Mobile-first Webex Go solution is now available in the UK
Last year, we unveiled Webex Go, an industry-first mobile solution that brings the powerful Webex Calling experience to the native dialer on your mobile phone. Webex Go is a seamless way to deliver Webex Calling to the device that your employees use the most: their personal mobile phone. Webex Go is essential for businesses that need to support a hybrid workforce while ensuring that calls are secure, compliant, and private. We continue to receive tremendous feedback from our United States launch, and we’re excited to announce that Webex Go is now available in the United Kingdom on Apple iOS and Android mobile platforms.
As Webex Go reaches new milestones, we’d like to remind our customers why Webex Go is an indispensable component of hybrid work.
Table of contents:
- Mobility challenges of hybrid work
- Webex Go: secure, compliant, and private mobile calling
- Use cases
- Make your phone a part of the Webex ecosystem
- Get started!
Mobility challenges of hybrid work
Mobile phones are essential to deliver the agility and productivity benefits of hybrid work. These devices ensure that workers are always accessible when they’re on the road, working from home, or away from their desk. To deploy mobile phones at scale, businesses increasingly rely on Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies that allow employees to use personal phones for business communication. BYOD eliminates the cost of purchasing new phones, as well as the inconvenience of separate business and personal devices.
However, businesses must also be cautious of the risks created when personal devices are used for business communication, particularly when it comes to calling:
- Business calls made from an employee’s personal phone number are not managed by corporate compliance and security policies, and can expose businesses to fines and legal liability.
- Employee privacy is compromised if personal phone numbers are used to call external business contacts like customers. The lack of boundaries between your employee’s personal and professional lives can also create an uncomfortable and unprofessional work environment.
- Calls made on personal phone numbers are not logged in corporate call history, analytics, CRM, or customer support systems, making it difficult to track the performance and activity of users.
Mobile business unified communications (UC) apps can be used to encourage employees to make work calls on their business, rather than personal, phone line. However, in practice, these apps are rarely used for business calls. A study by Metrigy found that only 5.7% of employees used business mobile UC apps to make business calls once these apps were deployed.
According to Metrigy, “People are used to using their native dialers on their iPhones and Android devices, and don’t want to change”. The conclusions of this study are clear: business phone lines must be part of the native calling experience that users are accustomed to, otherwise users will revert to the familiar experience of their personal phone line.
Webex Go: secure, compliant, private mobile calling
Webex Go bridges the gap between personal mobile phones and mobile collaboration apps by enabling users to make business calls through their phone’s native calling apps. Webex Go extends your Webex Calling line to the second line on your personal mobile phone, so users can easily make business calls through the native calling experience they’re used to. Calls made with Webex Go adopt corporate compliance and security policies, and keep the user’s personal phone number private.
With Webex Go, you can:
- Bring your Webex Calling line to the second line on your personal mobile phone.
- Make and receive Webex Calls through the native apps on your personal mobile phone, including the native dialer, call history, and contacts.
- Use your Webex Go line to dial business contacts by DID or extension.
- Access mid-call controls like hold, resume, and conference from the native mobile phone dialer.
- Maintain security and compliance policies for all calls made on the Webex Go line.
- Maintain complete call history for calls made on the Webex Go line.
- Leverage the reliability and coverage of the cellular voice network.
Webex Go use cases
Webex Go is essential in the many industries where calling is a regulated form business communication. Webex Go is also an important tool to protect the privacy of employees that make calls to external parties such as customers. Finally, Webex Go provides the visibility that managers and administrators need to assess the activity of callers.
A few use cases for Webex Go include:
- Industries, such as finance, that require customer calls to be recorded, or sales and support roles where call recording is used for training or to verify transactions. All calls made with Webex Go adopt corporate recording policies eliminating the risk of unrecorded business calls.
- Industries, such as healthcare, where access and retention of voicemail messages is regulated. Voicemail messages received with Webex Go are stored and secured in the Webex Cloud in accordance with corporate access and retention policies.
- Roles which require employees to call external parties such as customers. Webex Go displays the user’s Webex Calling number in caller ID, and adopts the user’s call preferences, such as do not disturb. This eliminates the exposure of personal phone numbers and the risk of untimely customer calls that can create an uncomfortable or unprofessional work environment.
- Any role where call history data is important to access performance, update CRM and support systems, evaluate call quality, or provide records for audits. All calls made with Webex Go are recorded in personal and corporate call history, as well as associated business systems like CRM.
Make your phone a part of the Webex ecosystem
At Webex, we work to ensure that all our endpoints work seamlessly with each other, and Webex Go is no exception. Devices enabled with Webex Go become part of the Webex ecosystem. This means that your personal mobile phone functions as a Webex Calling endpoint, delivering benefits such as:
- Universal presence, so your colleagues know when you’re on a Webex Go call
- Simultaneous ringing across your Webex Go line and other Webex devices
- Seamlessly move Webex Go calls to other Webex devices, including Cisco IP phones and Webex devices
- Elevate an audio Webex Go call to a video call or meeting in the Webex App
- Transfer Webex Go calls to other users
- Provision Webex Go devices in Control Hub
- Centralized administration through our single-pane-of-glass Control Hub experience
Get started!
Mobility is included in your Webex Calling license, so getting started with Webex Go is easy. You’ll need the following to get started:
- Webex Calling license
- Webex PSTN calling plan (Cisco Calling Plans, Cloud Connect for Webex Calling, or Local Gateway)
- Webex Go mobile plan
- Supported mobile device (Must be unlocked and eSIM compatible)
- Apple iPhone XR or later
- Samsung Galaxy S21 or later
- Google Pixel support is coming soon
From there, provisioning Webex Go is a simple four step process in Control Hub. Users can complete the process remotely by scanning a QR code on their mobile device. You can learn more about the simple Webex Go provisioning process here.
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