10 Ways Unified Communications (UC) Can Benefit Your Business
As the digital transformation of everyday business processes continues, business owners need to find ways to improve, streamline, and enhance their communications. Whether it’s to create a unified team collaboration tool or improve the customer experience, unified communication platforms offer a simple solution.
What is unified communications (UC)?
Unified Communications (UC) refers to the integration of various communication tools and channels into a single platform or system. To do this, UC combines real-time communication services, such as instant messaging, phone calls, and video conferencing, with non-real-time communication services like voicemail, email, and fax.
UC typically makes use of cloud services, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and, particularly for customer services, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to create a unified platform that offers an improved user and customer experience.
The goal of UC is to streamline and simplify communication processes, making it easier for individuals and businesses to communicate and collaborate across different devices and platforms. Whether you run a small business call center or a large marketing company, UC can greatly improve your business processes.
10 benefits of unified communications (UC)
1. Boost productivity
With communication between employees being an essential part of business processes, delays and mishaps in business communications and team messaging can dramatically reduce productivity.
With UC, employees can access all communication tools and information from a centralized platform. Not only does this speed up how quickly they will see a message, but staff can also easily switch between different channels and devices, streamlining communication and reducing time wasted switching between applications.
2. Encourage collaboration
Collaboration within and across teams in your business can help drive new ideas and creativity as well as boost productivity. However, your workforce may be spread remotely across the world.
UC facilitates real-time collaboration among team members, regardless of their physical location. It enables seamless communication through voice, video, instant messaging, screen sharing, and file sharing, improving teamwork all around.
3. Increase business availability
You want your customers, clients, or business partners to feel you’re there for them whenever they need you. Still, it’s easy to miss a call or let an email get lost in the digital pile.
UC and VoIP service providers offer features like call forwarding, voicemail-to-email transcription, and artificial intelligence (AI) driven alerts that improve accessibility and availability. Employees can easily manage their communications—whether in the office or telecommuting—and ensure they don’t miss important messages or calls.
4. Cost savings
You may already be aware of the costs of business communications. From subscriptions to multiple services to long-distance call charges, something as simple as speaking with the rest of your team can rack up bills.
By integrating multiple communication services, UC eliminates the need for separate systems and subscriptions—one single subscription cost for all your communication needs. It also means lower maintenance expenses and minimized expenses like long-distance call tariffs, since many UC services use virtual phone systems or VoIP services, and travel costs.
5. Communicate from anywhere
Businesses are increasingly expected, by staff and customers, to be flexible and mobile. With remote workforces becoming more common and businesses attracting clients and customers on an international scale, your business communications must be ready for this.
UC allows employees to stay connected and productive even when they are away from their desks. With features like virtual phone systems, mobile apps, softphones, and remote access, they can access communication tools and collaborate from anywhere, enhancing flexibility and mobility.
6. Streamline your business communications
How many hours have you spent onboarding new employees by training them on the multiple platforms and software types that fill up your business processes? Non-unified communications can be confusing, time-consuming, and costly.
Unified communication services consolidate communication channels into a single interface, including voice, video, email, chat, and conferencing. This simplifies the user experience, enabling efficient and effective communication between departments. It also makes it easier if employees need to move across teams or departments.
7. Improve customer service
UC isn’t only useful for improving communications within your business. It can also help you better communicate with your customers within the same integrated UC single platform.
UC empowers customer-facing teams by integrating customer relationship management (CRM) systems and communication tools, allowing customer service teams to speak with customers on various platforms and use new technology to improve the customer experience.
Typical features include quick access to customer information stored in the cloud, AI-driven chatbots, interactive voice response technology, and social media messaging capabilities.
8. Easily integrate with other business applications
While UC offers a single platform for your communication needs, you probably still have many other vital applications relevant to your everyday processes.
UC can be integrated with other business applications like project management tools, document and content-sharing platforms, and customer support systems. This integration enhances productivity by allowing seamless communication within the context of specific tasks or projects.
9. Scale your unified communications with ease
Legacy communication systems are difficult to scale. If you move office space, add new departments, or expand to new physical locations, taking a physical phone system with you or installing a new one is difficult. Luckily, UC doesn’t have this problem.
Cloud-based UC services are designed to scale with your business needs. Everything is managed on a single online platform, and unified communication service providers typically have easily scalable subscription plans.
Whether you have a small team or a large organization, UC platforms can accommodate the growth and expansion of your business without significant infrastructure changes.
10. Ensure business continuity
In the event of an emergency or unforeseen circumstances, access to data and uninterrupted communication is crucial. The businesses that can weather disasters and remain reliable always come out on top.
Tools like secure remote access and UC can be a lifesaver in these situations. With features like call routing, disaster recovery, and redundancy options, UC systems provide a reliable communication infrastructure during challenging times, including ensuring you can get to your platform and data whenever you need it.
Boost Business Productivity with Unified Communications
Unified communications solutions offer business owners a chance to boost employee productivity and improve customer service. The advanced features, cost savings, and enhanced collaboration tools offered by unified communication platforms are hard to resist. Whatever the size of your business, UC could be the tool to achieve your business goals and continue to grow, all while keeping your employees and customers happy.
