4 reasons it’s finally time to make the switch to unified communications
Business communications systems and processes are one of the most important elements of daily ops.
It may seem obvious your internal communication systems determine how well your staff can collaborate with management and amongst one another, but they affect your relationships with clients as well.
At a glance, unifying your communication channels can streamline the process of communicating via a wide range of channels (phone, instant message, text, video conferences and more).
This process of “unified communication” (aka UC) also offers several key benefits that are extremely advantageous to organizations of all sizes.
Here are the 5 benefits that are most relevant to business success.
1. Make Business Processes Flow Conversationally
The one thing that matters most to businesses isn’t the technology or the processes. It’s the people.
No matter what your company sells, you’re in the people business. People work for you. Your clients are people. Everything you do, ultimately, involves people. And people need to communicate effectively.
A well-crafted UC strategy gives you ways to make your business people-centric, allowing for deeply conversational business processes, which in turn boosts efficiency, creativity and productivity.
After all, it makes sense that facilitating communications would lend to a greater adoption rate. In fact, studies confirm this – by 2025, the UC market will be worth $167.1 billion, with the SMB market leading the charge in it all.
2. Stop Shadow It in Its Tracks
“Shadow IT” is the absolute bane of many IT departments around the world.
Employees use non-sanctioned tech tools, like instant messaging apps and file sharing solutions, because they’re convenient, easy-to-learn and readily available. However, they’re not safe for business use.
Cybercriminals can easily access and exploit these if left unchecked. After all, your business can’t defend communications channels with company data if they don’t know they exist. And seriously – it’s really important to defend every endpoint and channel that you’ve got.
Want a refresher on shadow IT? Learn more about it here.
Keep in mind that while it’s a threat, it shouldn’t hinder your unified communications strategy.
After all, if you already give your staff user-friendly options for getting their work done and staying in touch with each other, there’s no reason for them to find alternate options.
When your unified communications strategy addresses all your business needs, you won’t even have to ask people to stop using shadow IT. They will because their needs are filled.
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3. Put Some Emphasis on the Customer Experience
UC isn’t just about your internal focus. It affects your customer base, too.
Whether you sell to other businesses or to individual consumers, few things can propel a company to success (or reduce a company to failure) like the customer experience. The easier it is to reach out to your support staff, the happier your customers will be.
Your unified communications strategy is a huge part of that. Because your comm channels are interconnected, that makes for faster response times, more availability, and greater response flexibility as a whole.
4. Make the Phone a Part of the Plan Instead of the Whole
Unified communications includes a lot more than voice.
There’s instant messaging, file sharing, screen sharing, video conferencing, webinars and all kinds of other collaborative, engaging options.
A cohesive unified communications strategy gives you the opportunity to help your people engage with each other at all levels. The resulting collaboration will help your company grow, because like we said earlier – every business is a people business.
Making The Change
So what’s involved in actually making the change to a UC strategy? Is the transition phase hard? Can you keep your old devices and just tie them together?
The answer may disappoint you: It’s a big maybe.
Because unified communication implementation relies on so many things coming together (and ironically, communicating with one another), it’s best to get an expert eye on the matter.
And that’s what we’re here for. If you’d like to know more about UC, or if you’re ready to see if it’s a good fit for you, let us know.
We can help you put a solution in place that’s the right fit for your organization.
