For many years, businesses have relied on analog technologies. They’re built on ordinary copper line and POTS (plain old telephone service) phones, and they’re dependable, have acceptable sound quality, and have basic features like hold, mute, redial, and speed dial that you’d find on a typical home phone. With more consumers making voice calls via the internet on average 20 hours per week, a company’s analog infrastructure is now a requirement.
In a word, over-the-top (OTT) systems are phone replacements that offer customers options such as recording and streaming from a server that aren’t generally found on home phones. Customers can also listen to the audio at their desk. The speech quality of OTT phone systems may be inferior to analog, and they will receive fewer calls, but the goal is to save money while maintaining customer satisfaction.
For years, companies have purchased out-of-the-box analog systems in the hopes that they will suffice, and have become accustomed to contacting friends and relatives. Frequently, however, this is not the case. Here are a few things to think about if your company is exploring a new system.
Skills in providing customer service Customers would find it easy to reach you if you work with a good OTT firm. This means that your operators will notify your clients about your new product or service and will seek confirmation from them. Some will ask if you want to “test it out,” but most will charge you a fee to use their system. If your system gives you the idea that it doesn’t care about your company, chances are it doesn’t care about your industry.
Pricing. When you buy a new OTB system, it’s generally overpriced since companies are afraid of having to sell their consumers for much less than OTB. However, you want an OTB system that accomplishes exactly what you desire, and OTB will not deliver. As a result, you must consider how much this would cost you in terms of monthly fees and other expenses. This isn’t a problem with an easy cure. On paper, the OTB system looks wonderful, but it won’t accomplish what it’s supposed to do for you in terms of making it simple to comprehend and convey.
Accessibility. Customers want to be able to contact them quickly. The OTB solutions that are just used to link you to your consumers will see less utilization. Customers must be able to reach you through their preferred method using your OTB system.
Convenience. Customers must find your OTB system to be user-friendly. Your OTB system will not contact you back if it goes on vacation. It’ll be on vacation for the rest of the year. This may prompt the client to contact other businesses that have frequent access to the same OTB server as you. This indicates that your customers will seek services from other companies.
“The owner/operator of an OTB business can only be successful if he is a strong communicator and understands his clients’ preferences.”