Cloud Voice Services for Small to Midsize Business: Features to Look For

October 26th, 2020 by Ed Hoffmann

Communication and collaboration are critical to any business. Enabling your employees to do both of these effectively requires the right tools. Function4's cloud voice services (aka VoIP or Unified Communications) platform, Elevate, provides businesses with everything they need. If you are considering switching to a new platform, defining what features matter most is crucial. Let's take a look at the top ones you should seek out.

The Small/Midsize Business Communication and Collaboration Challenge

Small to Midsize businesses typically pursue strategies based on efficiency and productivity. They know they need to operate lean to find success. These businesses often have distributed teams, even more so now, with the transition to remote work. Because teams are not in a central space and cannot interact with partners and clients in person, the demand for communication and collaboration tools is skyrocketing.

The problem that many small businesses face is using multiple platforms for chat, video conferencing, and file sharing. If tools are in silos, teams may be as well. With the rise of cloud-based unified communications, businesses can now afford integrated solutions that enhance communication and collaboration.

Cloud-Based Phones

Unified communications free your staff to answer and receive calls from anywhere via VoIP (voice over IP). Employees can take calls from their desktop computer or mobile phone. You'll experience the same call quality, no matter where you are. Cloud-based phone systems also streamline management from a single web-based portal. You'll enjoy all the features of any standard business phone, including voicemail to email, hold and park, transferring calls, and call recording.

Choosing A VoIP Solution for Small/Midsize Business: Must-Have Features

Your business should consider VoIP services (Unified Communications) to resolve disparate systems, save money, and improve workflows. When comparing offerings, there are some must-have features you should include:

Ability to Scale

Every business has growth aspirations. As you add team members, you'll need to consider how your technology can scale. It should be comfortable and straightforward. Unified Communication platforms provide you with this control. Ideally, you want to be able to add users in a few clicks. Be sure to inquire about this when comparing providers.
Support for Business Continuity

Business continuity is vital for any organization. Natural disasters or other disruptions can put your company at risk if communication systems aren't available. Cloud voice services help support business continuity. The system can ring all endpoints for every call. If no one answers, you can route calls to a number of your choosing, including mobile or an automated attendant.
Video Conferencing That's Secure and Easy to Deploy

Video conferencing has never been more necessary in the business world. It offers your team the ability to connect when in-person meetings aren't feasible meaningfully. While many unified communications platforms include video conferencing, they aren't all the same. It's especially important to determine the security of the system to ensure privacy and compliance.

It should also be easy to deploy. It shouldn't require your team to sit through hours of training or download lots of applications. A browser-based solution means users can start meetings with a click and work from any device.
Contact Center as a Service: For the Ultimate Customer Experience

Every business wants to be responsive to customer needs. Today's customers now engage providers in various channels, and being able to track, monitor, and address these interactions is paramount to customer satisfaction.

It's vital to manage call analytics within your contact center or for salespeople reaching out to customers and prospects. With call data, you can understand the team's aggregate performance and, much as you do in the office environment, locate areas that are sub-optimized and may need further review.

Watch this Contact Center Overview
Call Analytics

Measuring the performance of sales and customer support is possible with call analytics. You can track the usage of your teams through reporting. These reports help you analyze the efficiency of your teams and the quality of the engagement with customers. If phone calls are a medium for your sales and support teams, this is a feature you need. Check out how it works in the video below.

What can you monitor with call analytics?
- Queue performance: Determine how well the queue moved and what roadblocks may be in the way for agents.
- Call volume: Knowing the periods of highest call volume can help you shift your coverage model to reduce queue wait times and speed issue resolution
- Team performance, including how long agents spend on calls, the number of calls taken, and issue resolution.

Enable Better Communication and Collaboration with Cloud Voice Services

VoIP/Unified Communications is a smart, reliable toolkit for any business. Your team will have all the resources it needs to communicate and collaborate, all on one platform. As you search for the right solution, keep in mind these must-have features.

Function4 offers all of these and so much more. Explore how it works today.