A business’s ability to communicate clearly and efficiently often defines its success, but that’s not likely to happen if you rely heavily on landlines and a disparate range of other methods, such as instant messaging and email. The increasing diversity and versatility of technology is making it harder for businesses to seamlessly connect their teams with clients and business partners.
Unified communications (UC) is a concept that brings multiple IT solutions together under a single platform. It usually begins with implementing an internet telephony (VoIP) system so information from phone calls can then be tracked and analyzed with customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
Essentially, UC allows different people in a conversation to communicate via their preferred channel without any information getting lost. For example, a customer might call in using their landline or mobile phone number, while a customer support representative might answer the call using a headset connected to their workstation, as is the case with VoIP. In an even broader sense, UC brings together all other forms of communication, such as instant messaging, video conferencing, and email.
Why Does Your Business Need UC?
A 2018 survey showed that the average small business employee hops between at least four communication apps during their day. Worse yet, they often use several different devices to access these apps, which means information is scattered, out of date, and often lost. UC ensures that when one employee receives an email from a lead and another employee receives a phone call from the same person, both interactions are logged in a unified system.
When someone calls in looking for sales advice, customer support, or pretty much anything else, they expect to be connected to the right person immediately. If leads or customers are left waiting while a representative struggles to connect them to the right department, it won’t be long before they hang up and look elsewhere.
UC and VoIP technology gives you more control over calls by providing automated attendants and call forwarding features that can be configured and updated from almost any device with an internet connection. Furthermore, by connecting your CRM software and other mission-critical systems, the risk of communication errors or delay can be decreased significantly. So, if you need to follow up with a customer about an order or post-sales onboarding, UC automatically collects and verifies contact details so you always have the right information.
UC also improves internal efficiency and remote worker collaboration. Information is readily available to anyone who needs it because every department uses the same communication solution, meaning you can do away with excuses like, “another department needs to handle that” or “please hold while we find order information.”
How Do You Implement a Customized UC Solution?
Like many modern business technology systems, UC isn’t something you set and forget. It’s a dynamic solution designed to scale and adapt to the needs of a growing business and evolving technology habits. Fortunately, industry-recognized best practices and standardized protocols allow for immediate integrations right from the outset. For example, leading VoIP software Skype naturally integrates with all of Microsoft’s other business solutions, such as Office 365 and Dynamics CRM.
So if you’re wondering whether to tackle UC implementation in-house or to outsource its management to a hosted services provider, the answer is simple. Smaller businesses that lack internal IT departments save money and boost efficiency by outsourcing IT management to a service provider that can set everything up for you, provide ongoing support and scalability, and guarantee technology uptime.
SinglePoint Global provides unified communications and other managed services to help organizations get more out of their technology investments. Give us a call today, and let’s talk about your IT goals.
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