Covid has accelerated CCAAS (Contact center as a service) and UCAAS (Unified communications as a service) adoption worldwide. The pandemic and lockdowns from the last two years have catalyzed the shift of on-premise contact center solutions to the cloud. Cloud telephony has been acknowledged as the more reliable, feature-rich, and smart option than on-premise solutions due to its agility and adaptability in the last couple of years. For the same reason, even in the post-pandemic world, the new normal of the hybrid business models will include cloud telephony as a preferred solution.
With the onset of COVID- 19, when several outsourcing enterprises across the country had to adopt the remote working model in a matter of hours, cloud telephony played a crucial role in keeping the business and employees connected internally and externally. The most significant impact was seen on the healthcare sector, where cloud telephony served as a critical tool for Covid-19 helplines, testing facilities, and other related services to facilitate effective pandemic management by the industry in a short duration.
Currently, cloud telephony technology is leading the health sector globally by strengthening healthcare infrastructure for telemedicine, online pharma retailers, pharma companies, and the setup of helpline facilities. Additionally, many online pharma businesses use cloud telephony to boost their call centers for providing customer care solutions and improve communications between their patients and doctors for prescriptions.
Many hospitals have leveraged cloud telephony for smooth functionality, easy management of scalability, and call-back automation, which boosted the workload’s efficiency.
Enabling government to send timely and relevant information
The increase in the number of covid cases leads to the increase in testing and the volumes of calls for booking the service, making cloud telephony a preferred route for pathology labs. Opting for cloud telephony, IVRs put forward self-service options and generated the automated response to the general calls inquires about lap report results and appointments, streamlining the many processes. Recognizing the importance of telemedicine, many doctors and hospitals also preferred cloud telephony solutions for their telephonic consultations.
One of the most notable examples of how cloud telephony played a significant role in increasing the efficacy was seen during the second wave of the global pandemic. Under the project step one initiative by the state government nationwide, spreading correct information and giving first-level support to patients in less time was enabled using cloud telephony. These helplines used IVRs to answer inbound queries, and in some cases, they used diallers to automate outbound calls to keep a check on the patients who were quarantined at home. Notably, these emergency helplines were set up within 24 to 72 hours with the help of cloud technology.
Another challenge the healthcare sector faces today is data security, which can be effectively managed using an array of cloud telephony solutions to ensure correct and secure data usage across platforms.
Integrating AI and analytics
As cloud telephony is continuously evolving its offerings, businesses can access their latest features such as conversational AI and AI-based analytics in just a few minutes, with zero R&D investments. More people can work and communicate from wherever they are without being physically present. Not only for the healthcare sector, but cloud telephony is the future for most sectors. With cloud telephony solutions, organizations with their employees ?working from home, on-site, or the front line with customers ? can work well together, remotely, and effortlessly.
A report shows that 41% of employees leave their current employment this year due to a lack of remote work capabilities. On the other hand, over 65% of employees crave more in-person time with their teams. 3 out of 5 offices are now working from home. Hybrid culture has stayed with us for a long; many companies have done permanent work from home for their employees. For these workplaces, cloud solutions will be very flexible, reliable solutions. It offers many Computer Telephony Integrations (CTI) that can work seamlessly with your CRM solutions, internal communications, and other business tools.
The author is Chief Revenue Officer, CloudConnect
