Reilly Nolan, Author at Global Trade Magazine

Now that employees are splitting time between home and the office, distributed workforces are doing their jobs more flexibly, happily, and efficiently than ever before. According to research from Owl Labs, 62% of employees feel more productive when working remotely. In fact, people love hybrid work so much that 1 in 2 are even willing to take a pay cut of 5% or more just to maintain their flexibility.

Suffice to say, hybrid work is here to stay. But with all it’s benefits, hybrid work still presents plenty of challenges, too. Many businesses are struggling to communicate and collaborate as they would in a typical work environment.

That’s where cloud calling comes into play. But first, let’s dig deeper into the technology that makes cloud calling possible: VoIP.

What is VoIP?

VoIP stands for Voice-over-Internet-Protocol. In simple terms, VoIP allows you to place phone calls over an internet connection instead of a traditional landline.

Here’s how it works: When you make a call, a VoIP system synthesizes your voice signal into smaller data packets and ships them over the internet to an awaiting IP address. If you’re calling a regular telephone, the solution converts the digital signal into a traditional format before reaching the recipient.

Unlike a traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network)VoIP systems don’t use physical phone lines or cables. This means businesses can deploy a full phone system for both internal and external calls, entirely in the cloud.

And the best part? All it takes is an internet connection. That means anyone can use VoIP from any location on any device. That’s flexibility you just don’t get from a traditional PSTN.

Why VoIP is a must-have solution

The adoption of VoIP for business has been gaining steam for well over a decade. As a matter of fact, cloud calling licenses have nearly doubled from 47 million in 2018 to more than 90 million in 2022.

The U.K. is even planning on shutting down its entire PSTN by the end of 2025. Once its aging infrastructure has sunset all calls will become digitized through VoIP calling.

Of course, some forward-thinking businesses are ahead of the curve. During the pandemic, when countless organizations shifted toward remote-first policies, several identified cloud calling as a necessary upgrade from costly on-premises solutions. Fueled by the continued use of hybrid work, the global VoIP market will more than double in size to roughly $100 billion in 2032.

So, why VoIP? Well, consider the drawbacks of legacy infrastructure.

Traditional systems are inflexible in terms of adequately supporting a distributed workforce. Worse yet, they’re exceptionally complex and expensive to install, manage, and maintain. As phone systems age, older hardware becomes obsolete, requiring recurring upgrades and potentially costly overhauls.

Benefits of VoIP and cloud calling

VoIP systems aren’t restricted by the on-prem limitations of PSTN and Public Branch Exchange (PBX) systems. By enabling comprehensive cloud calling solutions, VoIP offers a range of advantages, including:

1. Reduced costs: According to estimates, cloud calling can help businesses save up to 90% on international calls, 75% on operational costs, and 30% on teleconferencing and phone bills. Why? No fiber optic cables, installation, or maintenance required.

2. Global scalability: VoIP coverage is expanding around the world, allowing you to support a truly global workforce. Because it’s cloud-based, you can add or remove users as your business grows or changes, rolling out new phone lines according to your needs.

3. Collaboration: Cloud calling can also deliver cloud-based messaging, video conferencing, and contact center solutions into the same experience. Along with next-level call quality, these advanced features make it easy for all team members to stay connected no matter which device they use.

4. Simple set up and maintenance: No physical phone lines or robust hardware required. All it takes to set up is an internet connection and a web-enabled device, which means new users can be onboarded within minutes. Plus, thanks to minimal on-premises hardware and automated software updates, IT departments don’t have to worry about outdated communications technology.

5. Cloud security: One of the biggest challenges of working from home is keeping your business data safe and secure. The leading cloud calling platforms deliver built-in security features like real-time data loss prevention, SOC-2 compliance, and bring your own key (BYOK) capabilities to safeguard information and prevent outside intrusion.

Future-proofing your hybrid workforce

Simply put, the way we work is evolving. That means your business needs to be evolve too.

Thanks to VoIP, it actually can. As a more flexible, feature-rich, and cost-effective solution, cloud calling is poised to carry enterprises into the next phase of hybrid work and empower tomorrow’s businesses to perform at their best.

Reilly Nolan, Content Marketing Manager, Webex by Cisco has more than 10 years of experience across the technology, healthcare, interior design, consumer goods, and fashion industries. Unpacking the human aspect of the product experience is what informs his writing most. In his spare time, Reilly has published and shortlisted fiction in a variety of national literary magazines.

Broadly speaking, a customer effort score measures how easy or difficult it is for a customer to resolve a given issue with a company’s customer service team.

Have you ever waited your turn to speak to a customer service representative, only to be transferred to another agent? Have you ever waited on hold so long you that you hung up? Have you ever yelled “Agent” at a voice automation system until you were hoarse? You’re not alone.

Poor customer experiences like that are much more common than you might realize. In fact, bad customer interactions are putting over $4.7 trillion in sales at risk every single year.

The good news is there are simple strategies to improve how you interact with your customers. By calculating your Customer Effort Score (CES), you can assess how easy (or difficult) you’re making it for your customers and work toward improving your customer experience.

What is a Customer Effort Score?

HubSpot defines Customer Effort Score as a single-item service metric that measures how much work it takes for someone to get what they want from a business. In other words, it’s a reflection of how much effort a customer has to expend when interacting with your company.

The idea is simple: The more effort required to reach a certain outcome (such as making a purchase or resolving an issue), the more frustrating the customer experience. By contrast, a low-effort interaction makes for a better, smoother experience that casts your brand in a positive light.

Researchers from the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) first introduced the concept of a Customer Effort Score in 2010. According to their study, reducing effort is far more effective at increasing customer loyalty than trying to wow consumers with over-the-top service: “All customers really want is a simple, quick solution to their problem.”

The only issue? Many times, customer service does the exact opposite. Whether it be because of long wait times, having to repeat oneself, or jumping through hoops, customers are four times more likely to leave a service interaction disloyal than loyal.

That’s where CES comes into play. Tracking CES allows you to identify pain points in the customer experience, isolate troublesome channels, and make immediate and long-term improvements.

Better yet, Gartner says that reducing customer effort also allows you to:

Increase repurchase rates
Improve customer loyalty
Lower service costs
Reduce employee turnover

Creating a CES survey

The first step in measuring your Customer Effort Score is designing a CES survey—a short questionnaire that asks current customers to rate the amount of effort involved in a recent interaction. Questions normally ask respondents to choose a rating on a scale that best represents their experience.

Here are some examples of questions you might include on a survey:

On a scale of 1-10, how easy was it for you to resolve your issue?
How much effort did you have to put in to find an answer to your question?
How easy was it to navigate our website and obtain the information you were looking for?

Typically, businesses send CES surveys at particular moments in the customer journey. These moments almost always come after the customer has taken a certain action, such as:

A customer support interaction like a phone call, chat, or email thread.
A transaction such as a completed purchase, downloaded white paper, or subscription sign up.
A website or mobile app interaction (this one is especially useful, as it helps you measure your interface’s ease of use and functionality).

Recency is important when it comes to gathering feedback. It’s best to immediately follow up an interaction with a questionnaire on the channel where it took place. This makes it easy for customers to fill out the survey without having to jump through additional hoops.

Calculating your score

Once your respondents have completed the survey, it’s time to analyze the results and calculate your company’s average Customer Effort Score. Don’t worry—you don’t have to be a math whiz to figure it out.

Here’s the basic formula: Sum of all CES scores ÷ the total number of responses = average CES.

So, what does a good CES look like? It depends. Your survey’s parameters will influence how that score is weighted, but generally speaking, the higher the number, the better.

Let’s say you’ve asked 100 respondents to rate interactions on a scale of 1-10, and the sum of all scores is 880. That’d give you an average CES of 8.8.Not too shabby!

How to use (and improve) your CES

Keep in mind that there’s no industry standard you have to live up to—only your own scores matter.

If you find that your CES is teetering on the lower end of the spectrum, that just means you have work to do. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to improve CES and reduce customer effort. Let’s take a look at two of the most impactful methods:

1. Automate tasks with customer self-service

Customer self-service options are growing in popularity, especially among younger demographics. In fact, 66% of Millennials prefer self-service options for completing simple requests. People are using these alternative solutions more frequently today than just three years ago , so it’s increasingly important to offer these functionalities to your consumers.

Take AI-powered chatbots, for example. Often, chatbots can answer common support questions and handle basic requests faster and more efficiently than human agents. This frees up your contact center agents to focus on more complex issues, reduces wait times, and eliminates unnecessary effort.

2. Deliver an omnichannel experience

Taking an omnichannel approach to customer service means offering consumers a seamless, cohesive, and uniform experience across all possible touchpoints.

Today’s customers want to transition from one channel to another without skipping a beat or having to repeat themselves. With a Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution, you can meet these expectations and offer a truly connected customer journey. As one comprehensive tool for customer experience management, a CCaaS platform enables agents to interact with consumers from any channel, all in one easy-to-use desktop view.

Enabling a low-effort customer experience

Establishing low-effort customer experiences helps simplify the buyer’s journey. By offering new, existing, and prospective customers a path of least resistance for issue resolution, business leaders can significantly minimize effort, foster loyalty, and deliver more positive interactions.

Of course, calculating CES is only half the battle. To truly understand and reap the benefits of a low-effort experience, organizations will need to get creative with how they optimize their customer experience strategy. Whether it be through self-service tools or omnichannel contact center solutions, technology is undoubtedly at the center of the equation.

Reilly Nolan, Content Marketing Manager, Webex by Cisco, a leader in cloud calling, collaboration, and customer experience solutions.

Why the Future of Work Depends on VoIP