Enhancing Customer Experience and Improving Sales with Cloud Telephony

The only way for a business to sustain growth in a competitive market is to offer a great experience to its customers. The closer you are to understanding their needs and resolving their concerns, the better your rapport is. That’s where timely interactions with customers come into play.  

But just how many people does it take for a business to remain consistently available to customers? How do you ensure that no customer ever gets greeted by a busy tone and gets discouraged from having the conversation?

The answer is the cloud.

Ever since the cloud has emerged, businesses have reaped countless benefits from the technology. Be it small scale companies or large enterprises, just about every scaling businesses have chosen to switch to cloud-based software. The one that is being widely accepted by successful businesses being, cloud telephony.

A cloud telephony software offers voice services for businesses over the cloud. It enables them to set up a voice and messaging process for customers that replaces the need for a conventional telephone system.

Simply put, it allows you to make or receive a large number of calls at one go – ensuring no lead is left unattended at any point of time; all without having to invest in additional infrastructure.

Businesses that have implemented cloud telephony in their processes have noticed 61% more effectiveness in their sales productivity and improved customer experience.

How does cloud telephony optimize the sales cycle?

1. It helps decentralize sales

The decentralization of sales force means placing resources at multiple strategic points across different locations. Creating these regional or localized sales offices, businesses can increase their sales without escalating the pressure on the central office.

But even as sales teams have begun to adopt this approach, there is a need for each strategic location to remain in touch and work simultaneously with the others throughout the sales cycle.

For example, using Exotel’s cloud telephony platform, Urban Ladder can now link multiple mobile numbers to a single, customer-facing number. We distribute the incoming calls between agents, ensuring that no call is left unattended. This helps them close deals when the leads are still hot, with relevant conversations. You can read more about how they do it. 

What’s more? Cloud telephony enables remote working in sales, giving the opportunity to professionals to work in sales shifts that suit them the best!

2. It offers complete control

Every startup has a different need and there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to sales. Cloud telephony enables complete control for easy scaling of startups based on the changing needs as per a target market.

From a pay-as-you-go model to adding/ removing agents as you scale, customizing flows to suit customer acquisition and engagement processes – without having to wait for an IT team, it takes less than 30 minutes to get started with cloud telephony!

It makes it possible to evade common problems faced in setting up call centers without compromising on customer experience. For example, Sticky Agent is a smart cloud contact center solution that makes sure a lead is connected with the last person they have spoken to – this removes the hassle of having to understand their needs from scratch and ensures a quick turnover of solutions.

Simply put, cloud telephony has various use cases and how you use it, depends on what your current or projected business needs are.

For example, we partnered with Pratham books to leverage the power of a simple phone call made by a customer using cloud telephony and Google Sheets. The solution was designed to implement dynamic greeting, capture all missed calls and the DTMF codes entered by the customer, create automated call campaigns and collect feedback from customers.

3. It ensures every lead is attended to

With cloud telephony, you never miss out on a customer call. Every time someone calls in and no representative is around to tackle the query, the customer data is stored and assigned to a sales representative for the next day – ensuring effective lead management.  

In the case of a missed call, the customer data is automatically stored as a lead when you integrate Exotel to your CRM (through our SMS API). You can also convert these calls into tickets directly with a CRM like Zendesk, to ensure leads are followed up in a timely manner.

The rep is then automatically privy to who he is speaking to and what this particular customer is looking for, giving him the opportunity to stay ready with relevant information before pursuing the lead. This increases the chances of converting the lead in a short sales cycle.

For example, when the customer makes a call, the sales team receives an incoming call pop up, alerting them to an activity. Here’s how it works:

–> Customer calls
–> Exotel receives the call
–> Exotel GETs your URL & simultaneously sends the call to your agent
–> You push pop up to your client on agent’s laptop

Exotel Incoming call popup

Once the call is attended, Exotel saves raw data like the first response time, the number of inbound and outbound calls, and more on a sales dashboard. This dashboard can be integrated with a CRM to enable effective lead management after the call has ended and also track the agent’s performance over time.

4. It ensures better customer experience

Too many customer queries around the same topic mean trouble. If you see multiple calls concerning one aspect of your business, execute a blast call for customers that fall under the same demographic.

For example, you can use cloud telephony to disseminate customer concern-specific information to a large number of people at the same time. The automated call simply delivers a pre-recorded message which is a solution to their existing or predicted roadblock. Doing so, lets the customer know that you care about them and are transparent sharing solutions, and also reduces the number of support calls you receive.

Read: What is Computer Telephony Integration? Read here!

How does cloud telephony enhance customer experience?

The only way a business can grow successfully, is to keep its customers happy and ensure a great experience on every interaction. That’s what cloud telephony ensures!  

With cloud telephony, customers from across the world can easily get connected to the caller. So in cases when the office is closed, the customer can still seek support, and the team can attend to a concern from anywhere. The broad networking improves customer satisfaction by ensuring timely communication.

This gives the customer a sense of being cared for and catered to instantly, pushing them smoothly down the sales pipeline and enhancing their experience with timely communication.

See how Practo, Urban Ladder, and others are using Exotel cloud telephony to boost their customer experience and sales: Case studies.

Enhance your customer experience and boost your sales.

Get started with Cloud Telephony today!