VoIP’s competitive edge in the age of WhatsApp – MyBroadband

The benefit of using a cloud-based voice over IP provider lies in the value that they can deliver beyond the ability to make a call, Euphoria managing director Warren Hawkins tells MyBroadband.

“For businesses, it’s about features and functionality like call dispositioning, which allows you to track how a call went, whether queries were resolved, and next steps, if any,” Hawkins explains.

“Other features like call routing, campaign analytics and reporting also provide exceptional business value.”

Hawkins said redundancy and support are also critical.

“We know that being able to stay in touch with customers is key for our clients, and we’ve seen the impact when a service like WhatsApp goes down.”

WhatsApp faced a major outage earlier this year when it went offline globally for over two hours on Wednesday, 3 April.

Two years prior, the service also experienced a two-hour outage between 09:00 and 11:00 on Tuesday, 25 October 2022.

Hawkins said they believe the relationships Euphoria has with customers — and the service they deliver — help them remain competitive.

“Yes, using WhatsApp calling may be the cheaper option, but the value lies in the full package of features, reporting, support and service they get from us.”

Euphoria has a long history of providing quality voice over IP (VoIP) services in South Africa.

George Golding, Conrad De Wet, and Rafal Janik founded Euphoria Telecom in 2011, using De Wet’s house in Woodstock, Cape Town, as their first office.

An angel investor funded the business through payments of R100,000 per month for ten months in return for equity in the company.

Speaking about those early days, Golding previously said that they kept their existing small businesses running on the side and paid themselves only R11,000 per month.

They used asset finance where they could and only needed a further R400,000 from the angel investor before the company broke even and began paying for and funding itself.

Business started to blossom. While it took Euphoria Telecom 18 months to make its first R1 million in revenue, it took only another 30 months to increase that to R1 million per month.

Today, Euphoria Telecom is a thriving telecommunications company with a range of products and services.

It has a growing client list in the South African business market, including Takealot, iStore, WeWork, and Mugg & Bean.

Euphoria also ranked highly in MyBroadband’s recent business technology survey, which revealed that it was one of South Africa’s most trusted VoIP providers.

MyBroadband asked Hawkins what trends Euphoria was seeing in the South African VoIP and hosted PBX market.

“A key trend we are seeing is that customers expect more than ever before from the businesses that they deal with, so there is a heightened focus on the customer experience,” said Hawkins.

“In the VoIP and hosted PBX market, this translates into businesses wanting their systems to integrate more seamlessly with their enterprise and CRM software.”

Hawkins explained that this gives customer service teams and call centres all the tools in one place to deliver more personal and efficient service.

“Another trend we are seeing is increased demand for mobile operability,” he said.

“Businesses want the benefits and features of an office extension, with the flexibility of a mobile phone.”

This lets teams work remotely or on-site and ensures that small business owners don’t have to be tied to their desks.

“It also does away with the need for phone allowances, giving out your personal phone number, and monthly claims,” said Hawkins.