Cloud Source

How Do You Choose the Right UCaaS Solution?

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Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems are reliable, time-tested technology, but they simply don’t offer the wide variety of features and capabilities that come with Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). If you have a high-speed, high-performance network connection, UCaaS may offer the cost savings, flexibility, and scalability you need.

With unified communications, you have a high level of fluidity between communications formats, offering customers a more cohesive experience that provides cost savings through a subscription pay model. You pay only for the number of users you need, with the ability to spin up more users as volume and demands change.

Like with any cloud technology, not all UCaaS solutions are the same. When you are choosing a managed solution, it’s important to know the factors that set solutions apart. Here are a few:

Reliability and Uptime: Your service level agreement (SLA) will have specifics related to reliability and uptime. Don’t choose a solution that offers less than 99.999% uptime – also referred to as “five nines” – and check with verified customers to see if the promise holds true in real life. Consult the SLA to see what happens if that guarantee is not met. Additionally, get an attorney involved that works specifically with SLAs because your communications technology is important for business continuity.

Features: The rich features offered with UCaaS may be the reason you’re considering a communications technology upgrade, but no two solutions will offer the same tools. Begin your search by detailing the needs of your organization and prioritizing your list so that when different providers begin showcasing their bells and whistles, you won’t be thrown off course.

The basics would include features like SMS messaging, telephony, instant messaging and videoconferencing, but what about artificial intelligence and call analysis? Determine what’s important and what won’t move your metrics.

Support: Every provider will promise fantastic support, but it’s important to know what your needs are. At a minimum, look for 24/7 support and chat, but you may be willing to also spring for a dedicated support representative. Also,consider whether you will need customization and if the provider is able to create and support those tailored solutions.

Security: Look for end-to-end encryption, tools to handle Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and other cyber security threats. Make sure the solution meets the compliance standards of your industry.

Integration: UCaaS isn’t just about uniting your communications features; it’s also about uniting communications with other tools, such as your calendar, shared workspaces and your line-of-business applications. Talk with the provider about how the solution integrates with your business-critical applications.

When it’s time to choose the right UCaaS solution, contact us at Cloud Source. We can help you identify the best technology for your communications upgrade, as well as prioritize your required features so that you select the UCaaS that will future-proof your business.

How CCaaS and the Customer Experience Are Driving One Another Forward

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You might think that it was the sudden shift to remote work in 2020 that drove a surge in implementation of contact center as a service (CCaaS), and it is partly true. But even before COVID-19 made its appearance, the pursuit of the ideal customer experience was making CCaaS a priority for companies.

Those organizations that were already utilizing CCaaS were better positioned to pivot to remote work, but it’s likely that the same commitment to customers that made CCaaS a priority also made them ready to create superior customer experiences and survive turbulent times. In other words, it wasn’t just the technology that made them resilient, but the customer-focused philosophy behind it. Here are three ways in which CCaaS and the customer experience are driving one another:

Customers Want Flexibility: In a world where communication is happening more and more over text and chat, customers want to be able to interact with companies in these formats. Rather than sit with a phone attached to their ear, waiting for their turn in the queue, customers can get an easy response to their questions with a chatbot. For more in-depth questions, a customer service agent can be reached through an email or instant message.

On-premise, legacy communications tools are limited in these functions, forcing companies to either relinquish customers to more technology-forward competitors or patch together apps to try to accommodate the communication formats their customers want.

Agents Want Rewarding Jobs: Happy contact center agents result in better customer experiences. When the technology is there to relieve contact center agents from more mundane tasks, such as providing delivery updates or answering simple questions, they are able to engage more fully with interesting customer issues. Companies retain their best agents, who provide the best customer experiences.

CCaaS solutions are also accessible from anywhere with a solid internet connection, so agents are able to enjoy working in the location they prefer. Their employers are able to offer agents better work-life balance, giving them the power to attract the best talent.

Perception Is Everything: The customer experience isn’t a set of policies that the company creates. It is fully in the perception of the customer. When a customer experiences consistent, excellent service, it’s because of a company culture that celebrates those experiences.

CCaaS is a critical tool in delivering excellence to customers. For instance, when a customer calls about an error on an invoice, the agent can see that it’s not the first time the customer has experienced an invoicing error. The agent can see the chat conversation about invoicing that occurred two months prior, all as a part of an integrated communications solution. The agent knows that how they handle the error will likely have a significant impact on whether the customer will return to do business with them again.

Delivering an exceptional customer experience takes more than CCaaS, but these two elements of your company have a way of working hand-in-hand to elevate your company’s approach to delivering excellence. Contact us at Cloud Source to learn more.

Choosing a UCaaS Solution With the Right Benefits

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Enterprises are switching from on-premise unified communications (UC) products to cloud-based unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solutions, in which all hardware, troubleshooting, and maintenance is handled by the provider. Its benefits are well-known, including cost savings, scalability, flexibility, and ease of management.

The true value of UCaaS is its ability to offer uninterrupted collaboration between teams and workers across dispersed geographic locations through video conferencing, messaging, and shared workspaces. As mobility becomes centrally important to business strategies, the role of UCaaS in providing a vehicle for improving productivity and enabling faster decision-making evolves into a more vital element for businesses.

Another major benefit provided by UCaaS is the inherent redundancy in the solution. Cloud backup provides the protection enterprises need against downtime. In addition, monitoring for threats and potential vulnerabilities helps protect the enterprise systems.

Choosing the Right Solution: Choosing a UCaaS solution can be challenging, because enterprises may be torn between a comprehensive application versus opting for best-in-class components of communication and collaboration.

It’s important for enterprises to examine the background of any given UCaaS tool. Whether it had its roots in customer relationship management (CRM) or a call center solution, these considerations can help determine whether it’s a good fit for your organization. It also helps to talk with the provider about their experiences with businesses similar to yours in terms of size and scope, as well as their broader experience within your industry.

Tenancy Considerations: Another area to carefully examine is whether you’ll take a single-tenancy, multi-tenancy, or a hybrid approach to your solution. A single-tenant solution connects to your on-site systems and applications, providing a more customized UCaaS option. While it is the most costly option, it offers the highest level of security among the three because it keeps your data isolated. By contrast, a multi-tenancy solution uses a single instance of the application among multiple customers. The advantages include lower cost, better support, and improved reliability, but this route often offers little in terms of customization.

Many enterprises find that a hybrid solution is most advantageous, offering the security and customization they want for some aspects of their UCaaS solution while also keeping costs reasonable.

Before Implementation: Early in the process, carefully document the requirements for your UCaaS system from both directions. What performance and bandwidth specifications will a UCaaS solution require, and will you need to make any infrastructure changes to support the volume of data that UCaaS accesses? From the enterprise perspective, determine what goals you have related to your UCaaS implementation as far as productivity, collaboration, and business processes are concerned. Create timelines for when you can expect a return on investment, but make sure you allow ample time for a learning curve. While UCaaS is quick and easy to deploy, plan on your employees requiring some time to adjust.

If you’re considering a communications upgrade, contact us at Cloud Source. We can help you evaluate the variety of options for UCaaS to leverage the best solution for your enterprise.

Securing Enterprise Unified Communications With UCaaS

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shutterstock_268428323Cyber crimes have recently been carried out in shocking sophistication, sending waves of alarm bells to big enterprises. An enterprise’s communications system is the first vector of attack that criminals can target. Securing B2B unified communications (UC) with a cloud-based UC-as-a-Service (UCaaS) solution is a logical option.

Business benefits of UCaaS

UCaaS has opened new opportunities for businesses by merging internal and external communications. Ideally, all hierarchy levels in an organization should be able to collaborate with one another, and UC has satisfactorily fulfilled this need. However, enterprises also have business communication needs beyond their corporate walls, like 24/7 connectivity to customers, B2B communications, and unimpeded contact with every tier in the supply chain.

UCaaS provides a centralized and unified solution for multiple communications mediums. Instant messaging (IM) and presence, voice and video, mobility needs, and the implementation of authorized traffic are significant trends that are changing the way businesses communicate.

UCaaS increases the availability and efficiency of the IT team. Team members are no longer tied up with the upkeep of hardware, updates on software, testing, and scheduling. Instead, they can be deployed to help core businesses run faster and be more competitive. Business communications under a UCaaS environment also help employees increase productivity wherever they may be – in the office, on the road, abroad, or at home.

With the right design, UCaaS offers solid reliability because data and applications are automatically replicated and backed up in the provider’s multiple data centers. This makes disaster recovery (DR) processes faster and enhances business continuity. Reliability is further boosted by a round-the-clock monitoring of the provider’s data centers and the latest encryption and security protocols.

Role of UC federation in a UCaaS environment

To be more effective, businesses should enable their employees to collaborate in real time with customers, external business partners, and the rest of the supply chain in a secure manner. UC federation makes this possible by cutting down the latencies between the communication sessions of users using different platforms in enterprise or intercompany communication.

UC federation can control which organizations can communicate with each other and at what level they can do so. It also allows specific modes of communications to be deployed or disabled, such as instant messaging or presence.

UC federation can be leveraged by mergers or joint ventures that have different UC technologies. The issue of interoperability during transition would be less of a problem.

There is a growing number of UC platforms and range of specifications from different vendors, such as Microsoft, Cisco, ShoreTel, and Avaya. UC federation aims to offer seamless interoperability between these platforms. NextPlane is one of the pioneers of this service, and AT&T launched its offering in early 2015. In 2010, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Logitech, Polycom, and Juniper Networks formed the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF). It later merged with the International Media Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) in 2014.

As a hosted service, UCaaS is a powerful tool to streamline B2B communications. It also allows businesses to do everything faster: work, communicate, collaborate, and increase profitability.

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