Unified Communications Archives - United World Telecom

5 Benefits of Unified Communications for Remote Teams

Posted on May 29, 2023September 13, 2023 by Virendra Singh Jaitawat

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Struggling to manage your remote teams? Unified communications for remote teams or UCaaS can be the solution you need to increase visibility of remote teams while maintaining productivity.

Unified Communications for Remote Teams: 5 Benefits

Unified communications compiles all business communication and phone system tools together in one place. And so, you and your remote teams can access voice, video, email, and text messaging in one location, one platform.

UCaaS focuses on internal communication. As such, it benefits remote team collaboration and connectivity. This is why unified communication is growing more and more popular as a communication solution for remote teams. So, how exactly can your remote and distributed teams benefit from this service?

1. Mobility: Make Remote Working a Possibility with UCaaS & VoIP

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a communication service that enables business communication such as audio, video, and SMS transmission via the internet. With VoIP technology, users can make and receive calls from any location and any device as long as they are connected to a stable internet connection.

This means you can improve connectivity with your remote workers by giving them the ability to stay connected no matter where they are. And so, they remain accessible not only to the rest of your team but also to customers and business contacts. With call forwarding, customers won’t even realize that the business number they dialed is being forwarded to another location. They can still receive timely and efficient customer service even when your teams are distributed.

2. Easy-to-Use Softphone Solutions

Most VoIP providers will offer you easy-to-use softphone solutions that help users transform their devices into business communication tools. Softphones or webphones come in a variety of forms. You can get a software application, web dialer, or web/Chrome extension. A web phone has many advantages such as:

Making outbound calls to anywhere in the world using a dynamic caller ID feature to match the location being called
Access to contacts and customer history
Call logs and records
Quick and easy call transfer within your network
Free in-network calls to other team members
Access to voicemail

Having this tool can help your users stay up-to-date on calls and contact history which paves the way to better internal and external communication.

3. Flexibility: Use Any Device

Whether or not your business implements a BYOD policy, unified communications for remote teams will let users use devices they are comfortable and familiar with. This gives them the opportunity to use tools and apps that can improve their efficiency while not having to panic when a device fails. They simply log in through another device.

4. Plenty of Communications Tools to Use

The best part of UCaaS and VoIP working together is that your team gains access to advanced communications features such as:

Call monitoring
Call recording
Outbound calling
Call transfer and extensions
SIP trunking
Creative routing strategies
SMS, voicemail, and fax forwarding
IVR

These tools and features are designed to boost your workforce for optimum results. In addition to these tools, you can also invest in an online client portal so that employees can effectively handle customer queries and communication in a centralized platform. By equipping them with the right tools and software, they can do their job effectively, even when working remotely.

5. Maintain Productivity & Efficiency

The biggest issue businesses face when switching to a remote working system is accountability and lower productivity rates. But unified communications for remote teams can help fix this issue by making your remote teams more visible and transparent. You can continue to maintain productivity and the desired results by reducing the space between you and your teams through virtual communication.

Remote Working Made Easy with UCaaS & VoIP

Because of COVID-19, remote working as a trend has grown popular and will continue to be a desired workplace policy. And so, businesses should prepare for remote teams to ensure there is no drop in efficiency and business growth. Speak with one of our experts today to see how unified communications and VoIP can support your company!

5 Unified Communications Trends You Need to Know in 2024

Posted on October 5, 2020January 9, 2024 by Beny Mouen

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Every year, businesses need to check themselves and see how they stack up against not just competition, but market trends. This is where unified communications trends of 2024 come in. How can businesses continue to improve their communication system and, by extension, maintain productivity and manage remote teams?

Unified Communications Trends: 2024

The unified communications trends for 2024 seem to focus not only on increased productivity, advanced technology, and better customer service but also on ways to improve employees’ experience and team collaboration. Read on for the top UC trends for 2024 that businesses should keep in mind.

1. Adoption of UCaaS

One of the top UC trends is the growing adoption of UCaaS. Large companies and enterprises are investing in unified communications as a service as a business communication system. This is because UCaaS consolidates major communications channels and platforms such as voice, video, SMS, and email in the cloud. And by combining all of these applications and channels in one place, UCaaS boasts a cost-effective and organized business phone system.

2. Rising Presence of AI

As can be seen with most industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly expanding and making its way in major processes. Telecom and business communication is no stranger to AI. However, a growing unified communications trend sees AI becoming a more common tool. Think: virtual chatbots, virtual assistants, integrated services, and more. The implementation of AI resonates with the goal of using technology to improve productivity and collaboration and achieve faster and more accurate results.

3. More Cloud Solutions

Cloud communication solutions continue to be on the list of UC trends. And this is simply because cloud computing and storage have been in great demand and used by almost every business. According to a 2019 study conducted by Nemertes, about 67% of companies are currently using some part of their UC cloud solution while a third of those companies are using their UC cloud solution to the fullest extent. Because of this, UC providers are looking at partnerships, affiliations, and integrations that enable users to take advantage of more comprehensive cloud solutions.

4. Rise of Global SIP

As businesses across the world are renewing and improving their global communication systems, it is important for your company to stay ahead of the game. Global SIP gives multinational businesses the ability to expand with ease and reduce communication-related costs. With SIP trunking from VoIP providers, your business can place focus on voice network infrastructure, offer multichannel and multimedia support, and have access to centralized cloud communications.

5. Focus on EX as well as CX

While most UC trends are focused on improving customer experience (CX), in 2024, focus has shifted to employee experience (EX). Improved EX directly leads to enhanced CX, which at the end of the day should be every business’ goal. Unified communications can help employees become more efficient; efficient employees reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.

Switching to UC for Business

Unified communications can vastly improve your business’ productivity while ensuring it stays in the game with advanced telecom technology. Find out how United World Telecom can help your business; speak with one of our experts today!

What is the Difference Between UCaaS and CCaaS?

Posted on September 14, 2020October 7, 2021 by Nadine Sampson

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As “business in the cloud” grows more and more common across industries, users are looking at integrations to increase efficiency and reduce costs. This is where unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaaS) come in.

Contact Center Versus Unified Communications: What’s the Difference?

CCaaS and UCaaS are business communication technologies. And while there are key differences between the two types of technologies, they work best when combined.

The main difference between UCaaS and CCaaS is that UCaaS focuses on internal communication and collaboration while CCaaS focuses on customer interaction. However, by bundling the two technologies into one cloud platform, you can save on communication costs. This means a monthly predictable bill and no need for extra hardware.

What is UCaaS?

UCaaS or unified communications as a service consolidates a business’ communication tools and applications into one unified cloud-based platform. Communication tools include voice, video, instant messaging, and conferencing. Additionally, they come with features such as call forwarding and routing, interactive voice response, voicemail-to-email and fax-to-email, and more.

A business’s IT team purchases these solutions to improve internal communication. These solutions can help businesses improve their office phone systems and streamline workflow by encouraging collaboration, flexibility, and mobility. UCaaS is similar to platform as a service, PaaS; where UCaaS makes unified communications available to businesses of all sizes.

What is CCaaS?

Contact center as a service or CCaaS also enables multichannel communication through one cloud-based platform. In other words, it is a call center software hosted in the cloud. Your CCaaS provider will create and maintain the software that allows you to enhance customer experiences.

With CCaaS, instead of the IT team, purchasing decisions are led by sales managers and leaders. This is because CCaaS solutions are geared towards sales and customer support. These solutions focus on creating easy methods for agents and employees to connect with clients and leads. Some common features include skill-based routing, customer authentication, outbound calling, etc.

How to Integrate Unified Communications Into Your Contact Center

To integrate unified communications into your contact center, follow the below steps:

1. Find the right provider for a voice and data network:

To get the combined benefits of UCaaS and CCaaS, you need a reliable voice network and/or phone system provider. This is usually a business phone service provider that provides your business with its international toll free service, VoIP numbers, and so on.

2. Choose the best features for your needs:

Browse through different features and services offered by your provider. You may even consider a virtual call center software that gives you access to standard and premium features such as call reports, direct inward dialing, call recording, IVR, and more.

3. Provide excellent customer service:

Use these features to create better customer experiences. Some ways you can do so include:

- Offering multichannel support (voice, video, email, live chat, text message)
- Using automation to create a faster and more productive workflow
- Utilizing features to create a robust business phone system for internal and external communication

5 Benefits of UCaaS and Contact Center Collaboration

So, why does your business need a UCaaS and CCaaS collaboration? Here are the top 5 benefits of combining or integrating unified communications into your contact center.

1. More internal collaboration

With these technologies combined, different teams or departments within your office can work smoothly with each other. For instance, your marketing and sales teams must work together to determine the right leads and the right way to approach those leads. Being able to communicate easily and share information in a fast and secure manner can boost such collaboration.

2. Enhanced customer experience

With advanced communication features, you can strive to offer better customer service and caller experience. You can quickly forward callers to the right department or agent via your IVR system or through skills-based routing. You can also offer multichannel support for users who do not prefer phone conversations. Furthermore, a well-designed IVR system may even be able to reduce call wait times by providing troubleshooting help via prerecorded messages or sending callers to voicemail. Either way, the goal is to make the experience better for callers so that you retain these customers.

3. Lower communication costs

When bundled, you do not need additional expensive equipment or hardware to support both technologies. You can use your existing devices and phone system. Additionally, having both systems on the same platform ensures you have only one predictable bill per month instead of multiple bills. All of this helps reduce your monthly business communication costs which can result in significant savings for local as well as international businesses.

4. Enable remote working

Since both UCaaS and CCaaS work on cloud technology, you and your teams can work from any location and any device. This gives way to remote contact centers, virtual call centers, as well as distributed teams to work effectively even when working remotely.

5. Low IT maintenance

Finally, since these systems work over the cloud and are usually hosted by your provider, your business won’t have to worry about the costs of managing a data center. You merely rely on your provider, saving more in communication-related costs.