Could You Improve Efficiency in Your Business with Unified Communications?

According to Gartner, consumers will be managing 85% of their business relationships digitally, without the need to interact with humans, by 2020. Research shows that the vast majority of people already have a tendency to visit a company’s website before they decide to contact them via telephone or email and that most people would be more likely to revisit a site that offers them a live chat option. The range of tools that we are using to communicate with businesses is expanding. In the past, customers communicated with businesses face-to-face or on the telephone, but the modern business communications infrastructure has to incorporate a whole range of platforms including email, text messaging, social media, video and web conferencing as well as the more traditional voice communications.

Consumers expect to have a whole range of communications options available to them nowadays and this puts pressure on businesses to implement and manage a range of technologies and media. These days, however, competitiveness in business increasingly depends on the ability to do this effectively. Unified Communications (UC) technology provides a solution to this challenge. Connecting to business telephone systems, UC software integrates a wide range of communications tools onto a single platform for enhanced communication and collaboration across multiple devices and locations.

With all of your business communications tools being unified and interconnected, UC technology allows you to communicate with customers and colleagues in whichever manner best suits your needs in any given situation. It also incorporates presence information, for enhanced collaboration in a working environment that is more fluid than ever before. Advances in mobile technology have changed workforce dynamics. Smartphones and tablets allow more of us to work outside of the office, whether from home or on the go. UC solutions keep remote workers connected with colleagues and engaged with the company.

As well as improving employee collaboration and enabling a better level of customer service, Unified Communications can also help to increase revenues and productivity. Because collaboration is made so much easier by UC technology, working processes become streamlined. Regardless of the location of individual team members, everyone can get together quickly to discuss ideas and make decisions about projects. Greater efficiency and productivity enables a business to reduce costs which, in turn, increases their profits.

Could your business benefit from Unified Communications?

If you think your current communications infrastructure is limiting your business’ potential, then Unified Communications technology could be the ideal solution. Consider the following:

• Think about how your company operates; do you have flexible working policies in place and/or have field workers in a variety of locations? Do your employees work on a range of different devices including PCs, tablets, laptops and smartphones?
• Is it necessary/ desirable for all employees to have information on the location and availability of their colleagues at any given time?
• Do you have a need for real-time collaboration incorporating multiple parties at any given time?
• Do your customers like to have a variety of avenues for communication with your business and, if so, how are these currently managed?

If you are considering investing in Unified Communications, think about how the technology would integrate with the systems and processes that you currently have in place. If you need to invest in a new office phone system that could support the technology, this will be an additional cost to factor in. It’s worth consulting with a specialist business communications provider, as they will be able to advise you about whether the technology is suitable for your business and how best it can be implemented within the specific conditions of your organisation.

If you would like specialist advice and information about modern business telephone systems that support Unified Communications technology, contact Midland Networks today.