Cloud voice has become crucial to the future of business communications in 2024. It’s not just the various benefits that flexible, scalable, and agile cloud solutions offer driving adoption. Increasingly, companies of all sizes are being forced to reconsider the “future of voice” to adhere to changing working styles and evolutions in the wider communications landscape.
With BT preparing to switch off the PSTN network for UK companies and consumers by the end of 2025 and countless other countries already moving to the cloud, business telephony upgrades are now essential. Companies can no longer afford to maintain legacy equipment, just because they want to avoid a comprehensive “digital transformation”.
The question is, how do you choose the right cloud voice solution for your business in 2024 to ensure you’re ready for the future of voice?
Step 1: Assess Your Cloud Voice Requirements
Before looking at vendors offering solutions for the future of voice, assessing your current strategy and goals is essential. Examine the existing phone systems your business uses and your requirements for specific voice features, such as:
- Mobility: Does your voice solution need to support mobile connectivity, 5G, and business SIM cards to empower remote or distributed teams?
- Voice controls: What kind of telephony controls do you need for call routing and management, hunt groups, call forwarding, recording, and call transfer?
- Existing software: Does your voice solution need to integrate with existing communication and collaboration software, such as Microsoft Teams?
- Hardware: What types of hardware do your teams use for voice communications, from desk phones to tablets, smartphones, and headsets?
- Global reach: Where do you need to access phone numbers, virtual numbers, and licenses to ensure consistent communication worldwide?
Answering these questions will help you identify the type of voice solution you need and the features that will be most crucial to your team. It can also help to determine which existing solutions you can migrate into your new voice solution.
Step 2: Address Security and Reliability
As demand for cloud voice and innovative communication solutions grows, so does the need for comprehensive security and compliance strategies. Companies leveraging the cloud for internal and external communication need to think carefully about everything from call and screen recording to how data is managed and processed in the cloud.
When comparing your cloud voice solutions, ensure you clearly understand the regulatory standards you need to consider, from HIPAA to GDPR. Think about the encryption solutions you can leverage, access controls, and other security features to protect your consumers and your business.
At the same time, ensure you can rely on your cloud voice provider to deliver a consistent level of service. Check for uptime guarantees, failover mechanisms, and quality assurance tools you can leverage to ensure your voice system operates smoothly.
Step 3: Prioritize Excellent User Experience
A major benefit of embracing the cloud for the future of voice is that it can significantly improve user experiences. Cloud voice solutions give teams more freedom to access the features and technologies they need wherever they are, often on any device. They can even be integrated with your team’s productivity and collaboration tools, like Microsoft Teams.
An excellent user experience is crucial to driving adoption of your new cloud voice solutions, improving productivity, and minimizing efficiency issues. Ensure your cloud voice offering is flexible enough to use across all devices and operating systems and has intuitive controls.
Additionally, it’s worth ensuring your cloud voice provider can offer exceptional support and guidance throughout the migration and onboarding process. Look for a vendor to support you with everything from managed services to SIP trunk configuration and software management.
Step 4: Ensure Cloud Voice Scalability
Another advantage of embracing cloud voice is that it gives companies the scalability they need to adapt to changing market trends and business growth. As your organization evolves, your communication solutions need to evolve with them. However, not all voice providers can offer the same level of scalability.
Ensure you choose a voice provider with a highly advanced global IP network to ensure you can expand across geographical boundaries over time. Look for a solution that makes it easy to add new numbers, licenses, and features according to your changing needs.
It’s also helpful to choose a voice provider who offers access to voice analytics and reporting tools that help you monitor everything from call volumes in different regions to call quality, customer behavior, and call handling metrics. This will help you make better decisions about updating your voice system as your business transforms.
Step 5: Look at Options for Innovation
Finally, shifting your communications system into the cloud allows you to take advantage of new features and capabilities as they emerge. Some cloud voice providers will allow you to access innovative integrations, so you can connect your CCaaS and UCaaS systems and minimize data silos. Others offer options for advanced automation.
One prevalent trend in the future of voice is the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies. AI solutions can help with routing calls and distributing resources within your team. Generative AI solutions like Copilot can automate routine tasks like call summarization, translation, and transcription.
There are even AI tools that can leverage your cloud voice data to offer insights into new ways to improve employee and customer experience. Considering the benefits of these innovative solutions and what they can provide, your company could be a great way to accelerate growth.
Unlocking the Future of Cloud Voice
Cloud voice has become a mandatory investment for businesses of all sizes in search of flexibility, scalability, and agility. Demand for innovative solutions will only grow as the PSTN switch-off forces companies to change their business communication strategies.
Before the switch-off starts in 2025, it’s essential to ensure you have a comprehensive plan in place for choosing the right cloud voice vendor. Make sure you’re ready to embrace the future of voice.
