Cloud Telephony

In A Nutshell
Everything you need to know before
making a decision about your
business phone system
Contents
1. Introduction 1

2. A little bit of background 2

3. What is cloud telephony 4

4. What is great about cloud telephony 7

5. Features of cloud telephony 11

6. Use cases 14

7. What does cloud telephony mean for your business 21

8. Cloud telephony cheat sheet 29

9. Experience the future 31

Introduction
Welcome to the “Cloud Telephony In A Nutshell” ebook.

If we had to guess, we would say that you are looking for the best solution to give your customers a smooth
communication experience. You are building a startup, or running a successful business, or someone just looking
for the best way to scale your business without burning a hole in your pocket. You have a few questions about
cloud telephony and how it can help your objective. In the next few pages, we hope to tell you everything you
need to know about cloud telephony and help you make that decision.

By the end of the ebook, we will help you

Understand what cloud telephony is

Decide if cloud telephony is right for your business
Explore what features will help power your business
Get started quickly

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A little bit of
background

Importance of phone calls for business

One might think that in the age of all-pervading Given this, the question to ask is
social media and email, traditional customer support
through phone might have taken a backseat. “What is the best way
Statistics surprise us by showing that a whopping
to support my customer?”
68% of all contact centre communication is handled
via phones. What’s more, voice communication is If data is anything to go by, here’s the answer-
expected to be the fastest-growing channel (72%) “Figure out a way to manage your
with email, web chat, and social media clearly phone calls better.”
lagging behind.

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The emergence of present day
cloud telephony
As with everything else in the history of humanity, we had to get through several stages of telephony evolution to
get to the present day cloud telephony system.

In bygone days, businesses set up a huge box in their offices called the EPABX system (after a fair bit of jumping
hoops even before this stage). This box acted as the telephone exchange for their calls.

If we were to evaluate the pros and cons of this system, we had some great features like IVR, Call Routing, etc.
Undoubtedly, these features are still very desirable in the present day business scenario.

However, the amount of overheads that accompanied this system was a dampener. These boxes

Occupied humongous amounts of valuable real estate

Needed IT teams to manage the PBX system
Had ridiculous turnaround times if you decided to have a nicer message greeting your customer
Had employees literally chained to their desks to answer calls
Needed maintenance that was a nightmare since the end-to-end management was by the business itself
Made scaling difficult due to the effort and money needed

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What is cloud telephony and
what does it do ?
Cloud Telephony is the technology that allows you to move your business phone system to the cloud. In other

does so in a fraction of the cost and effort. It is the smartest way for any business to manage phone calls without
compromising on quality and price.

Think of us as a software interface to a telco.

Instead of a business having to worry about
telephony lines and other infrastructure, all they

We abstract away all the complexities of the

underlying telecom infra and provide them simple
software interface. In that way we are like a
“software telco”.

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How does cloud telephony work?
In its simplest form, cloud telephony
can be used to handle your
customer calls, divert it to your
team, get customers to perform
actions based directions over an
**
**
IVR, etc.
**
**
**
Later, the callers’ information, call
recordings, the actions performed by
+9
92
25
59
90
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the customer over the call and any
other information you’d like to
track can be done with your CRM,
ERP, Helpdesk or any other
custom software.

Try it yourself

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If you’d rather watch a snappy 1-min video on how cloud telephony works, here you go:

Now, we know what you are thinking. “It’s great to learn about this technology and all, but, - Does my business
need cloud telephony?”

That question is better answered by examining the various business environments that find cloud telephony
incredibly useful- and figuring out where your business fits in this full range.

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What’s great about
cloud telephony
Here are our top business “big company” experience on a budget, cloud
profiles (and the benefits that telephony is your best bet. With pay-as-you-go
options, your usage determines your bills.
make the most sense to each
of them): II. A company with remote employees
or a field workforce

I. A startup with limited funds

Using an EPABX system, you can only route and

Setting up and maintaining a traditional phone manage calls that happen within the four walls of
system is an expensive affair. It is not something the office. With more and more businesses opting to
you can afford if you’re a growing startup with have remote employees, this system becomes
limited finances. redundant. Also, if you run a marketplace model of
business or a business that involves employees
What makes sense? interacting with customers outside your office
If you’re looking to give your customers a regularly (think cab drivers, delivery personnel, field

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service agent, etc.), having a physical location What Exotel offers:
constraint is detrimental to business. With Exotel, you can keep adding users, virtual
numbers, call flows as you grow. Your call volume
What makes sense? can increase as you grow without you having to
Cloud telephony has no requirement for either worry about any infrastructure, as we will take care
servers or handsets at a particular location— all you of that for you. Just like how you can upgrade, you
need is a functional mobile phone. This reduces can also downsize at will. It is also incredibly easy to
deadweight real-estate costs by a huge margin. make quick changes to your system with just a few
clicks on your browser, eliminating the need for a
III. A fast growing company dedicated IT team to maintain your phone systems.

The last thing you should worry about is scaling This is an excellent way to run small experiments as
your telephony infrastructure when your business well. .
grows. If you use a traditional system, this routine of
constant upgrades/downgrades is something that IV. An enterprise looking for the most
you will spend a lot of time doing. When you opt for reliable voice communication solution
cloud telephony, you can cross this concern off
your list. . A phone call is still the easiest way for customers to
get in touch with a business. But, even something
What makes sense? as simple as a dug up road can disconnect your lines
With cloud telephony as your backbone, you can and make it difficult for your customers to reach you.
count on your phone system will grow with you.

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What makes sense?
Cloud telephony servers are located in secure data centres. This reduces the chances of downtimes due to
issues like fibre cuts, roads getting dug up, and physical outages.

What Exotel Offers:

At Exotel, we take our uptimes very seriously, and ensure that your phone lines stay up for customers to get in
touch with you. Exotel has an uptime of 99.94%, and this is one of the best in the industry. To make it even
better, our uptime data is public. You can access it here http://status.exotel.in

Try for your business

If your business fits into one of the 4 types mentioned above, cloud telephony is your best bet.

If you need help from professionals to choose your best options, reach out to us @ 8088-919-888 or write to
us [email protected] and we will get in touch with you.

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To further empower the business user, Exotel has thoughtfully
built in several other features:
Build your own flow: Every business has unique needs that range from simple to complex. Exotel’s Visual Call
Flow Builder allows you to create your own custom call flows (ev en complex ones) with simple
drag and drop functions.

Custom Integrations: Exotel’s Rest APIs allow quick integration with existing software like CRM, Helpdesk,
and database.

Reporting & Actionable Insights: Operating a business without tracking key metrics about your performance or
the changing needs of your customer is like shooting blindly in the dark. Exotel’s state-of-the-art reporting
features provide detailed daily reports with data including call volumes, the number of calls missed, agent
productivity, duration of calls and much more with just a mouse-click.

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Features of cloud telephony
Why the fastest growing companies have partnered with us for
their growth:

We work with some of the leading companies in India and Southeast Asia

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As already shown, Exotel offers something for businesses of all sizes. Nevertheless, that was but a glimpse of
the range we are capable of.

Exotel takes pride in helping businesses grow, and we start by helping you identify the features most
helpful toyou.

If all this information about the various how cloud telephony can help your business is too much to digest,
click here to see how companies in your vertical use cloud telephony

Set up a cloud contact centre to answer incoming calls

Create a single point of contact - phone number - for your business

Safeguard your customers’ privacy by connecting people without sharing their phone numbers

Use missed call to gather feedback, votes, promote downloads, etc.

COD Implement cash on delivery verification to cut losses

Track your field work force

Track customer conversations outside the call center

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ROI Keep track of your marketing ROI

Manage vendor and customer connections

Automated rescheduling of deliveries, appointments

Automated calls for surveys, feedback and reminder calls

Integrate customer calls with CRM, Helpdesk & Database to create a single source of truth

Implement 2 factor authentication using Voice OTP or SMS OTP

Use calls for simple no-action-required 2 factor authentication (nOTP)

Customize the platform the way you deem fit using our APIs

Setup automated SMS at the end of every call for feedback

Use Bulk-SMS blast marketing

Set up automatic downtime alerts for the website/database

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Here are a few use cases that have helped enterprises and
fast growing companies in India and Southeast Asia
Exotel’s services have been predominantly used to improve the operational efficiency of large players in the
E-commerce, Third Party Logistics, Cab Aggregators, Advertising, and Marketplace verticals. Exotel has helped
several businesses with large call volumes to improve their business processes, operational efficiency and
improve their customer experience.

Here are some of the few ways enterprises use Exotel’s features

Number Anonymisation to Maintain Customer Privacy

Businesses can now enable their personnel to speak to customers

without revealing either party’s phon e number. With looming concerns
about privacy, safeguarding the customer’s personal information
becomes the brand’s prerogative.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

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Use Vendor Connect solution for Marketplaces

One of the best ways for marketplaces to track their business is to

connect vendors with appropriate leads and keep track of the number
of leads passed

Brands doing this through Exotel:

Use COD verification call feature

Verifying the authenticity of a phone call before sending out a COD

order saves a lot of grief for the company down the line. Some of our
customers have been able to save costs by up to 30% with
this solution.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

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Use Delivery status update feature

Keeping track of your delivery personnel’s activity through automated

check-ins at every point of the engagement ensures a boost in the
productivity.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

Use Automated Delivery Scheduling feature

Another important, but simple measure to avoid time and cost

overheads is to ensure calling the customer before the delivery
personnel heads out for delivery. In the event that the customer is
unavailable, the delivery can be rescheduled. This is a dynamic feature
that can reduce failed deliveries by almost 45%.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

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Simple authentication without OTPs

nOTP is an innovative product that allows you to authenticate and

verify users by using a simple missed call without needing any actions
from their end. It works much faster than OTP and is cheaper as well.

Customisation using APIs

Enterprises also customise our cloud telephony platform they way they
deem fit for their business and its communication needs. If you are a
developer, read more about APIs here.

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Track marketing ROI

Businesses having multiple advertising campaigns in parallel can

understand which campaign and medium is faring well by including a
phone number in the ads. This helps the business decide which
campaign to concentrate on.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

Never miss a call with Parallel Ringing

This feature rings several agents in parallel until the call is answered,
thus ensuring no call goes unnoticed. Enterprises that are into
gamification, or are operating time sensitive businesses like Hospitals
are benefitted from Parallel Ringing.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

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Boost engagement with Missed Call marketing

Brands have been cashing in on the missed call trend to increase

engagement. This can be used to garner support, drive downloads,
collect feedback etc.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

Automate Survey and Feedback process

Automated IVR calls and SMS can be used to complete the feedback
loop, and to run campaign surveys. Brands will be able to obtain
continuous real-time feedback which is crucial for their
operational decisions.

Brands doing this through Exotel:

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SUCESS
IN
NUMBERS

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What does cloud telephony
mean for your business ?
Why You Should Sign Up With Exotel Too!
Now that we’ve given you a broad, overall picture, here are some of the features you will have access to with
Exotel’s cloud telephony system.

Unlimited Channels

Number of channels refers to the number of concurrent

calls you can receive at any point in time. With Exotel, you
Unlimited parallel customer conversations
get unlimited channels which means, technically, you can
No call drops due to unavailability of channels
speak to any number of customers simultaneously.
(of course, you need to have enough agents too!) Some Best calling experience for your customers
cloud telephony providers give you a restricted number of
channels which means if you exceed the channel limit,
customers won’t be able to reach you.

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 Call Recording
Record of your customer conversations
All your calls, both incoming and outgoing, will be Tracking agent quality
recorded. These calls will be available in your Exotel Dispute resolution
dashboard, and you can access them at your convenience. Training tool for the team
Know which key metrics are critical for
your business

Multi-level IVR

Have a professional greeting every time someone calls No time wasted in getting theright people on
the phoneto talk to your customers
you. You can even route the calls to the right people by
Keep the team in sync
Support” etc. with no manual intervention. Better customer experience

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 CRM Integration
Keep all your customer datain one place
Give your agents all theinformation they can
Sync your CRM with your phone calls so you have all the
get before they get on a call with a customer
customer data in one place. Do this, and your agents will
Best way to keep track of your
thank you.
client conversations

with call details

Improved customer experience
Keep your address book updated to get a pop-up with
No need for the agents to wastetime on calls
all the caller information. You can now greet your
customers with their names! The conversation always
starts with a smile when we do this.

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 Easily accessible customerdata
across platforms
Sync your calls and call reports at multiple places. At
Keep your team in sync
Exotel, we have synced our call records and datawith our
CRM, helpdesk, our click-to-call mobile app,etc. No more No time wasted retrievinginformation from
multiple platforms
loss of data due to miscommunication.

Our visual app builder or App Bazaar as we call it, allows No need to depend on an IT team

functions. You can do anything from creating a simple IVR

WYSIWYG — what you see is what you get
to complicated function using this interface. You don’t
need to write a single line of code.

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 Daily email reports
No need to log into the account
Know exactly how your team is doing business over
Analyse your agents’ conversation with
phone calls. Get a detailed daily report with call statistics your customers
for your company and individual agents andgroups. Know all your call status
These call stats include the number of callsanswer, the
Track agent and team productivity
number of calls made, the number of calls missed, average
duration of calls and a lot more. We even send you a few
call recordings picked at random.

Call analytics Track agent productivity

Identify call patterns
Think about it like Google analytics for your calls. Know Staff your team according
what’s happening on your business calls.
Avoid missing calls

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 Automated Calls & SMS
Free up agents for more important tasks

You can make automated IVR calls to your customers. Collect automated feedback
This can be used for marketing or things like COD
confirmation. Free up your agents to do other tasks and Send order status SMS
let automation take care of this.

customers through the sales/support cycle

Missed call services

No cost to the customer
Missed call to get a service is a very “Indian” way of doing Easy tool for collecting feedback,increasing
business. It is also an incredibly useful tool for customers
to use. Ask your clients to give a missed call to a number opt-in subscriptions, etc.
and customise that action the way you want to.

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 Web interface and App
No special equipment required

Simple web interface makes it easy for your agents to log workforce as well

in from anywhere and not be chained to a desk. No need to be chained to a desk

Can run a distributed call center

Conditional call routing Good customer experience evenfor callers

who call you outside of your working hours

You can route calls based on a lot of conditions like time Route calls to agents who will be able to
speak their language based on the region
of the day a customer calls, the geography a customer is
they’re calling from
calling from and even the customer who is giving
Connect preferred customers to the right
you a call. account managers for a great
customer experience

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 SMS/Email alerts
Track your account usage

You can set up email or SMS alerts to track actions that Monitor agent activity
you’d like to monitor closely. For example, you can set up React proactively when required
alerts to inform when your team misses calls. You can also
get alerts for a lot of other actions including your agents
going on or off the system.

Missed call services

Anytime you need us, we’re right here
We are available on phone calls, twitter and email
365 days a year, 18 hours a day.

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Cloud telephony cheat sheet for different teams
Want a quick lookup on which of Exotel’s features suit which teams in your business the best?
Here’s a cheat sheet that you can print up!!

Team Most useful features

Sales Call center

Missed call
Call Recordings
Auto Survey/ Feedback

Support Call Center

Missed Call
Auto Survey / Feedback

Marketing Missed Call

Tracking marketing ROI
Auto. Survey / Feedback
Campaigns

Accounts/Finance Call center

/Billing

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Order Booking Call Center
COD Verification
Auto Survey / Feedback

Shipping Call center

Automated Delivery Rescheduling
Last Mile Delivery Tracking Solution
Auto. Survey / Feedback

Refund Call Center

Automated Delivery Rescheduling
Last Mile Delivery Tracking Solution
Auto. Survey / Feedback

Tech Support Call center

Missed Call
Auto. Survey / Feedback

HR Call center
Missed Call
Auto. Survey / Feedback
Campaigns

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Experience the future
We believe that cloud telephony is poised to change the way businesses communicate with their customers. We
hope you now have a good understand of what cloud telephony is and how it can help your business.

If you’d like to experience the communication of the future, give Exotel a spin.

Sign up for a trial account

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