Omni Malaysia allows you to start your own “call centre” from RM60/month

It can be quite difficult for small-medium enterprises (SME) to handle incoming calls or customer interaction over the phone. Call centres require a significant investment and the alternative — giving people your personal phone number — isn’t exactly ideal.

This is where Omni comes in. In a nutshell, it allows businesses to set up a virtual call centre with just their smartphone and an app.

Launched by everyone’s favourite yellow telco Digi, Omni is an “enterprise-level virtual phone system” that is designed to be the uncomplicated, affordable alternative to setting up an actual call centre.

Omni offers a lot of the kind of services you’d expect from a regular call centre, including a virtual assistant, call redirection and the ability to leave voice messages. The only difference is that all of this is done through the cloud. Here’s how that works.

With Omni, interested business owners can simply register for the service online at Omni’s official website and pick between one of three plans. The first is an entry level plan that is priced at RM60/month, with the mid-tier plan costing RM100/month. There’s also a Pro plan that is priced at RM200/month. All three plans have unlimited incoming calls while the number of call extensions, outgoing minutes, and outgoing SMSes vary based on the plans.

Calls are handled through the Omni smartphone app and the service will also provide you with a local landline number that businesses can give to their customers to call. By default, customer calls will be routed through the Omni app on your smartphone and come in via VOIP. If there’s no answer (for whatever reason, including a lack of internet coverage) the call is then rerouted and it comes through as a normal call.

When someone calls your local Omni number, they will be greeted by a virtual receptionist. Y’know, those that tell you to press one for apples, two for oranges (this is an example). These prompts by the virtual assistant are entirely customisable to suit your company’s needs. You can also route calls to specific numbers or have the app ring multiple phones at the same time when a call comes in.

Alternatively, if it is after office hours or you are unable to answer a call for whatever reason, customers can also leave voice messages which you can attend to later. In fact, the service will also be able to transcribe these voicemails into text for you. Omni also allows you to send SMSes through the app and make outgoing calls too. In total, Omni service can handle 50 concurrent calls.

Since everything is handled in the cloud or virtually, you don’t need to invest into any additional hardware like landlines, desks or office spaces (nor do you need to be in the office) to take calls from your customers. You can just register your personal numbers or the numbers of your staff without actually revealing those numbers to your customers or the general public.

I can see how this has potential to be a neat solution that small businesses can use to streamline their calls. However, I personally don’t know if investing in call centre or call centre solutions is what businesses should be doing. In my own experience, I’ve always preferred to interact with businesses online so if there’s an app or a website, I will always choose that over making calls. I mean, I don’t even make calls at all anymore.

I’d love to hear what your thoughts are. What do you think of Omni? Let me know in the comments below.