Is Cloud Communications a Cost-Saving Investment?
As a global recession looms on the economic horizon, business leaders are proactively assessing their budgets, setting aside cash reserves and eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
However, IT leaders expect to have solid tech budgets, despite a possible economic downturn. In fact, only 6% of IT decision-makers expect any budget cuts.
The reason why is summed up in a quote from Jim Rapoza, VP and principal analyst at Aberdeen Strategy & Research. He explains, “If a hurricane is coming, you don’t get rid of your generator. You buy a better one.”
What Rapoza is explaining is that technology is a fundamental piece of modern-day business continuity. Having the best tools will get your organization through a recession by giving you a competitive edge, improving business processes and enhancing the customer experience.
One of those vital tools leaders are investing in to recession-proof their business is communications platform as a service (CPaaS) technology.
What is CPaaS? Communications Platform as a Service
Communications platform as a service is a cloud-based platform that enables companies to use both collaborative and contact center functionality in one system, providing the ability to add voice and call features to their existing applications without needing any new infrastructure or technical expertise.
Investing in CPaaS comes back to its benefits: intuitive capabilities, high reliability and utilization across more departments than just your customer-facing teams. An all-in-one cloud communications solution that can boost performance, reduce cost, improve productivity, streamline business processes and maintain continuity is worthwhile.
6 Cost-Saving Ways Cloud Communications Technology Can Recession-Proof Your Business
The benefits of CPaaS are clear. But when push comes to shove, how does another investment from the IT department actually help recession-proof your business?
There are numerous ways CPaaS can help your business thrive during and post-recession.
1. Cloud Migration
Even though 61% of business leaders believe a recession will take place by 2023, cloud spending is expected to increase by 20%, according to a Gartner survey.
The demand for this increased investment, regardless of economic pressures, is driven by several immediate needs including:
- Expanding voice and increasing reach
- Fueling the hybrid work environment
- Improving security
And these needs are being met by cloud-based tools like CPaaS, as they don’t require expensive hardware or infrastructure installation, nor a hefty investment in software developers to manage them.
In fact, according to The State of IT Report conducted by Spiceworks’ Ziff Davis, after switching to the cloud, 50% of IT leaders found savings in overall IT spending and 45% benefited from enhanced security.
2. Reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Reducing costs is a must during a recession. With an on-premise PBX, it will be difficult to cut costs without hurting your overall operations. That’s where CPaaS is a game changer. Not only is implementation quick and easy, but it can help reduce TCO in two fundamental ways:
- Affordable monthly subscription: As opposed to traditional subscription fees, many CPaaS companies have moved to a usage-based pricing model. This allows you to only pay for what you consume. The reason this pricing model is so beneficial:
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- Pricing is affordable as you grow
- Gives you more control of your monthly bill
- Only requires you to pay for what you use
Not to mention, this monthly volume-based pricing is much more affordable when compared to the costs that come with managing a traditional on-premise system.
2. Reduced overhead: Because it’s in the cloud, you no longer need physical hardware, traditional wiring or a costly implementation process.
3. Improve Internal Collaboration
Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams have been growing in popularity for years. With CPaaS, you can integrate your collaboration tools under one roof giving your team benefits like:
- Increased coverage: With CPaaS you can leverage inbound and outbound numbers to connect directly with your customers around the world. Two-way phone numbers, such as TrueLocal™ allow you to have a local presence and expand your MS Teams’ reach to 170+ countries. With such wide coverage, you’ll be able to provide excellent voice quality for every inbound and outbound call. Not to mention, customers or prospects will feel much more comfortable answering the phone from a local caller ID!
- No toggling: Gone are the days of business users spending unnecessary time switching between platforms. Microsoft Teams Direct Routing makes it easy to centralize your communications platform and all its necessary collaboration tools.
4. Easily Manage Remote Teams
Studies have shown that remote work gives employees increased job satisfaction and productivity. Because of this, experts believe a recession will boost the remote workforce. CPaaS software fits the remote (and nomadic) work trend perfectly. Key benefits include:
- Opens up computer processing memory: Being a browser-based system, CPaaS doesn’t require any downloads. All your team needs is an internet connection to log in and begin working, allowing your teams to work efficiently from anywhere.
- Track employee performance: CPaaS tools like call coaching and live monitoring make it easy for your management team to collaborate, coach and run ongoing training with employees.
- Extend your IT teams with citizen developers: Its plug-and-play functionality allows your company to configure your phone system through drag-and-drop in just a few clicks– drastically increasing the use of citizen development among non-technical employees and helping your programmers offload basic coding initiatives.
5. Streamline Workflow Efficiencies
Whether your business wants to automate user management, call controls or SMS messaging and voice, your organization as a whole can benefit from tools that streamline workflows by delivering the right data at the right time.
CPaaS makes this possible through its use of programmable voice APIs and webhooks that require very little IT support.
- APIs establish a direct two-way data share connection between different applications. For example, they can help build customizable voice within your own application or product, order numbers in bulk, manage user permissions and more.
- Webhooks are very similar but push data through when a request has been made. For example, webhooks can be used to manage two-way business SMS messages between you and your customers within your CPaaS software.
When used together, webhooks will complement API-based integrations to deliver your team with more feature-rich applications, improving the user experience and optimizing their workflows.
6. Improve Business-Customer Relationships
Acquiring a new customer can cost 5X more than retaining an existing one. This is a fact that shouldn’t go overlooked in tough times. Keeping your current customers happy and nurturing those relationships will be critical during a recession, especially while they are searching for more cost-effective solutions.
- Advanced analytics: CPaaS tools provide extensive analytics and reporting capabilities, allowing management to see a holistic and detailed view of how customers are being treated from all touchpoints. For example, if your agents are transferring more calls than normal, management can quickly identify the problem with the IVR, make updates and ensure customers are routed to the correct agent on the first call.
- Improved call quality: CPaaS tools like Call Insights, give you visibility into quality metrics concerning packet loss, jitter, MOS score and more to ensure all customer communications are clear.
- Reduced human error: With its robust integrations, CPaaS can help your teams reduce manual labor toggling between platforms - which in return - will help reduce manual errors. With fewer errors and more accurate data, your agents and customer-facing users will be able to provide more enhanced, personalized interactions.
How to Make the Right Cloud Communications Investment
When it comes to finding the right CPaaS provider, it comes down to asking the right questions upfront. And with a possible recession around the corner, you will want to have the right partner to help your organization power through it.
The AVOXI platform is a leading CPaaS software with high-quality global voice coverage in 170+ countries, helping businesses enhance their voice, messaging and contact center services.
Built with the features to accelerate your growth, our SIP trunking, call recording, skills-based call routing, and TrueLocal™ caller ID services, give you a broad toolkit to manage your communications needs. Tour the AVOXI platform for yourself today!
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