For Agents Choosing the Best-Fit Unified Communications Supplier: 5 Must-Have Characteristics

Are your customers ready to support a hybrid workforce?

Google and Economist Impact recently completed a survey which says 75 percent of respondents believe hybrid/flexible work will be standard practice within their organizations in the coming three years.¹

Working with remote teams and allowing for flexible schedules requires robust communication and collaboration tools. In addition to reliable, instantaneous conversations and multichannel messaging, asynchronous features will be critical to successful information exchanges.

Unified communications (UC) technologies are essential to support ongoing digital transformation. To maintain productivity, creativity and team engagement, as well as exceptional customer experience, it’s important to partner with the right UC vendor to support your customers’ needs.

Discover how UNIVERGE BLUE® can reimagine your customers’ businesses through hybrid working.

Here are five must-have characteristics of the best-fit UC Supplier:

1. All-Inclusive - Look for a supplier who can provide complete cloud communications —

including voice, chat, video conferencing, file sharing, multi-channel contact center, data management, backup and security solutions.

Fifty percent of businesses that have consolidated their applications reported an improved ability to keep up with customer expectations, according to Forrester.²

Bundled UC solutions offer cost savings and the simplicity of one bill. Your customers get the convenience of going to one place for customer support, while minimizing the need to toggle between applications.

NEC’s newly integrated UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT & ENGAGE delivers a unified platform experience for employee collaboration and superior customer communications. Merging Contact Center (CCaaS) with Unified Communications (UCaaS), business communications are simplified, and teamwork is improved. Plus, user experience and customer experience (CX) are elevated—all on a single pane of glass. This one-stop shop approach will assist your customers in decreasing complexity, managing budgets and lowering costs.

By consolidating employee collaboration and customer experience solutions, your customers receive:

• Faster Service Speed – Advanced call management tools unified within ENGAGE enables users to resolve customer inquiries faster
• Better Productivity – Employees seamlessly work as a team to help each other or a customer
• Better Service Quality – Supervisors have improved visibility into their customer experience and customer-facing users have better access to other employees
• Flexibility – Streamline onboarding and give any user immediate access to help manage customer calls instantly
• Adoption Rate – Users learn 2x faster due to the intuitive user interface and having only one application to operate

2. Flexible – Organizations must become more agile and responsive to ever-changing working

conditions, whether remote, in office or on the go. Your customers are no different. The need for their team members to be available to connect anywhere via mobile and desktop applications is crucial.

NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE EXTEND connects powerful voice, team chat, video conferencing and contact center functionalities into everyday business applications. Benefits include higher productivity, better customer retention and increased insight all-in-one tool.

Some vendors require customers to move the entire communications infrastructure to their cloud platform. NEC offers flexible deployment models that satisfy any business infrastructure whether on-premises, hybrid or cloud.

For current NEC customers, our UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT BRIDGE extends their existing investment, while gaining all the tools and features of cloud that benefit hybrid/remote workers.

3. CX-Centered – Choose a UC supplier dedicated to you and your customers.

Make certain the UC solutions are not only advanced and full featured, but also focused on a user-friendly experience. Scalable from the smallest call-centric teams to large multi-channel environments, with seamless integration for both Customer and internal communications in one simple interface. Less friction points with the ability to easily engage colleagues to aid in customer interactions, leading to faster customer call resolution. Let your customers focus on their customers, and everyone walks away happy.

Provide your customers with voice, chat, video conferencing and contact center solutions integrated with popular business applications like Google®, Microsoft®, Salesforce® and more with UNIVERGE BLUE EXTEND. 

4. Reliable – Make certain your supplier has the expertise and track record of success to support your evolving UC requirements.

NEC has been a leading provider and integrator of advanced IT, communications and networking solutions for 120+ years with more than 80 million users worldwide.

We maintain the highest compliance standards for healthcare organizations with contact center tools across communications and payment processes.

UNIVERGE BLUE is purpose-built for reliability—extending peace of mind. To help your customers avoid the risks of downtime or unreliable communications tools, we offer:

• A 99.999% financially backed uptime SLA (service level agreement)
• VoIP tests to help ensure a reliable connection and high voice quality
• Redundant East/West data centers to increase reliability and reduce latency

5. Forward-thinking Supplier – Work with a supplier investing in emerging technologies and committed to giving you a competitive advantage.

As business environments continue to shift and evolve, employee and customer expectations do, too. You need a UC supplier who is regularly upgrading platforms for your customers’ requirements.

NEC is continuously innovating and partnering with industry pioneers to stay ahead of the curve. By integrating with other leading business applications, UNIVERGE BLUE streamlines your customers’ operations, enhances user-experience, and makes seamless communication a reality across their entire organization.

Our analytics and reporting capabilities include hundreds of reports at your customers’ fingertips. Access to vital communications and contact center metrics, business data and other key performance indicators (KPIs) to make informed decisions, no more guesswork.

Learn why UNIVERGE BLUE Channel Partner Program is the best-fit Unified Communications supplier program.

Sources:

1. “Insights from our global hybrid work survey,” Google Workspace
2. “Improve Business Agility Through Platform Consolidation,” Forrester Consulting