Smart UC that doesn’t trash your tech investments 

With an established work-from-anywhere mentality pervasive in most businesses today, effective Unified Communications (UC) in workspaces – office, home and remote – is imperative to prevent disconnected communication and workflows.

Keeping remote workforces connected with UC delivers powerful benefits including: 

• Effective, secure communication.
• Consistent connection with better messaging across channels.
• Effective collaboration anytime, anywhere and on any device. 

Transformation needn’t be daunting and doesn’t have to be from scratch.  

UC can streamline your tapestry of systems by starting from anywhere and taking a step-by-step approach.

Unified Communications in the spotlight 

In a post-covid world, workspaces can be anywhere. This adds a layer of complexity to the range of communication and collaboration tools needed for people to work together. 

With so many tools already in use, businesses may be wary of investment in other technology.  

UC makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts by integrating existing tools for a seamless user experience on any device, anywhere.  

This provides a better employee experience (EX), optimising the recruitment and retention of engaged staff, who in turn provide a better customer experience (CX) increasing loyalty and lifetime value. 

Assessing your current UC environment  

When considering a UC transformation, it pays to start with the end in mind. First, audit your existing UC network and prepare a needs analysis between where you are today and where you need to go.

• How are on-premises adoption and upgrade cycles compromising business agility?
• Where would cloud adoption add the greatest value?
• What parts of your business will continue to need on-prem UC?
• How can you best bridge your transition to the cloud, over time?

What to look for in a Unified Communications solution  

A Unified Communications solution must enable people and teams to communicate simply across channels.  

While today’s communication needs are important, it’s smart to consider future needs as well. 

Look for:

• Innovation: avoid vendors with stagnating technology. A technology partner who continues to innovate will be more invested in the future. 
• Solution breadth: look for calling video, meetings, and team collaboration, as well as contact centre capabilities.  
• Interoperability: an open, flexible platform that can integrate with other apps and services. 
• Investment protection: an ability to leverage the investment previously made in on-prem when fully migrated to the cloud. 
• Deployment options: a non-disruptive transition to the cloud, with the flexibility to support a mixed cloud and on-premises environment for as long as you need it.  
• Mobility: tools should be optimised for mobility to enable productivity, location-independent hires, and support for mobile and remote workers. 
• Solid technology: a strong track record of security and compliance.

Why UC makes work from anywhere a genuine option 

Only 9% of the workforce expect a full return to the office post-pandemic, yet 98% of employees report frequent frustrations with video meeting tech. This does not bode well for work-from-anywhere productivity.

UC makes work from anywhere a viable option (minus the exasperating dropouts) by providing purpose-built technology that empowers a seamless, secure and reliable experience wherever employees log in.

How UC can impact customer experience (CX)

With the competitive nature of today’s market, businesses need to delight their customers and CX is king. Today’s customer engages with brands where, when, and how they choose – expecting instant answers and frictionless engagement.

Without UC, disjointed workflows and disconnected teams impact agent experience and capacity, with negative flow-on impacts to customer experience (CX) and all that entails in terms of loyalty and lifetime value.  

The collaboration that UC enables is therefore much more than tools for messaging and sharing – it is a strategic business asset that has significant influence on long-term growth and profitability.  

Innovation is another key contributor to the ongoing optimisation of CX. By harnessing collective knowledge and expertise to encourage innovation, UC again has the power to impact CX for a true competitive advantage.  

Consolidating your communications infrastructure can also impact CX by enabling AI tools and approaches like integrated CX.

A Gold-certified collaboration expert