Give Your E-Commerce Business The Cloud Telephony Advantage

The e-commerce business has been involved a lot in the past few years. People started finding it more convenient as well as hassle-free to buy stuff online instead of going out and spending hours in a shopping mall. Another reason why people have started to prefer buying online is because of the thousands of options available.

With time, e-commerce businesses are growing rapidly and at the same pace, the number of e-commerce users are also increasing. This increment in the number of users leads to difficulty in managing and handling them at the same time.

Being an e-commerce business owner, you must have experienced people leaving negative comments, trying to reach out to your business agents with their problems & being kept on hold for too long, your customers failing to reach the delivery executive, and worrying about their information privacy.

All this can be handled easily with the help of cloud telephony solutions. Let’s learn about it in depth.

Be it an online seller of homemade jewelry, or perhaps, a small adventure travel company that encourages customers to book packages online. Whatever your e-commerce business, cloud telephony services can help you overcome many of the challenges you face, quickly and cost-effectively. Here’s how.

What is Cloud Telephony?

Cloud telephony is also known as cloud-based telephony or cloud calling. It is a technology that enables voice and messaging services to be delivered over the internet instead of traditional telephone lines.

In cloud telephony, the service provider hosts the hardware and software needed to manage the phone system in a data center at some remote location and customers can access the services with the help of the internet. This allows businesses to set up an easy to manage & cost-effective phone system with no physical infrastructure and without investing in expensive on-site hardware.

Cloud telephony systems include multiple features such as call recording, voicemail, automated calling, call analysis, call forwarding, etc. This technology has multiple uses like for customer service, marketing, internal communication, sales, and more. Cloud telephony has become increasingly popular in the past few years thanks to its flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.

Different Cloud Telephony Services

Here are some different cloud telephony services:

Virtual Phone Systems: A virtual phone number is a cloud-based phone number that allows businesses to make & receive calls from anywhere in the world. As its name implies, it a not a physical and actual phone number but a virtual cloud-based number.

Cloud Contact Center: Cloud contact center software is another cloud-based solution that assists businesses in managing all incoming & outgoing calls. It helps in call distribution, recording, monitoring, and analysis.

Voice Broadcasting: Another cloud-based service that enables businesses to send pre-recorded voice messages to a large number of customers at once. It is a great tool for sending out informational or promotional messages.

WebRTC: WebRTC is web real-time communication. This cloud-based solution enables businesses to make & receive audio and video calls directly from a web browser with no requirement for any additional software or plugins.

IVR: Interactive Voice Response is a cloud-based technology that is an automated response system that allows phone callers to interact with computer systems through voice or phone keypad.

Number Masking: This is a cloud-based technology that masks the original phone number of the caller and the receiver to a different virtual number for privacy purposes.

Click-to-Call: A cloud-based solution that can be implemented as a button on your website or mobile application. Clicking on this button will automatically let your phone call on the business’s phone number.

Missed Call Services: This cloud-based solution let your customers call on the business phone number which automatically gets disconnected after a ring or two. The business can call back on the same number or send a message immediately.

Toll-Free Number: A toll-free number is a business number that is free of charge for customers to call. The charges are bear by the business they are calling.

Advantages of Cloud Telephony For E-Commerce Businesses

Enable Free Phone Communication To Builds Confidence & Trust

Remember that when people transact online, they have no actual contact with you. Their virtual interaction with your business is based on trust – a trust that can easily be broken by a bad experience. Since there is no physical outlet where customers can meet with you face to face, many opt to resolve their issues or make inquiries over the phone. Giving customers access to your company is an excellent way to build their confidence.

When customers voice their issues, you can personally apologize and make it up to them. This kind of personalized customer service paves the way for them to give you a second chance. Also, let customers talk to you without bearing the cost of the call.

You can do this by associating a toll-free number with your business. You can easily and affordably get a number one from a cloud telephony company, so there’s really no excuse for not implementing this mode of communication. Whether customers call in to complain, apply for a product replacement, or to offer a word of appreciation, they must always be able to reach you without having to pay.

Provide Anytime, Anywhere Information with IVR

The great thing about e-commerce is that you can sell to people across the country or even across the world, 24/7. The downside to this is that people can access your online store anytime, anywhere via their computers or mobile phones. Some of them may expect you to be available to answer their questions at 3 am in the morning when it suddenly takes their fancy to check out your product; yes it can happen.

You’re only human, so instead of trying to make do without sleep for the rest of your professional life, here’s what we suggest. Implement a good IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system that politely greets callers, informs them about your work timings, and gives them the option to listen to recorded information about common queries such as shipping costs. Also, implement a voicemail feature that lets them leave a number for you to call back. Problem solved!

Battle Logistical Issues, with Click-to-Call

For any e-commerce business, managing logistics can be frightfully difficult. Some of the more common problems include delivery delays from your supplier, and late deliveries to your customer. No matter what the issue is, make sure that your customer is updated about it.

Installing a click-to-call button on your website or mobile application will allow your customers to directly connect with you on their orders which will help them get the right information in real-time.

Save Time by Forwarding Customers To The Right Person

If a customer receives the wrong product or a faulty product, and your business has a person who handles exchanges, do configure your IVR system to forward the call to the concerned person when the customer selects an option. This is a great way to save time for you and your customer and also helps you resolve the problem quickly.

Improve Your Customer Relationship Management with Call Recording

It doesn’t matter if your business is small, medium, or large sized, you need to start building and maintaining customer relationships from day one. It’s five times more expensive to attract a new customer, than to retain an existing one, so improve your customer interactions by opting for a handy little feature called call recording. Play back your recorded conversations later and define what worked and what didn’t. Act on that knowledge.

Your cloud telephony company should also let you integrate your phone records with the CRM package you use, so that you have a comprehensive, history of your customer, in one place.

Send Your Customers Voice Notifications On Sales & Security Issues

Are your customers missing out on a cool sale or promotion you’re hosting online? If your cloud telephony company has the facility to send pre-recorded notifications in bulk, you could simply inform all your customers about a sale and benefit from an increased number of purchases.

You can also use voice broadcasting services to thwart cyber crime and prevent identity theft. If you are aware of an online threat, such as a phishing site, or fraudulent emails, you can instantly send recorded voice alerts.

Monitor Your Marketing Campaign ROI with Call Tracking

If you’re not sure which online and offline promotional campaigns are working best for your business, use call tracking and virtual numbers to find out. You can assign a different number to each marketing campaign (outdoor, web, print, and so on), and track which number gets the most calls. All the incoming calls will be routed to your business phone, so you don’t need multiple staff to manage different numbers. Your cloud telephony company will be able to tell you more about this feature.

In Conclusion

Do you run a small or medium-sized e-commerce business? Do you face many of the challenges we have listed above? If yes, you now know how you can overcome them. Remember, that the huge advantage of availing services in the cloud is that your provider can scale up to meet your growing business needs when you start expanding your business scope. So go ahead, think big, confidently plan for a brighter online business future, and connect with Knowlarity for cloud-telephony services.