Imagine a person calling for detailed, technical information regarding your products and services. These calls can be cumbersome for customer service employees who don’t contain the technical knowledge about a specific service or product. Now imagine those same customer service employees having a comprehensive menu on their computer screens describing the exact technical knowledge about that specific service or product, along with other detailed information the inquiring buyer can use to make the best decision right away.
In the world of UC (Unified Communications), technical customer service calls are handled and processed substantially differently than these were just a decade ago.
Transitioning to a UC program improves communications both internally and externally by arming personnel with better technology equipment that add value to the entire communication process. Agentie PR This article contains helpful understanding and insights to work with you in the transition to a unified communications program.
UC is actually a unified system for communications in all its forms. Potentially, this can include land-lines and cellular phones, e-mail, quick messaging (IM), VoIP, IP-PBX, fax, voice mail, conference calls, video tutorial conferencing, whiteboard and unified messaging. Your employees will have presence within your business communications – whether they are physically at work or not.
The concept of presence is simple to understand within instant messaging in which a “buddy status” is available at a glance. UC takes this a stage additionally by grouping these “buddies” together by specialized skills and attaching them to certain knowledge areas. All of this would be offered by a glance.
UC allows for real-time delivery of all these forms of communication within a single environment that consumers can access inside a simple interface. For example, customer service staff could have a list of employees knowledgeable about a product, along with the most practical method for immediately contacting see your face who gets the correct answers about the details of the product.
By clicking on a contact icon, a call can be made, or perhaps a page or a whiteboard program accessed to bridge key home elevators the product, customer and employee contacts simultaneously. If your business doesn’t curently have it, Unified Messaging (UM) can provide communications integration, albeit on a smaller scale than UC.
Unified Messaging is with the capacity of grouping together communications from different sources, such as for example e-mail, faxes and tone of voice mail, but does not allow (in all instances) real-time shipping and delivery. Unified Messaging techniques store these multi-program communications for an individual to access information at his / her discretion.
Still, nowadays, UM does provide improved connection synchronization to an extent that has been not available just a decade ago. It is very important understand that while UM does offer efficiencies by grouping communications jointly; it is not the same thing as UC. Oftentimes, these conditions are interchanged and interpreted to really have the same meaning.
Again, they are not the same. Tying communications together with each other in a UC platform might have a tremendous positive impact on productivity at your business. Businesses with offices around the world have an excellent opportunity to synchronize communications as they occur around the clock in real time. Additional functionality allows telephone calls to be routed according to preset rules.
For example, if an employee is working at a remote location outside the office, the UC program can route a call with their cell phone and a voice message into their voice mail. In the centre of UC is the Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies that allows analog phone conversations to be transmitted on the internet. UC basically expands that efficiency by allowing different communications through exactly the same protocol. Transitioning to UC does not have to be an overwhelming process.
First, think about what usable technology your business currently has and how those possessions could be integrated into the brand new platform. Consider what communications are already transmitted utilizing the Internet Protocol (IP). Maybe your business is only a few steps away from integrating these right into a truly unified format that considerably increases productivity.
Another good thing about introducing UC to your business is enhanced security within your company’s communications that was never offer before. Without UC, communications occur over several data formats using several protocols, and you may not need control over certain facts. Integrating these data platforms using UC gives your organization the ability to better manage the overall communications process.
The necessary equipment for developing a UC infrastructure includes various software applications and hardware gear. The Microsoft variation of the UC solution is built round the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 for the user interface. Microsoft, of course, is geared toward the software UC solution. Its server software was created to be deployed on a dedicated communications server.
Cisco, the IT hardware tools manufacturer most widely known because of its routers and switches and its reputation because the “backbone of the web,” also offers software UC solutions, together with the necessary hardware apparatus. Cisco is more well known as a hardware company; consequently naturally, the business’s UC solution is additional hardware-based.
The two big players in the wonderful world of IT are suffering from UC solutions. Which one is best for you is often a function of your specific requirements and your company’s monetary resources to aid and maintain the technology. Understand that there are tailored solutions out there from both Microsoft and Cisco personalized for how big is your business.
Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 comes in two editions: Standard and Enterprise. The Standard Edition is supposed for SMBs that have one server platform using one machine. Combined with the accompanying Standard Client Access Permit (CAL) it allows for messaging, peer-to-peer video and voice, and file transfers all that occurs in a integrated and familiar Microsoft Work place.