Zoom expands cloud-based phone service in India, debuts AI-powered Contact Center
Zoom Phone was already approved by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to operate in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. After Wednesday's announcement, the service is now available in a total of six telecom circles in India.
It not only strengthens Zoom's foothold in India but also signals a broader shift in how enterprise communication is evolving towards cloud-based telephony solutions offered by a growing class of unified communications as a service (UCaaS) providers.
Paid users of Zoom have access to Zoom Phone as an add-on. The company further said it has plans to bring Zoom Phone to additional areas in the future. It is offering clients Zoom Phone as a full-stack solution with an omnichannel contact center platform and Zoom AI Companion for post-call summaries, voicemail task extraction, and voicemail prioritisation.
Customers located in regions where Zoom Phone is not yet available might still be able to access the service by visiting the company's self-service web portal and acquiring native phone numbers based on specific telecom circles, such as Karnataka, Delhi-NCR, and Mumbai, as per the company.
In addition to expanding access to Zoom Phone, the company has introduced a new offering called Contact Center. It is a product that enables customers to reach out to Zoom's enterprise clients through a wide range of channels, including voice, video, virtual agents, social media, email, and messaging apps.
'Zoom Contact Center utilizes the Zoom data centers in India to handle its services, supporting customer expectations and compliance requirements, particularly in sectors such as government, healthcare, and financial services,' the company said.
For a more unified experience, the company allows its enterprise clients to integrate Contact Center and Zoom Phone. This would enable a customer care agent to transfer, forward, and record calls within the same environment. The agent would also have access via Contact Center to Zoom Phone user details such as extensions, Direct Inward Dialing (DID) numbers, and usernames in order to identify inbound calls and route them accordingly.
In a statement, Sameer Raje, general manager and head of India & SAARC region at Zoom, said, 'Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center are purpose-built to work seamlessly together to empower organizations to deliver unified communications and superior customer and employee engagement. With this launch, we are excited to help businesses streamline collaboration, support flexible workforces, and enhance employee and customer experiences.'
'This expansion also reflects the growing traction Zoom Phone is receiving, especially from multinational companies, as businesses in India move away from legacy PBX systems toward more flexible, AI-first collaboration solutions that enhance employee productivity,' said Velchamy Sankarlingam, president of Product and Engineering, Zoom.
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