize your language & message according to that region. This helps in adding a personal touch to your messages. Every business looks for a steady customer base and with the help of voice broadcasting, every single message you want to convey finds a receiving end.

2. Message Uniformity

Message inconsistency is the most vulnerable part of broadcasting, a large organization with a huge staff assigned for the same task may tamper the consistency and authenticity of the original message resulting in a lack of transparency in the process.

Voice broadcasting helps to prevent this drawback by transmitting a voice recorded information, after quality & credibility assurance from the dedicated authorities. It ensures the consistency between the original message and the final transmitted message.

3. Easily Affordable

Making an impactful change in the running of a business is complemented by a hefty cost, Voice broadcasting, on the contrary, reduces your set up cost as cloud telephony companies provide a software which supports your telephony services without any additional hassle of setting up phone lines or allotting a dedicated resource to make 1000 calls.

Voice broadcasting also offers add-on value services like admin management portal or calls analytics graph make it a good buy for the small firms, in search of affordability and quality.

4. Manage Campaigns on a Click

Running a campaign is a humungous task and tracking the history of thousands of calls is not that easy without a substantial human effort. Voice broadcasting streamlines the call tracking processes by generating a detailed call tracking list with the information about the number of voice calls made and how many of them were successful.

Admin can also create different categories and assign different voice messages for the same according to their requirement and release multiple voice broadcast at the same time catering different customer needs.

5. Flexible

Schedule your recorded call according to the customer’s availability without affecting their already planned day. If the voice broadcasting service provider has a downloadable mobile app, then all the statistics related to the voice broadcast stay clear and visible with a better sense of communication.

Voice broadcasting software stores a huge database of numbers reducing the last shred of human complication involved in the process.

Voice Broadcasting – Adding Value

With a race to reach out to a maximum number of people, voice broadcasting has unprecedently proved to be beneficial for the government in spreading awareness about the newly launched schemes, running political campaigns or sending out promotional offers.

Businesses aiming to advertise their services with minimum investments are leveraging this emerging opportunity to the best of their abilities and receiving a tremendous ROI.

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Leveraging Cloud Telephony For Efficient Logistics Operations

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Business Communications

August 22, 2017

5 mins read eye

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(Update: This blog was originally published on 22nd August 2017 and was last updated on 20th May 2020 for comprehensiveness and accuracy.)

More and more businesses throughout the world are outsourcing logistics, i.e. opting for third party logistics (3PL). Given the complicated architecture of supply chains and related operations, it is only logical for businesses to hire logistics service providers.

In India alone, analysts suggest a growth of 8.36% in the 4 year period from 2018-2022 in the 3PL industry. Such growth is indicative of the immense potential of the industry.

However, the 3PL business calls for a robust communication system, which facilitates operational efficiency, thus cutting down on operational costs. In an industry where the mantra ‘time is money’ is more factual than metaphorical, operational efficiency and competitive margins are a necessity to sustain in the market.

For most logistics service providers, cloud telephony solution has emerged to be the armament of choice . Thanks to these solutions, companies can now drive down frequent incurring costs thus creating a sustainable model, allowing them to reduce the overall operational costs and increase efficiency and profitability.

Before we learn and discuss various cloud telephony technologies driving the logistics industry of the day, let us get a brief idea of the traditional business model and methods earlier used on the field.

Pen and paper methods of creating and maintaining a physical copy for transactions was the norm. Though some companies still use this method to keep a track of their deliveries, the problems associated with the same are pertinent.

Misplacing files, wrong input and other human errors were common. The delivery agent updates the order status summary but only after finishing, the day’s work. The same is collated and forwarded to all stakeholders. This can lead to delays and often inaccuracies.

Modern solutions involve the use of smart devices like smartphones or tablets. Delivery agents use the custom-built app installed in these devices to track and complete their deliveries.

Once the delivery is complete, the same application is used to update and share the status with all stakeholders. The solution offers a great alternative to the taxing pen and paper method, however fails to address some operational issues, like:

Unreliable Internet Connection

The prerequisite for the custom-built app is a stable internet connection. However, last mile data connectivity is still a challenge, especially in a developing country like India.

Hence, improper internet connectivity can make this solution obsolete, doing more harm than good. This inefficiency can further result in delays and inaccuracy causing disruption in the logistics cycle.

Dispute Resolution Issues

In case of issues pertaining to misplaced deliveries, prolonged delays, incorrect status updates, etc., most logistics service providers either do not have a contingency in place or the lead-time to find out the inconsistency is very long and strenuous for both the business and customer.

These issues and related delays are caused due to lack of proper communication infrastructure that allows real-time updates throughout the supply chain with or without internet connectivity.

Errors in Data Entry

Logistics industry calls for near perfect data entry to ensure proper functioning. Relying on timely and accurate data, the business cannot afford errors.

However, there is no infrastructure in place to facilitate the same for its employees and most importantly for its delivery agents. There is an urgent need to adopt a more convenient method for agents on the go.

These are only some of the many challenges faced by 3PLs. Other challenges faced by 3PLs are order delivery status clarity, lack of communication between the customer and delivery personnel, which leads to high reimbursement costs and in worse cases, increase in COD orders returns.

Cloud Telephony Solutions Change the Game!

Cloud based communications add another dimension to the entire supply chain. It offers a plethora of benefits for 3PL companies like real-time tracking, fastened resolution time among others.

Let us now understand in detail how cloud telephony solutions can help and enhance supply chain efficiency for logistics service providers.

Real-Time Tracking

Using cloud telephony solutions like automated IVR, agents can readily make a call, which automatically updates the delivery status based on the option so selected.

Integrating this service with the company’s CRM system, which can facilitate that all stakeholders get instant notifications. Cloud telephony technology facilitate these advances without relying on internet-connectivity, thus ensuring true last-mile integration.

Easy Monitoring

Cloud telephony solutions allow in time monitoring of all customer-facing calls by recording and analyzing the same. Using analytics tools managers can now easily understand and intervene in case of any discrepancies.

These tools thus, allow businesses to develop and deploy strategic processes, which help avoid supply chain disruptions due to lack of proper communication.

Speedy Redressal

By providing real-time updates across platforms and robust communication structure, cloud telephony solutions help in efficient inventory management and consistent reports throughout the supply chain. Thus, any discrepancies are quickly found and timely addressed; thereby, speeding up issue redressal to a great extent.

Convenient Communication Channel

Logistics service providers endure heavy losses due to failure delivering Cash on Delivery (COD) orders. At times customers are not available and sometimes deny to accept and pay for the products.

Delivery agents therefore call customers before delivering the order. This is called ‘confirmation before delivery’ and helps to ensure the authenticity and availability of the customer.

Cloud telephony solution eliminates the need of added expenditure, allowing delivery agents to make work calls using as many extensions as needed.

Top to Bottom Optimization

Cloud telephony solutions allow the logistics companies to update the order statuses in real-time and grant them the ability to review and optimize the efficiency of other processes like distribution, supply chain, procurement, payroll, etc.

In addition, SMS alerts help notify customers and other stakeholders of the current status. These solutions make consumer data readily available, along with work suites to facilitate on-the go working.

Conclusion

Cloud telephony solutions can easily revamp the entire 3PL landscape and provide solutions for some of the most beaming challenges faced today. IVR, SMS alerts among others can facilitate real time updates and avoid unnecessary disruption due to improper communication channels.

Companies using cloud telephony services have already reported success and benefits. 3PL businesses have described a significant 18% increase in on-time deliveries, in addition to a 30% decrease in losses due to non acceptance of COD orders.

A direct result of these advances along with on time deliveries and a reduction in dispute resolution time is a sharp drop in customer complaints.

Cloud technology thus offers tailor-made solutions for the logistics industry. With economical packages and convenient setup, It is a must for 3PL companies. It is a step in the right direction of revolutionizing one’s company by improving overall operational efficiency and saving time and cost at the same time.

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How GST is Going to Influence the Telecom Sector

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Operations

August 9, 2017

5 mins read eye

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Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been in the minds of the government for quite some time now and it was implemented on the 1st of July 2017. The implementation of GST is meant to regulate the telecom sector in terms of taxation. The telecom sector has seen several ups and downs in the past decade. For the same reason, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has played an important role in synchronizing the Indian telecom sector.

GST is a system of taxation that merges up individually applied taxes into single tax. This step has been taken to reform the indirect taxation in India.

There are various aspects of the impact that GST has created on everything. But as India is embracing a single tax code, the effect on the telecom sector is going to be presumably immense as with the coming times there will be more clarity in the scenario of telecom sector.

Current Scenario of Telecom Sector

The telecom sector in India has seen a revolution with the post liberalization economic growth after 1991. And the 1999 telecom policy has consolidated it even more. According to TRAI, in October 2015, we crossed a billion mark for the mobile subscribers and the total number of broadband subscribers in the end of October 2016 were 218.42 million. The arrival of smartphone has just increased the number of users exponentially.

The bigger players in the telecom service providers have shown a much promising picture to the consumers in terms of prices and benefits. The increasing competition has only brought the prices to a much beneficial realm for the consumers.

If we look at the trends in the Indian telecom sector for the year 2017, data realization per MB is going to fall by 20-25% in 2017. The fiberisation of network in India has not yet covered a large area, so it is going to be more prominent in 2017. The LTE and VoLTE enabled phones are going to be a lot cheaper in the coming year.

The growth in the mobile users is going to be 30+% from the existing 370 million users. And this is the reason behind the unexpected upsurge in the mobile advertising. The new GST regime will lead to a highly compliance cost from the telecom companies.

All in all, the number of wireless subscribers has increased, and the statistics show that the number of users accessing the internet on high speed has also increased.

Source – India Brand Equity Foundation

This increasing numbers of wireless users has also ensured that consumers are using internet based communication medium is much larger way.

Impact of GST on Telecom Sector

From the arrival and implementation of GST, the government proposal is to levy 18% tax on the telecom services. The current figure is 15% of tax and so the difference is of 3%. The hike in taxes may have a varied impact on the pricing policies of the telecom companies.

According to the government’s press release, currently, the telecom service providers are neither eligible for credit of VAT paid on goods nor of special additional duty (SAD) that is paid on imported goods and equipment. But under the GST regime, the telecom service providers would avail credit of IGST paid on domestically procured goods as also imported goods.

Is GST Going to Benefit the Telecom Sector?

Telecom sector has millions of subscribers and it is one of the most basic infrastructural services for subscribers. The current ways of indirect taxes have several challenges which is the reason GST has many promising prospects for the future. GST will turn out to be an absolute solution that will become more concrete with the coming times.

In the current situation, the telecom sector is regulated by TRAI and licenses are distributed by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). Telcos get circle-wise licenses to provide telephony services. Circle wise license distribution doesn’t align with the geographical boundaries of the states. For example, Delhi NCR circle covers Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Noida and Gurgaon telephone exchanges. GST will allow the distribution of license on state wise basis.

The disparity of incurring roaming charges will be different further because of the state wise circle allocation. So, the state wise accounting is going to be applied under the GST regime.

Currently India is divided into 22 telecom service areas or circles for the purpose of licensing. Under the effects of GST, it will be levied in 29 states and 7 union Territories (UTs). The IT and billing systems will require a redesign to ensure GST compliance.

The finance ministry has already asked the phone companies to cut down prices of the telecom services, as the higher tax credits is unlikely to exceed the 1% of revenue, which is way below the 3% hike in the tax rate on telecom services.

GST as a Game Changer

If we look at the concept of GST then the prices are going to reduce with it. The current way of taxation has cascading effect meaning a tax is applied on every stage that propels the product or services further.

Due to such cascading effects, the end consumer has to pay a higher price for the same product. So it is speculation that due to this common tax scheme, the consumer will have to pay much lesser prices.

If we look at another effect of GST, several telecom service providers have come up with mobile wallet services e.g. Airtel Money and Vodafone M-pesa. After the demonetization drive, the mobile wallets have become rife in usage and due to indirect tax implication. But the mobile wallet services have a very clouded opinion regarding the point of taxation. It varies with the service provider.

it is a concrete speculation that under the GST regime, the wallet services would be clearly defined whether it falls in the service ambit or just a plain transaction. This is just one of the several challenges. The telecom sector is ready for such challenges and GST is here for an unprecedented assistance to the establishment.

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5 Benefits of Bulk SMS for Your Business

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SMS Service

June 15, 2017

3 mins read eye

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An essential aspect of contacting the customers is that they should hear the message you are trying to convey. There are various outbound solutions available for this purpose, some of which are effective and help in consolidating the customer base.

SMS is one of the best methods used these days to make an outbound access to the customers. The ideas these messages carry is mostly short, succinct and are likely to be read by the customers. Today, when the customers don’t have much time to spare and are reluctant for any marketing activity, bulk SMS service is an assurance that your messages will be conveyed to the customers, effortlessly.

1. Captures Customer’s Attention

Getting customer’s attention is the key to open the possibility for your business or service. Here the necessary aspect that counts to be working for the customers is time spent by the customers in reading an e-mail or SMS. It also includes the effort that is made by the customer while reading the text.

SMS stands more effective than an email because it asks for lesser effort from the customers and when delivered, the message is read even later. So even if it is read with a fleeting sight, it stays there in the customer’s attention.

2. Provides Speed to Your Marketing

The effectiveness of the approach made to customers depends on the intensity with which it has been received. In today’s times when most of the businesses are on the go, you get much lesser time to be in touch with your potential customers.

So, it is necessary whatever you are trying to convey should be short and to the point so that the customer doesn’t have to spend much time on it. And bulk SMS has the capability of mass access. A message can be conveyed to a number of customers without putting much effort.

3. Provides Return on Investment

Bulk SMS is also cost-effective, and you just need to put in minimal investment to get this service, and the returns you yield are very high. Also, the factor that helps in making the idea of bulk SMS work is, you can use it according to the scale of your business.

With such autonomy, you can easily take your business ahead with the help of an effective outbound approach to the customers. The only condition is the bulk SMS service should not be made an involuntary message to the customers.

Recommended Read: Mistakes While Running a Bulk SMS Campaign

4. Targets Specific Customers

With the help of bulk SMS, your campaign can target a particular set of customers. The best practice is to compartmentalise your customers according to their interests and inclinations, and then you can send specific messages to the respective groups.

The bulk SMS helps you connect with a big group of customers with the same interest. Emails fulfil the same purpose, but the effectiveness of the SMSs is far more.

5. Effective Communication

Although bulk SMSs are a unidirectional communication channel, a contact number, a website link can be easily shared through the message. Such information can be used for customer’s further reference. In addition to this, a personalized message can be sent to the respective set of customers according to the details of demographics and their interests.

In general, adding a personalisation factor to the marketing activity involves various touch points, but with the help of bulk SMS, you just need to get the customer contact data and curate a message that carries customer’s interests.

Bulk SMS is the best way to make bulk customer contact in just one go. With such little effort involved, bulk SMSs bring unprecedented benefits to the business.