The availability of a voice connection within the business operation is no longer enough to meet the growing demands of today’s business. Customers want the versatility of multiple channel options for interacting and companies seeking to control costs need a way to streamline these channels and track customer communications. Business VoIP providers can often offer the optimal solution.
For many organizations, the right approach is to leverage unified communications (UC). A recent GetVoIP post asked the question – is UC a commodity or a necessity within today’s business environment? The more concise structure enabled with UC ensures real-time communications, unified messaging, collaboration and more. It essentially extends greater capability and efficiency by putting everything in one place, on one platform.
This single approach to communications organization doesn’t mean there is one single point of entry, however. On the contrary, one of the benefits of UC is that business VoIP providers can offer multiple points of entry, allowing users to access and utilize available services from multiple locations and devices. Multimedia services, such as sound clips, video messages, picture sharing, SMS messaging and more allow users to have a greater presence outside of the office.
As companies continue to expand and become more mobile, it is no longer simply a perk to offer UC; it is now a necessity. ITWeb conducted a survey that found 68 percent of organizations are aware of the advantages associated with implementing unified communications. Even with this awareness, however, only 31.96 percent actually use it extensively. Business VoIP providers that are able to help customers smoothly make the transition to the UC platform and extend it throughout their business will be able to deliver more value in those relationships.
For a truly comprehensive approach to unified communications, CounterPath (News - Alert) plans to lend its Bria mobile, desktop and tablet softphone to the hosted VoIP service from Jive Communications. Now, Jive can augment existing offerings to create a UC service that is truly comprehensive, easy to adopt and designed to fit any sized business. A fully managed cloud-based system enables greater control, optimal monitoring and better cost management.
Even with these clear benefits, companies are still only scratching the surface when it comes to the capabilities afforded in a robust UC platform. In offering new integration, Jive is hoping to appeal to the percentage of companies that truly want to dig deeper into the benefits of UC by making it easier to use and the benefits more readily accessible.
As companies increasingly adopt mobile strategies and extend operations to include remote locations, UC platforms are really the only choice for optimal capabilities, interaction and support.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey