According to a research, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60- 70 percent, while probability of selling to a new prospect is 5- 20 percent. Therefore, customer retention becomes inevitable to generate great sales, especially if you are in a SaaS business or an e-commerce business. And to ensure customer retention, good customer service is a must. For most customers, calls are the easiest contact points with businesses. Whenever they face any issue with their service, they prefer to connect with businesses on calls. Imagine a scenario wherein a customer calls your business and his call lands in the wrong department. The agent who picks up the call forwards his call to the right department .The whole process takes five minutes before the customer gets to speak with the right agent. This leaves the customer frustrated for two reasons. First, the customer was already frustrated because his services were not working properly due to which his work was getting hampered. Second, since he was pressed for time, the delay in getting a response from the right agent added to his frustration. Wondering how this bad experience could have been avoided? Taking your business phone system on cloud can help you deliver a great on-call customer service.

If the call was routed to the right agent through the cloud based IVR, the customer’s time could have been saved. This was just one example where cloud telephony could have increased customer satisfaction. Cloud telephony can improve customer service in a variety of ways.

• 24x7 Availability- Offering support to your customers whenever they want helps build trust for your brand. An IVR lets you stay available to your customers even after your office hours. The time-based call routing feature of an IVR allows you to route calls based on time. All the calls after office hours can be forwarded to voice mails or to any other

agent’s mobile number, who is responsible for receiving calls after office hours. Imagine this: You own a company whose office hours are from 9 am to 6 pm. With the help of time based routing, all your business calls can be routed after office hours i.e. after 6 pm to your personal mobile number or you can set an IVR saying that your office hours are over and the customer will be contacted the next day when the office reopens. This would increase customer satisfaction by great levels.

A cloud based IVR automatically directs the customers’ calls to the agents who are most qualified to address their queries.

• Easy Call Routing- Whenever we call a company, we hate our call to be put on hold and transferred multiple times. We want our enquiries to be handled quickly and efficiently. Your customers are no different. They expect the same from your company. A cloud based IVR automatically directs the customers’ calls to the agents who are most qualified to address their queries. It offers a menu of departments for the customers to select from. The customers select the most appropriate department in accordance with their queries, thus, reducing the hold times for them. They find IVR very user-friendly as it saves them a lot of time.

• Multilingual Support- In a diverse country like India, where a vast number of languages are spoken, connecting with the customers in their local language reduces communication gaps and enhances customer satisfaction. An IVR enables customers communicate with your business in their preferred language. It provides a list of languages to select from, thus, making the customers feel connected with your brand.

• Transparency- Tracking and recording of calls ensures transparency and builds trust. It makes the customers feel that they are important for the business. Additionally, the call recordings can be referred to by the agents if required to the better understand the grievances of the customers.

• Flexibility- Since cloud telephony involves no on-premise infrastructure and everything is managed on cloud, the calls can be transferred any where irrespective of the geographical location of the agents. So,the same call can be transferred to an agent in a different location rather than the customer disconnecting the call and dialing a separate number to connect with an agent in a different geographical location. This saves the customer’s time.

Because of the enormous benefits associated with Cloud Telephony, it is becoming the face of business communication. More and more businesses are getting rid of the conventional PBX systems and switching to cloud telephony as it binds all the office staff seamlessly in one communication system. The cost efficiency, scalability and zero infrastructural costs makes cloud telephony an attractive alternative to the traditional PBX systems for business owners. In the years to come, cloud telephony will become the backbone of any successful business by improving customer service and providing opportunities to startups and MSMEs to operate from any where.