Cloud Based Communication: How Your Small Business Can Make the Switch

Small businesses such as small ecommerce stores, for instance, must plan ahead and future-proof their operations and safeguard their communications with robust cloud ecommerce solutions.

Digital communications technologies are being evaluated by small businesses like yours, either as a result of a crisis or as part of their fundamental strategy.

In-the-cloud communications services are set to become widely used, and remote working is currently a widespread practice. This includes streamlining the multitude of communication and collaboration platforms available to employees today.

What exactly makes switching to cloud-based communication platforms more ideal for companies? Are you familiar with its primary advantages and key benefits? If not, keep on reading below for a better understanding.

If you’re running a large, blue chip organization, then your company probably already has a dedicated IT team. However, your IT team can do so much more than just troubleshooting and maintaining legacy systems. Their expertise and knowledge can be utilized better and applied towards tasks that require more strategic thinking.

On the other side of the spectrum, if you’re a small to medium enterprise with limited resources, building a dedicated IT team can be expensive. This makes the task of managing physical equipment very difficult.

All these can easily be addressed by switching to a cloud-based communication solution.

Your vendor can easily take care of everything—from hosting to upgrades to maintenance; and there’s no need to hire specific people for these tasks.

With a cloud-based communication solution, your team’s productivity isn’t tied to your physical office. Wherever you are, as long as you have an Internet connection, your communication solution, will allow you to be accessible and productive, irrespective of your location.

Cloud-based solutions like Hosted VoIP and Unified Communications (UC) can be used via your mobile devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets. This is especially useful for companies that offer remote working programs for employees or for team members who are constantly on the go.

Any business, regardless of size, will want the opportunity to optimize operational costs. Before the advent of cloud-based technology, organizations had no choice but to use traditional telephony.

No matter how costly the capital investment was, or how much it cost to manage and maintain, they didn’t really have any other alternative.

On the other hand, cloud-based solutions such as Hosted VoIP and UC, are deployed on the Internet, following a SaaS model. This means the solution can be offered following a tiered pricing model where you can choose different packages that fit your budget or needs.

Or better yet, vendors also offer an even simpler pricing approach--a per-seat-pricing system--which gives businesses full access to features and apps following a straightforward payment plan.

Because it runs on the cloud and everything is handled by the vendor, it also means businesses no longer have to shoulder maintenance and upgrade costs themselves.

Additionally, since Hosted VoIP technology allows users to make calls via the Internet, the expenses associated with long-distance calling are significantly reduced.

According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute the number of texts sent each day in America has grown 23% since 2016.

The sheer volume of messages that get passed around daily can get unwieldy and confusing if there’s no centralized platform to keep track of everything.

Something important could very easily be buried and missed—to say nothing of the productivity that employees could lose, if say, each of these messages took just a minute longer to compose or read.

A study claims that if it took people a minute longer to read emails only, that’s already equivalent to 2 hours of lost productivity daily.

Constantly switching from one platform to another is also a big waste of time, not to mention it leaves you vulnerable to a lot of miscommunication and error.

However, with a cloud-based UC solution, you can centralize all your communication and collaboration tools to minimize confusion and maximize accessibility.

You can guarantee that your team members are coordinating with each other on a singular platform that everyone uses—ensuring all communications are delivered and received.

Cloud-based solutions make it very easy for businesses to scale their communication and collaboration tools according to their unique needs.

For example, if you’re planning a big expansion and require additional apps and tools for new team members, a few clicks on the computer is all it takes.

If you need to scale back, you can configure your system to easily fit your requirements.

This kind of flexibility is essential given the highly competitive nature of today’s business landscape. Your business has to be able to conveniently respond to opportunities and maximize resources whenever it can.

A cloud-based solution can easily address this concern for both small and large businesses.

These are just some of the basic ways cloud-based communication solutions can benefit your business.

Cloud-based solutions like Hosted VoIP and UC are straightforward and effective solutions that require minimal time or effort to learn, maintain, and manage.

More importantly, it’s a cost-efficient tool that gives businesses a real opportunity to boost customer service efforts and improve internal operations.

Regardless of size, these platforms allow companies to focus on more strategic aspects of running a business. And when technology allows you to dedicate more time and brainpower towards running your business more efficiently, that’s definitely something worth looking into.