2012 is nearing its end, so it’s time to look toward 2013. CallFire has made a few predictions about Cloud Telephony in 2013, so we can look forward to seeing how they play out after bidding 2012 farewell.

According to CallFire, we should keep an eye out for phone call data mining and analytics. By gaining more information from calls in contact centers, businesses can determine how to better help their customers, allocate their resources, focus on training in certain areas, and more.

When it comes to SMS, we’ve seen an increase in the importance of geo-location, but CallFire believes push notification will be next. Of course opting in is important, but once it is, customers can be notified of any important news or changes immediately.

And here’s some good news: the cloud will make it so that downtime becomes a thing of the past. With redundant databases and servers, phone services will always have backup, providing greater reliability and less time waiting.

That’s something I think everyone will find helpful.

CallFire also predicts that interactive voice broadcast applications will continue to emerge, replacing one-way voice broadcasts for more interaction. Furthermore, organizations will start looking at industry best practices in cloud telephony, now that it allows for more innovation.

In short, 2013 looks to be a good year for the cloud. 2012 was kind to it, but as it continues to mature, its uses will continue to grow. Assuming CallFire’s predictions are correct (and I see no reason to doubt them), we’ve got a lot to look forward to.