Modern, dynamic workplaces have a healthy mix of office-based work, remote workers and hybrid working roles. While this is great from a convenience and agility perspective, it can become challenging for teams to communicate and collaborate effectively.
Organisations, however, will need to invest wisely to ensure they always have access to the latest technology.
Many businesses are running multiple disparate legacy communication platforms for both internal and external communication, resulting in a fragmented, and often frustrating, customer experience (CX).
Similarly, frustrated employees aren’t able to produce the best work, which puts pressure on the organisation. Ultimately, businesses need to find ways to enable employees to do their jobs more efficiently, while simultaneously ensuring that in a highly-competitive landscape, their clients – who often have many options to choose from – enjoy effective customer service.
One of the big buzzwords of late is personalisation, and for good reason.
This means that when businesses plan investments to improve communication and collaboration, they need to do so with their CX goals in mind, which is why they almost always land on cloud telephony as the best-suited solution to achieve their objectives.
Cloud telephony and unified communications (UC) are pivotal in navigating the remote and hybrid-working landscape. As businesses adapt, these tools play an increasingly vital role in maintaining productivity, collaboration and improving operational efficiencies, while offering exceptional customer experiences.
The fundamental goal of UC is to centralise multiple communication channels on a single platform. This ensures visibility on all customer interactions.
Similarly, UC allows for a seamless experience for a user on any connected device, no matter if they’re in the office, working from home or working from a tropical island. Calls, chats and video conferences remain consistent. Seamless communication across diverse channels leads to a cohesive and efficient communication ecosystem with enhanced collaboration.
As mentioned, CX is integral to the discussion. UC eliminates the need to toggle between multiple interfaces. It allows users to handle interactions from a single application, which plays a vital role in improving CX. The modern customer demands more channels to interact with businesses, including WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook, e-mail and web chats.
A company improves its CX and gains a competitive-edge when it uses UC technology to meet a customer where he or she wishes to engage. If a customer starts a conversation on WhatsApp and later switches to e-mail, agents can seamlessly continue the dialogue without repetition.
Treating all interactions uniformly allows businesses to analyse data and gain valuable insights, which in turn will help them make informed decisions. The insights gained from web chats, e-mails and voice calls collectively provide a holistic understanding of customer needs, pain points and behaviour.
One of the big buzzwords of late is personalisation, and for good reason. Valuing all channels equally enables personalised interactions with a customer because a business can tailor responses based on context, history and individual preferences, leading to more meaningful conversations and more effective customer service.
Traditionally, phone calls were rigid, standalone and expensive. Cloud telephony virtualises this application, allowing businesses to maximise their investments into last-mile infrastructure. And with quality internet connections becoming more reliable and widely available to businesses and remote work consumers, cloud telephony is far more accessible and reliable than it has ever been.
A good cloud telephony platform combines standard PBX functionality – including attendants, IVRs and more – and cloud-based UC tools, which includes voice, video and chat, to address a business’s communication and collaboration needs.
Businesses need to ask themselves this question: With technology evolving at breakneck speed, why invest in equipment that will depreciate and add no value to the business? A monthly opex investment in cloud telephony ensures you always have access to the latest and best technology – this includes software updates and feature enhancements, which are the responsibility of the service provider.
There is a misconception that cloud telephony platforms are less secure and offer less functionality than traditional PBXs; however, the reality is that these platforms offer advanced security measures executed in conjunction with the service provider’s network infrastructure.
In addition, cloud adopters gain access to the brave new world of artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things and big data.
That is not to say that a business needs to throw all its resources into big investments immediately, but it would be wise to plan for the future by laying a foundation that will enable it to implement the features it needs, when it needs them.
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