Over the past ten years, more organizations have embraced Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), abandoning their outdated on-prem contact center and internal communications infrastructure in favor of more flexible cloud services platforms. Switching to Unified Communications as a Service brings many advantages, and in this blog, we review the five key ways that UCaaS can help your business.
1. Untether the Phones
One of the major shortcomings of traditional contact center solutions is their reliance on dedicated hardware, including servers and desk phones. By utilizing a hardware-based solution, your staff must be physically connected to the network. As it is cloud-based, UCaaS does not share this limitation; the only thing your staff needs in order to stay connected and working productively is an internet connection. This enables you to support a remote workforce, which is a requirement for many companies during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Avoid Expensive Hardware Purchases
Traditionally, contact center solutions are hardware limited, meaning you make purchasing decisions based on estimated capacity and purchase additional hardware and licenses over time as your organization grows. This results in expensive and unpredictable hardware purchases putting a strain on your bottom line. This irregular upgrade cycle also leaves you at risk of lapses in support coverage while you wait for the delivery of new hardware to be delivered or configured. If you are unable to handle incoming requests according to your contractual SLAs, customers may become dissatisfied with your services and look to your competition to meet their needs. UCaaS helps prevent this from happening as it is rapidly scalable, and your capacity can be increased or reduced in near-real-time with only a marginal increase in cost.
3. Simplify and Streamline Your Communications
Organizations frequently approach Meridian for help with their cloud-based contact center solutions that they are not using effectively. This most often takes the form of a hybrid system with some areas of the business using modern UCaaS solutions and others still relying on hardware-based communication tools. This disjointed communications architecture decreases efficiency and increases costs. By moving your entire organization over to a UCaaS platform, all of your communication tools are available on the cloud in a single package, enabling your staff to communicate more effectively. Improved customer experience can be provided through omnichannel voice, chat, and video, while engineers and support teams can receive alerts about customer problems and respond in real-time, and your remote workforce can collaborate effectively from the comfort of their own homes.
4. Reduce Costs
The hardware required to operate a traditional contact center is expensive and complex. This problem is exacerbated if an organization uses multiple different systems as described above. Unified Communications as a Service solution allow organizations to save substantial amounts of money by passing many of these costs to the provider. When maintaining a hardware-based communications system, you have to pay for the hardware, the installation, the annual and long-term maintenance of the hardware, the software, and the electricity costs. This results in traditional systems having higher upfront and long-term costs since you will be paying them over the course of the equipment’s entire operational life. UCaaS systems have only one cost for the end-user, the subscription to the service. The provider splits operating costs among multiple customers and only needs to charge their customers a fraction of the cost of the hardware and software they are utilizing, enabling them to offer their services at a low monthly rate. It may initially seem that paying for a monthly subscription rather than a single purchase would be more expensive. However, purchasing and managing on-prem contact center hardware comes with long term and hidden costs that are greater than the monthly subscription paid to a UCaaS provider.
5. It is Easier Than You Think
You may be considering looking into a UCaaS solution but are worried about a major disruption to your business. Thankfully, switching to UCaaS has never been easier. With the help of a service provider that understands your business, the process of setting up and migrating to a UCaaS platform is designed for simplicity and convenience. Before the migration begins, you and your chosen UCaaS provider will determine what level of service you require and create an implementation plan. Many providers also offer trial periods, allowing your staff to become accustomed to the new system while still having access to your legacy solution in order to ease the transition. Once you are ready, the transition can be completed seamlessly and with minimal disruption to your business.
As customer expectations increase and your company scales, traditional communications infrastructure becomes more expensive. Switching to Unified Communications as a Service provides your company the flexibility to grow quickly with minimal business disruption, enables your staff to work remotely, and will reduce your costs. Change can be intimidating, but with the help of a trusted service provider, you can rest assured that you have the support you need for the successful implementation of your communications strategy. The contact center experts at Meridian will help you define and implement a customized Unified Communications as a Service strategy for your organization.
Call +1 (888) 684-3644 or send an email to sales@themeridian.com to speak with one of our experts.