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Most small businesses have more than one location, whereas most medium-sized businesses have more than four locations.  It is still on the agenda for Small to Medium Sized Businesses to tie workers, offices and customers together.  The one answer is Unified Communications.  It equips workers to be accessible regardless of their location and allows them to meet their customer’s needs quickly and efficiently.

Many businesses with contact centres have achieved their goal with Unified Communications, designed to avoid long hold times or multiple hand-offs between representatives.  First call resolution is a critical contact centre strategy.

Employees can be reached whether they are teleworking at home, in a remote location or on their mobile services.  This capability means that SMBs can establish contact centres in different time zones and provide 24/7 coverage if needed.

Automatic Call Distribution automatically distributes phone calls to a specific group of agents.  It can route calls based upon caller identification, dialled number, time of day, and custom defined parameters established in an IVR program script.

Agent Portals help coordinate between voice and data screens as well as pop-up screens to access more information about the caller and their needs.

By allowing users to determine which co-workers are available, either online or via phone, contact centres can locate those representatives with expertise in an area and get the question answered or problem solved immediately.

SMBs compete for customers, which are their most valuable asset.  But they compete for employees as well.  Today’s employees want to be able to work from various destinations and have access to key information regardless of office hours and/or time zones.

With teleworker solutions, a remote employee can plug in an IP Phone or soft phone into any public Internet connection and have the same features and functionality as a phone in the main office.

The remote phones are also connected transparently, so to a customer or partner calling into the line, it will appear as just another extension on the company system.

Creating a single inbox for email, voice and fax messages is one of the most important productivity drivers for mobile workers.  It puts email and voicemail into one easily accessed and managed location.

Unified Communications increases employee engagement through value, such as the ability to be mobile and work at convenient hours.  It also enables collaboration between various functions within the business and streamlines business processes.

In conclusion, Unified Communications is a fundamental change in the way SMBs will operate in the future.  It will not only bring increases in employee productivity and operational efficiencies, but will also provide a strategic competitive advantage.  The future is now.

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