The rapid shift to remote work prompted by Covid-19 has left employees more reliant than ever before on collaboration tools to get the job done — and business owners and IT Professionals are more frustrated than ever when these tools fall short of expectations when supporting their remote workforce.
No doubt your business communication needs have changed since the Pandemic hit in March. Businesses of all sizes had the luxury of both in-office communication and the ability to jump on a plane at a moment’s notice to see a key Customer, Partner, Vendor. Now that has changed, businesses need to rethink which tools they need to enable their Remote Workforce to ensure they are as productive as possible.
Unified Communication Solutions have been around for more than 20 years, but now more than ever, businesses are switching to Cloud Solutions to enable their Remote Workforce. The word Zoom has become a verb, and the Pandemic has made the Unified Communications market more critical now than ever before.
Businesses, of course, have options, and with increased competition, the prices for Cloud Services have come down, with the service levels going up. SLA’s have reached 99.999%. The importance of enterprise reliability and 99.999 SLAs in a work-from-home world. It is a land grab for the Providers, which benefits you, the end-Customer, as multiple providers compete for your business.
The experts at Cloud Collaboration Consultants have identified the Top Collaboration Features to supercharge your Remote Workforce.
Video Meetings
If you can’t be in person, video conferencing is the next best thing. Zoom and Microsoft Teams are the market leaders, but if your goal is to unify phones, video meetings, messaging, and chat via one Provider, there are plenty of options such as RingCentral (8-time Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader), 8×8, and LogMeIn.
Mobility Applications
Often referred to as a ‘phone system in your pocket’. You can have all the features you have become accustomed to from your phone system in the office, but instead delivered via an app on your smartphone. Call Screening, voicemail to email, and voicemail transcription are standard features delivered via mobility apps.
Collaboration Tools for Your Remote Workforce
Email is great and part of our daily business lives, but what about all the email clutter your employees receive daily. It gets more challenging to determine which emails have priority, and your employees are always cleaning up their inbox to stay current. Unified Communications offers a solution. Slack, Glip (owned by RingCentral), Zoom, and Microsoft Teams offer online communication platforms that can provide easy access to workforce teams, messaging. Businesses see an immediate productivity increase when moving from email to online collaboration tools.
Chat
Employees are often using their cell phones for business chats. This creates several issues, including compliance issues. Having one number for business phones, fax, and chat allows employees to make and receive calls via one application, cutting down the time it takes to switch between applications, which will enable them to be more productive and efficient.
CRM//API’s
CRM, where you store your customer data, contact information, and tasks, is one of the essential collaboration tools, especially during the Pandemic, where real-time updates are more difficult to achieve with a remote workforce. Supercharge your CRM by integrating your cloud collaboration platform with your CRM system. Screen pops, click-to-dial are just a few of the advanced productivity features included.
CRM is one example of an API, but the Unified Communications Providers offer hundreds of APIs that can help your business survive and thrive
Apps and Integrations for RingCentral
Summary
With the right unified communications solution, your remote workforce can be as productive, if not more productive, than they were in a physical office.
More Links