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At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way businesses operate across the globe, efficient communication and a seamless customer experience (CX) can give companies the necessary edge to scale up despite the challenges.

According to a recent survey by Forrester Consulting, 41 percent of businesses said a poor customer experience will lead to low customer retention, while 39 percent said it would lead to a decrease in sales. More than one-third (37 percent) respondents admitted they are investing in improving CX because they have been losing clients to their competitors.

The figures underline how investing in CX can help companies keep up with changing times. It is imperative for businesses to re-evaluate customers’ needs, personalise (and hyper-personalise) their digital experiences to maximise the company’s technology stack, and prepare for voice design and voice search.

The pandemic has made the road more challenging for businesses not offering remote customer service or digital solutions. This was accompanied by a sudden surge in requests for third-party customer care and most call centre employees were found struggling while working remotely and attending customer calls. The difficulties made delivering a seamless CX quite challenging even as customer support calls registered a massive rise.

Cloud communication paves the way for better CX

According to the same Forrester Consulting report, 56 percent of businesses stated that the most challenging task in ensuring optimal CX was deriving real-time insights, while 51 percent said that it was personalising user journeys.

Organisations of all sizes, including small and medium-sized businesses and with multiple vendors and products face challenges like fragmentation, specialised applications, compliance and security, different buyers, etc. They can create positive customer experiences by taking an enterprise-wide approach and leveraging the convergence of cloud-based unified communications (UC) to serve customers better. This is where cloud communication comes in.

With a market that is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 13.28 percent from 2020-2027, cloud communication can unlock benefits like unrestricted communication, enhanced CX, reduced operational and capital costs, access to business intelligence, on-demand scalability, enterprise-grade security and reliability, and much more for your business.

Leveraging a smart, secure and reliable communications solution

Companies like Tata Tele Business Services are making the CX process seamless with their cloud communication solutions. Their solution Smartflo is a smart, multimodal, multi-functional, flexible, scalable, secure and reliable suite of cloud-based communication solutions. These solutions include a hosted contact centre, outbound marketing solution, hosted call connect, multi-level IVR, missed call solutions and click2call services.

The solution lets you communicate anytime and from anywhere and provides a faster, smoother and more streamlined customer experience. With no bulky storage and infrastructure to manage, it means reduced operational costs too.

Businesses get detailed reports and analytics to track project progress, enterprise-grade security and reliability. The solution also allows on-demand scalability, enabling you to quickly adapt to the changing business environment.

Building customer trust with Smartflo

Tata Tele Business Services’ customer-centric solutions have been well received by customers because of their trust factor. Hence, it is not surprising to see why the Smartflo solution won the CIO Select Awards 2021 by Enterprise IT World under the category ‘Integrated Telco-grade Cloud Communication Suite’. From EdTech, FinTech, retail to software, the Smartflo solution is being used by businesses in various sectors.

One of them is Biogreen Remedies Pvt Ltd, a Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm that develops traditional medicines to suit modern disease profiles. Owing to a sudden uptick in demand for healthcare services and medicines due to the pandemic, the firm wanted to set up a 24×7 helpline to serve its clients. To manage and monitor incoming calls, the line needed options like routing calls and recording them. Also, the enterprise required a fool-proof security system that facilitated secure access from anywhere and at any time, without investing in physical infrastructure.

Srinivasa Rao Gude, Director, Biogreen Remedies Pvt Ltd says, “Smartflo helped us build a robust connectivity system without investing in physical infrastructure. The solution provided us with a fool-proof security system that facilitated secure access from anywhere and at any time.”

The company leveraged the Smartflo solution which seamlessly deployed the necessary functionalities of a contact centre via cloud connectivity. The toll-free number provided uninterrupted access to the customer’s contact centre. With the help of the complete cloud solution, it could enhance customer experience, increase client leads and address enquiries, with zero maintenance cost.

Gurvinder Singh, Manager – Deliveries, Shopclues, an e-commerce firm serving across geographies in India, says Smartflo has changed the way they do business. “Smartflo helped us with faster implementation and integration of customised IVR wherein the project went live in 48 hours. It also enabled automation of the critical order-to-delivery process by creating customised dial plans. With this, our last-mile delivery can be completed while maintaining complete customer data privacy.”

Another customer, a growing international software company headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona in the US with five offices in India, required a smooth customer service system that catered to their distinct client base. It needed a 24×7 enquiry line which was accessible through a single phone number.

It was also critical for the line to be equipped with features like call routing and recording. To protect confidential data, the teams needed safe and secure access to the system 24×7 to track and supervise calls, irrespective of their location. Due to space constraints, the company wanted a solution that did not require it to set up any physical infrastructure.

TTBS’s Smartflo solution provided the client with advanced features like Click2Call services, customised Interactive Voice Response System for missed calls and enabling the same pilot number for both outbound and inbound flow. The toll-free service ensured that the customer could be reached by its clients 24×7.

The solution facilitated agent call monitoring and tracking, allowing the customer to check productivity, lower call ring time and get more detailed analytics from the live dashboard. As the solution is entirely cloud-based, the client didn’t have to bear any ancillary costs and was able to effortlessly scale for any system upgrades.

The future of CX lies in the Cloud

As more and more customers warm up to digital communication solutions, investing in CX and creating a meaningful engagement is likely to gain more importance. It cannot be stressed enough how a positive customer experience directly leads to a loyal customer base. Or, how a negative customer experience can push potential customers away even before they interact with the brand. Also, it’s not enough for companies and leaders to just make CX a priority, they also need to monitor their competitors’ CX capabilities. You can do this and much more to amplify your clientele’s CX with the Smartflo solution. Know more.