Telephony Software

What is telephony software?

Telephony software is a software solution that helps businesses manage their phone systems. It allows them to make and receive calls from customers and offers features such as call forwarding, automated attendants, voicemail management, and conference calling for better tracking of conversations.

Telephony software solutions have a built-in automated voice response system that lets callers easily access the information they need without having to speak to a human operator. Additionally, these tools generate analytics reports that provide insights into trends such as peak hours for incoming calls or the most popular services requested by callers.

What are some common features of telephony software?

• Call center management: Facilitates the setup and management of call centers by providing tools to customize auto-attendant menus, assign agents to queues, monitor agent performance in real time, and record calls for quality assurance. It also allows supervisors to create routing rules that prioritize incoming call requests based on criteria such as which caller has been waiting the longest or which department is best suited for a particular call.

• VoIP connection: Facilitates calls over internet networks using the voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP), which provides a more economical and efficient way to make phone calls through your computer or mobile device while offering quality audio communication at an affordable cost.

• Reporting/analytics: Tracks and provides insights into call metrics such as average speed of answer (ASA), abandoned calls rate, and average conversation duration. It helps identify improvement areas in customer service delivery by offering detailed reports on agents’ interactions with customers. It also supports drill-down analysis to generate tailored data points that let you make informed decisions when optimizing your cloud telephony operations.

• Interactive voice response (IVR): Helps customer service systems handle high call volumes with minimal wait time. IVR allows callers to input relevant information through their phone's keypad or voice commands and then directs them to the most suitable department. It lets customers access frequently asked questions, account balances, and product/service updates, among others, without needing the assistance of a live agent on each call.

• Predictive dialer: Automates the process of connecting agents with customers by predicting when an agent will become available and dialing phone numbers in advance. Predictive dialer ensures maximum efficiency for customer support teams by reducing wait time for callers. It also helps maximize the talk time per hour, allowing your small business to make more calls without increasing hiring costs.

What are the benefits of using telephony software?

• Enhances customer support: Computer telephony software streamlines incoming and outgoing calls, allowing callers to contact the right person or department for their inquiries. Additionally, it offers advanced call routing capabilities so each query is handled by a specialized agent who can understand and resolve the issue more efficiently. By ensuring a faster response time, the software helps improve customer support operations and leads to better caller satisfaction.

• Streamlines internal communication: Telephony software streamlines communication for your internal teams and makes it easier for them to stay connected. It provides a unified platform with features such as video conferencing, instant messaging, and live chat that allow your teams to collaborate from anywhere. These features help reduce long-distance call costs and prevent costly delays, as team members can quickly resolve issues without waiting for an email or a phone reply. Telephony software also simplifies the scheduling of meetings by allowing multiple participants to join at once, saving valuable time spent coordinating telephone calls manually.

• Automates tasks: Telephony software automates routine tasks such as making outbound calls, setting up conference calls and voicemails, routing incoming call inquiries to the right team or member, transferring calls between departments, and logging and tracking calls. Such automation helps save time on administrative work while providing an efficient service experience to customers.

• Improves customer experience: Telephony software connects you with your customers in real time so you can address their inquiries or complaints quickly. Its automated call routing feature forwards calls to an appropriate department or agent for faster query resolution. This way, every customer receives on-time personalized support, allowing your small business to build strong customer relationships over time.

• Offers real-time analytics: Telephony software provides real-time analytics on customer interaction metrics to help your business better understand customer needs, preferences, and experiences to improve service delivery while reducing the cost of manual operations. Additionally, the software allows for easy integration with your existing business systems, such as ERP or CRM software solutions, so you get a comprehensive view of your customers without any extra effort.

Key considerations when purchasing telephony software

• Evaluate call routing capabilities. Telephony software should have efficient call routing capabilities to connect callers with the right reps. These include features such as automated answering, auto-attendants, virtual receptionists, and voice recognition to help minimize wait time and ensure calls get answered by an appropriate party. Evaluating these options is critical when buying computer telephony software to ensure your customers get a quality experience every time they call you.

• Determine the level of customer service and support available. When purchasing telephony software, it’s crucial to assess the level of customer service and support available. Ensure the software offers sufficient resources for user onboarding, training sessions, implementation guidance, and ongoing technical assistance. Knowing what kind of help you can receive will ensure a smooth transition with minimal disruption to your business operations.

• Compare the cost of different telephony software options. Software cost is a crucial consideration when buying a telephony system. Comparing the cost of multiple software tools will help you determine which solution provides the best value for your company's needs and budget. While researching pricing plans, also look out for hidden fees or discounts that may not be apparent at first glance.

• Assess the scalability of the software. The telephony software you shortlist should be able to grow and adapt as your business expands. Assessing scalability helps identify any potential system bottlenecks or limitations that could cause trouble down the line, such as insufficient storage capacity for large customer databases or inability to handle increased traffic during peak times.

How much does telephony software cost?

Most telephony software products are priced on a “per month” basis, and their entry-level pricing plan ranges from $0.85 to $35* per month. An enterprise product that’s priced higher may include additional features such as automatic answer detection, session management, live call coaching, and API developer support.

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offerings found on vendor websites as of Jan. 24, 2023.

What are the potential issues with telephony software?

• Poor connection quality: Poor quality of connection is a potential issue with telephony software, leading to bad sound clarity or dropped calls. This can result in frustration and loss of customer trust. Poor connection quality can also reduce productivity, as your employees, due to technical issues, won’t be able to answer telephone calls properly. Thus, your connections must remain uninterrupted and reliable to maintain good business communication standards.

• Low call-volume capacity: The inability to handle large volumes of calls is a potential issue with telephony software, leading to dropped or missed calls and dissatisfied customers. Additionally, limited call capabilities could prevent you from scaling your customer-facing operations due to the telephony system's low capacity limits. To deal with this issue, invest in a quality telephony tool that’s capable of handling large call volumes.

• Compatibility issues: Compatibility issues, a potential drawback of telephony software, arise when different systems or devices don't work together, preventing efficient communication between them and leading to service disruptions. Compatibility issues may lead to frustration among users who rely on the software's functionality. Therefore, ensure your shortlisted software works well with your existing systems.

• Limited feature set: A potential issue with telephony software is its limited feature set, which can impact the quality and effectiveness of communication, as certain features may be missing or lacking in functionality. Not having access to advanced capabilities such as phone call routing, automated attendants, and voicemail-to-text transcription could reduce your business efficiency. A lack of these crucial features also limits the value you get from your telephony software investment.

Sources

Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from GetApp’s telephony software directory, sorted by the number of reviews. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in GetApp’s directory that offer them. 

Disclaimer

This telephony software buyers guide was authored by GetApp’s content team. We develop our guides using the author’s expertise, insights from 2M+ unique user reviews, and our proprietary data science algorithms to identify trends in user sentiment, preferences, and priorities. Some text was generated with assistance from AI tools.