Take a look around you the next time you’re sitting in a café. Chances are nearly everyone you see will be glued to an Internet-connected device of some sort that is producing heaps of data – be it through emails, phone calls, social media or Unified Communications (UC) applications. Ever thought about the role that such an amount of personal information can play in the business world? It’s quite huge.
If you want to learn how not to implement collaboration software, here’s the perfect hypothetical situation: a mid-sized company is looking to enhance the knowledge sharing and productivity of its employees. As a result, the firm settles on a collaboration solution and the IT department has the task to implement the platform.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Business slows down in summer due to vacation time. That’s a fact. Be that as it may, for contact centers, considering the relatively low call center activity, the summer looks like the perfect time to see if they’re making the grade.
When business starts ramping up again, the quality of your customer service needs to be at its peak so as to bolster revenue, enhance customer satisfaction, and reduce costs. If your contact center isn’t ready for that kind of influx of traffic as business picks back up, you may be in for a surprise. For instance, according to a recent survey by Accenture, 51 percent of consumers in the U.S. will abandon a business if they are not fully satisfied with their customer service.
So what exactly can you do so that your company doesn’t become part of the statistics?
For the past three years, 4PSA’s girls cycling team mounted the podium in the women’s category at the Skoda Velo Challenge. We have a dedicated corner in our open space filled with the trophies they brought home. This is a good motivation to train hard every year, because maintaining a top place is not an easy task. And now we’ve raced our bikes in the Baneasa forest once again.
For those of you who do not know what Skoda Velo Challenge is, here’s the short story: it’s a relay cycling race opened for people working at the same company. We team up to compete against other companies in the same field of work or in the general classification. It’s basically a fun day in the woods, without computers and tasks, but with deadlines to meet. Well, you do need to beat the other competitors’ times, don’t you?
With only two girls willing to join the ranks this year, we took a different approach. We entered the race with two teams in the mixed competition. Team Hubgets and Team VoipNow, each made of three boys and one girl, lined up at the starting grid, along with 81 teams from other companies. Team Hubgets relied on stronger riders and aimed high. Team VoipNow was all about the fun of it.
