Posts Tagged Under: unified communications

Make the Most of UC, Train Your Employees!

Workers today have more communication tools to choose from than ever. That includes Unified Communications, which integrates voice, video, instant messaging, conferencing, faxing, and more – all on one platform. However, employees often receive little or no training to reap the benefits of using these innovative tools. Many organizations end up removing training from their budgets when making such large technology shifts – believing that people should inherently know how to use and why they should use these tools. But this decision to remove training and consulting can be a costly choice for enterprises, as the technology won’t be used to its fullest potential. This could increase the total implementation cost ten folds.

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4 Ways in Which 2014 Changed the UC Industry

Now that 2015 has just started, it’s the perfect time to reflect on how Unified Communications evolved in 2014. And, as our co-founder put it, there are a lot of things to look back and even more to look for in the new year.

Photo by Harpal Singh on Unsplash

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How Unified Communications Can Improve Your Legal Practice Business

Imagine this scenario: a lawyer and a client, separated by thousands of miles, need to decide if they’re going to accept a settlement by the 5 p.m. deadline. They planned on connecting over the phone at 4 p.m. to come to a decision, but the client is too busy with another meeting. Thankfully, with the help of Unified Communications, they are able to connect via instant messaging and discuss the settlement (without having to leave the meeting), reaching a decision before the deadline passes.

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Brace Yourselves, Millennials Are Coming

The highly experienced but less tech-savvy baby boomer generation has been dominating the global workforce for some time now, but that’s about to change. Before you know it, the soon-to-retire boomers will be replaced by the ambitious, technologically savvy and collaborative millennials, who don’t remember a time without computers and smartphones. Growing up with laptops, Wi-Fi, 3G and social media, the digital world circulates through their system as they expect immediate access to information at all hours of the day.

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VoipNow 3.5 Beta Is Here. Help Us Test It!

We have just released VoipNow 3.5 Beta. It’s been a long journey, but the first beta of the new version is finally here, better than ever.

It contains over 80 core improvements designed to help you win the SMB market such as upgraded architecture, improved UI, better PBX with support for WebRTC, call encryption, and a lot of other enhancements that simplify the operation of large deployments. It also comes with over 100 bug fixes, most of them related to the updated architecture.

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Three Things to Look For When Selecting Your Call Center Software Provider

Picture this modern-day scenario: a longtime retail company has run its own call center since inception, but recently because of the escalating costs and the need to create a better customer experience, management is planning to upgrade the tools that agents use in their day-to-day jobs. And nothing is more critical for a call-center, whether owned or outsourced, than the software platform used to communicate with customers and keeping track of those interactions. As a result, the company decides to shop for a suitable contact center software solution.

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Improving Customer Experience in Banking with Unified Communications

The banking sector has been through a lot for the past 6 years. Starting with the 2008 financial meltdown and continuing with a perpetual lack of customer trust, the banking industry seemed to be on a continuous downward spiral.

Yet, there are signs that banks have finally learned their lessons and have managed to turnaround consumers’ confidence. The 2014 Ernst & Young Global Consumer Banking Survey shows that consumer confidence in banks has risen 50% versus previous year. The report goes on to state that this increase is not the result of consumers turning back to “normal” but rather the result of banks taking an active stance on building trust again. And this trust resides on customer experience.

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With Unified Communications, Remote Working Is Easier Than Ever

Last year, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made the headlines when she announced that her employees would no longer be able to work from home. Some industry pundits speculated as to whether that meant the end of remote jobs. A few months later however, Dell CEO Michael Dell announced his intention to enable half of his 14,000 workforce to work from home. At the time of his announcement, 20 percent of his team were already working from home.

So, while the jury is still out whether Yahoo fares better or not, Dell’s decision merely expanded what already proved to be a good decision: in 2012, thanks to its remote working policy, the company saved $14 million—and 6,735 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. It seems that offices will soon be a thing of the past, or at least will need to be re-imagined, as more and more companies are shifting to flexible working policies.

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Unified Communications and the Future in Education

With technology advancing so fast, it’s often a wonder that the process of delivering education is still a piece of the twentieth century. It’s true that the world of online universities and learning websites from Coursera to Kahn’s Academy and other MOOCs is taking off, but many traditional schools, high-schools and universities are still stuck with paperwork when it comes to collaboration, and to simple voice when it comes to communication. Education should be at the forefront of what tech has to offer.

Some schools are making inroads into how to leverage technology. For example, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) provides interactive video courses for K-12 schools across North Carolina. Students from across the state can collaborate in project teams and class discussions. Meanwhile, NCSSM teachers monitor the class in real-time and assess student learning. Yet, such schools are the exception, not the norm. The 2011 CDW Unified Communications Tracking Poll found that only 17% of higher education has implemented some of the features that are part of Unified Communications.

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