Last month I had the privilege of meeting with existing and potential customers and partners at Cisco Live. I returned from the show full of enthusiasm and excitement because our Webex Calling news received a great reception—and the newly announced features resonated with show attendees.
Webex Go is one of our industry-first innovations that garnered strong interest at the conference. Customer after customer stopped by our booth, interested in the live demo to better understand the capabilities of this feature and see how they can use this feature in their specific work environment setting. Still following my week there, one thing was abundantly clear: there remains some confusion about how this feature works and all its capabilities.
Here I will debunk the most common misconceptions I heard at Cisco Live and elsewhere since we announced this Webex Calling feature in March ’22. First let me remind you what Webex Go is and why it is a true market differentiator for the collaboration industry.
Webex Go is an industry first mobile-centric solution that brings together the native mobile phone experience with business calling features, which also connects to the broader Webex collaboration functionality. Simply put, Webex Go is a Webex Calling add-on that allows users to extend their business phone number to the native dialer of their mobile phone and have access to enterprise-grade calling features on their smartphone.
Webex Go calls are made using the familiar mobile phone dialer rather than through a separate app. Business calls are routed over a standard cellular voice network rather than over your cellular data network or via a Wi-Fi connection. This provides business-grade call quality and security to support a variety of use cases in which mobile calling on the go is the most convenient—or even the only—option.
Myth 1: It’s a Wi-Fi calling feature.
Because it uses a standard mobile phone network instead of Wi-Fi or mobile data, Webex Go enables personal mobile phones to access the full range of business calling features available on desk phones or computer apps. This includes business voicemail, special routing, and powerful functions such as moving a live call between devices. In essence, Webex Go lets employees work from the familiar interface of their smartphones while also enjoying all the benefits of an enterprise-grade desk phone.
Myth 2: The audio quality is subpar.
Webex Go provides high-quality network calls on personal mobile devices for business calls without the need to use users’ own data plan. When a call is made using your phone’s native dialer, it instantly connects over the cellular voice network providing higher media quality. With Webex Go, the sound packets are prioritized to ensure excellent quality of voice communication and reliability regardless of where the user is. Webex Go also leverages AI-powered Audio Intelligence features such as noise removal and suppression to ensure calls are clear for all participants.
Myth 3: It’s less secure, reliable, and private.
This myth couldn’t be farther from the truth. Since Webex Go uses the cellular network instead of Wi-Fi or cellular data, it provides consistent high quality and service reliability. Moreover, Webex Go taps into our proven enterprise-grade platform trusted by millions providing comprehensive security, including built-in end-to-end encryption.
As for privacy, Webex Go is added as a second line on the end-user personal device. Webex Go uses your business number and name, not your personal number and name associated with your mobile phone. This creates a clear separation between personal and business calls and helps protect privacy and professionalism.
Myth 4: It requires the Webex App to work.
With Webex Go, users make and receive mobile business calls using the same familiar calling functions for personal calls. There’s no need for a separate Webex App with a different interface, alerts, notifications, and address book. So, if you don’t already have Webex App, no worries you don’t need it to make and receive calls — Webex Go can be used on your mobile device now.
While the Webex App provides advanced integrated collaboration on all devices for both office and home-based users, Webex Go further enhances mobile calling and collaboration for both businesses and their employees. It provides a more feature-rich mobile phone experience, protects employee privacy, and significantly improves enterprise management, control, compliance, and costs.
Myth 5: Webex Go and Single Number Reach (SNR) provide the same capabilities.
This is not true. SNR is a call forwarding mechanism, which allows users to forward inbound calls to external destinations such as mobile or home phone numbers. It does not allow for the phone to make outbound calls using business phone numbers and names as the outbound caller ID. While this is convenient and allows calls to not be missed, these calls traverse the Public Switched Telephone Network, to reach the mobile network and a connected device, and as such do not maintain the same level of call quality, performance, and enterprise feature set for the user. Inbound calls to SNR locations are not identified to the user as a business call. They appear as any other inbound call would. The user’s business identity is also not maintained for these calls, so dialing back from call history, would not be presented as calls from the user’s business line. SNR also requires the user to manage no answer timer settings for unanswered business calls to be deposited in the user’s business voicemail versus their personal voicemail.
A Webex Go-enabled mobile phone is connected directly to the Webex platform and as such maintains high-quality audio, call setup performance, and the full enterprise calling feature set that the user experiences with any Webex device connected to the platform. The user’s business identity is maintained for both inbound and outbound calls, so the user has a clear indication on their phone if it is a work or personal call, and when returning business calls the business identity is presented to the called party. Unanswered Webex Go calls would never be routed to the user’s personal voice mail but routed to user’s Webex Calling voicemail. The Webex Calling voicemail can be played or read with voicemail transcription in the app or user’s email. Users do not need to add complex configurations to manage phone numbers for call routing or no answer timers.
Myth 6: I’m tied to a specific mobile carrier for this feature to work.
The final myth I will debunk here is around mobile carriers. It doesn’t matter which mobile carrier you use for your personal mobile phone; Webex Go will work with any of them. As mentioned above, because it is added as a separate business line on the personal device, Webex Go does not impact the mobile device plan, nor does it matter from which carrier you get your mobile plan. Once Webex Go is activated on the mobile device, end users will have a Webex branded mobile network, dedicated for business calling on their device. The Webex mobile network provider connects to the Webex Calling platform to route business calls and provide access to enterprise-grade calling features natively on the mobile phone.
As organizations prepare to welcome more employees back to the office or plan for increased hybrid work across locations, Webex Go will be an invaluable tool for employees and the business.
With Webex Go, employees can experience true mobile collaboration by leveraging enterprise-grade calling features anywhere, anytime—without having to download an app. Webex Go is an industry-first solution that provides users with a mobile-first calling experience on an exceptionally reliable and secure cellular voice network. By using the mobile phone’s native dialer, Webex Go provides seamless access to both your personal and business identity on a single device.
For the business, Webex Go lets your employees enjoy more flexible and feature-rich calling when working in the office, at their home, or remotely while traveling for work. And rest assured when using Webex Go, those mobile end-user devices will be compliant endpoints that can be viewed as part of the broader collaboration environment at your organization. It’s already common practice for end users to use their smartphones for work; now when they do, they can easily and securely access all the enterprise-grade calling features on their personal device.
If this sounds like a tool you could use for yourself or your organization, please check out the demo video and additional information on Webex Go here.
Learn More:
Here at Webex, we are dedicated to keeping people connected for seamless collaboration. In today’s…
This series focuses on SDP, the Session Description Protocol, the method by which almost all…
We’re excited to share that Cisco was recently named a 2024 Customers’ Choice in the…
Cisco is committed to continuously advancing state-of-the-art speech enhancement AI technology, such as Background Noise…
In this hybrid work environment, we strive for work-life balance by making our day more…
Last week, Orlando was teeming with Webex partners, customers, and IT pros from across different…
