As a communication service provider (CSP), you need a reliable and flexible Cloud PBX solution to stay competitive and meet the growing demand for advanced communication services.
Finding the right cloud PBX provider for your business can be a daunting task. With so many options on the market, it’s important to evaluate each provider carefully to ensure you find the right one for your project and business. Here are key factors to consider when making this important decision.
Advanced Features
We won’t talk about the basic features, it's a given but look for a provider that offers advanced features such as IVR, call recording, voicemail, etc. Continued innovation from your provider will help you stay competitive in the market and provide better service to your customers. Some cloud PBX providers offer innovative features like virtual hold music, queued callback, and custom hold announcements, which can greatly improve customer experience and satisfaction. From a CSP perspective having access to advanced features help you to differentiate your services from those of your competitors and attract more customers.
Branded or White Label
White label uses your brand, a powerful tool, so carefully consider whether you want your cloud PBX solution to be branded as your own, or if you prefer to distribute a branded solution to begin with. With a white label solution, you can create a unique brand identity, leveraging on your image, and your reputation and differentiate yourself from your competitors. On the other hand, a branded solution offers the convenience of using a usually known and ready-to-use product but usually very limited options for customizing and branding it to your brand.
The choice between a branded or white-label solution is a strategic choice for CSP which will depend on your specific business goals, target market, and the maturity stage of your telephony offering. If you have been on the market long enough, gathered experience, and have an established brand, then it may be time to offer a unique and differentiated solution with your brand on it. In such cases, a white-label solution where your brand is put forward is the best choice. It will fit perfectly in your portfolio and will directly raise interest from your client as your brand surely inspires trust and professionalism. On the other hand, if you are looking to quickly launch a new service without marketing risk so you can test your market, an on-shelf branded solution may be more effective and practical.
APIs
It’s the 21st century, and when evaluating Cloud PBX providers, look for one that offers a 100% API service. This will give you the flexibility to create telephony and video call services, as well as full freedom in tools and CRM integration. On the product hand, with a 100% API-based solution, you can build custom integrations and workflows that are tailored to your specific clients’ needs, giving you a competitive advantage in the market. On the operational hand, a 100% API-based solution enables you to automate processes, reduce manual intervention (and errors), and streamline workflows, which can ultimately result in increased efficiency and cost savings.
Scalability and Flexibility
The right provider should be able to easily adapt to changing market conditions and enable you to capitalize on new services and revenue streams. Its operations should also be able to scale up and down as needed, to meet the changing needs of the business. Look for a provider that can provide you with a highly scalable, flexible infrastructure that can support your growing business. From a CSP perspective, having a scalable and flexible cloud PBX solution means that you can quickly respond to changes in business and seize opportunities. That means, for example, choosing a solution that can support important increases in users or usages during peak periods, without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. This will help you maintain trust, a competitive edge, and reduce churn.
Service Customization
When choosing a Cloud PBX provider, look for one that allows you to fully customize your services to meet the unique needs of your business. This includes the ability to design custom call flows, create unique branding, and integrate with your existing systems and processes.
Service customization is crucial in differentiating your offerings from your competitors and providing unique value to your customers. With the ability to tailor your services to specific customer needs, you can offer a more personalized experience and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Cost-efficiency
Choose a provider that can help you reduce expenses and increase profits. Look for one that offers competitive prices and can help you maximize your budget in the long run because you will probably partner for a long time. Seek the right balance between a cost-effective solution that helps you keep your costs low and a feature-rich solution with the functionalities you need to succeed. From a CSP perspective, cost-efficiency is essential to staying competitive in the market but keep in mind during your analysis that a cheap solution at the start can be very expensive in the long run. By choosing a cost-effective solution, you can keep your prices low, which can help you attract more customers and increase your profits. Be careful also about the pricing elements in your provider price list. Especially if those are numerous, not fully clear, or on which you have little or no leverage on. You don’t want to discover a spike in concurrent call cost or usage-based services down the line.
Integration
The right provider should be able to easily integrate with your existing infrastructure, workflows, operations in a relatively short period of time.
Obviously it depends on the complexity of the solution, the level of integration you require and the availability of resources of both side. Best would be to have the choice between different levels of integration, that you could choose from and upgrade later on. Telecom integration should be the first layer and most probably the most straightforward, several weeks of project to reach this point should be a warning side. Then comes the APIs and tool integrations. This is deeply related to the level and the availability of the APIs of the provider. You should be able to time this integration as you wish unless you need the provider's expertise to guide you through. At Cantoo for instance we have written “how to” guides on top of a clear API documentation to speed up the integration and reduce the launch time. We could talk about the “human” integration, meaning how well teams on both parts are working, but we will develop this in the support section.
So Integration is key to ensuring that your cloud PBX solution fits seamlessly into your existing infrastructure, without causing any disruption to your operations. This will prevent any delay, downtime, or loss of productivity, which is critical for maintaining the trust of your customers.
Public or Private Cloud
Choosing whether you want your Cloud PBX solution to be deployed and managed on a public or private cloud is a strategic choice. A public cloud solution is typically more flexible and offers more scalability, while a cloud PBX hosted in your provider's private cloud environment provides more control and cost-efficiency.
From a CSP perspective, choose a solution that aligns with your business goals and priorities. If cost efficiency is a top concern, a private cloud solution may be the best option, because your provider controls all the hosting costs. However, if redundancy or scalability is a major concern, a public cloud solution may be a better fit.
Another crucial thing to consider is, how much your cloud PBX is cloud agnostic, meaning how easily could your cloud PBX be run in any cloud environment. Solution designed for private cloud hosting will require much more work to be migrated to another cloud environment may you want to change the initial hosting solution. There are many hosting, networking and virtualization standards between different public cloud providers and a Cloud PBX deployed in such an environment will be more easily migrated or duplicated in another public cloud environment. This is key if you want your platform to be duplicated in two different public cloud environments for maximum redundancy.
It's important to carefully evaluate whether your provider setup aligns with your needs so you can choose the solution that will best meet your long-term requirements.
Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC)
Does your Cloud PBX provider allows you to bring your own carrier (BYOC) or will you struggle or be prevented from adding new interconnection partners? The BYOC option allows you to use your existing and future telecom partners and interconnections, which will allow you to be always relevant on the price of communications, to reduce your costs and to ensure the redundancy of your interconnections and thus your service continuity.
BYOC is particularly useful for CSPs that have already established relationships with their telecom partners and don't want to change their existing interconnections. It also allows CSPs to retain control over the creation and subscription of their voice or UcaaS offerings, allowing them complete freedom to modify, upgrade or customize these offerings.
For CSPs choosing a cloud PBX solution, the ability to bring their own carrier can be a significant advantage in designing their offers and expanding their business either locally or internationally. This option can be a game changer in their existing and future business strategy.
Security and Redundancy
When evaluating Cloud PBX providers, it's important to consider their security and redundancy measures. This includes among other things data encryption, backup, redundancy and recovery processes.
It's essential to have secure and reliable communication infrastructure in order to have a stable service and to protect sensitive customer information. It is a mater of safety for sure but also a reputation matter for you. A provider with robust security and redundancy measures will help ensure the safety and availability of your services, even in the event of a disaster or other unexpected event.
At Cantoo most of the security of the infrastructure is network-based providing a robust usage environment.
Support
We don't really care about support until we need... support. So it's important to address the issue from the start. Choose an expert provider who will be able to give you clear and quick help in case of problems or questions. Whether it's included in the base price or as an extra, it's usually a good idea to sign up for a Cloud PBX service with a support option from your provider. Speed of incident resolution is a fundamental element in building your customer relationship. A good level of support on your side as well as on your provider's side will give you peace of mind first and be definitely a competitive advantage. If possible, choose a provider that offers different support plans, up to the highest level of support 24/7 (by phone, email or chat). This will ensure that you have access to help whenever you need it.
A provider with excellent support will quickly resolve your issues, minimize or avoid downtime and help ensure a smooth customer experience. In addition, a provider with competent support will provide you with valuable information and recommendations to help you optimize your services and maximize your profits.
What About Cantoo Cloud PBX
At Cantoo, we provide all of the best options aforementioned and more.
Our white label Cloud PBX solution is 100% API and 100% cloud-based, which gives CSPs full freedom in telephony and video call service creation, as well as full freedom in CRM and telecom partner interconnections (but we accompany you on regulatory processes and route your voice and SMS flows as well).
Additionally, our solution is scalable, flexible, cost-efficient, and built on robust infrastructure.
Our experts will be there to support and guide you through the process of creating or migrating your voice/UcaaS service, so you can focus on growing your business. Do not wait to take the next big step in your Communication services provider journey and start building the voice and video services you want, the ones your client needs!