5 Things to Look for in a UC Partner

In a survey from Google and Economist Impact, 75% of respondents said they believe hybrid/flexible work will be standard practice within their organizations in the coming three years.

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 business goals.

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

1. A UC Partner Must Be All-Inclusive

Look for a partner who can provide your complete cloud communications needs — including voice, chat, video conferencing, file sharing, multichannel 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. Bundled UC solutions offer cost savings and the simplicity of one bill. You 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 combines contact center as a service (CCaaS) with unified communications as a service (UCaaS) to make employee collaboration easier and customer communications smoother. Business communications are simplified and teamwork is improved since the one-stop shop approach reduces complexity and costs. Plus, user experience and customer experience (CX) are upgraded because the platform is accessible on a single pane of glass. By consolidating your employee collaboration and customer experience solutions, you 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 two times faster due to the intuitive user interface and having only one application to operate.

2. A UC Partner Must Be Flexible

Organizations must become more agile and responsive to ever-changing working conditions, whether remote, in office or on the go.

Mobile and desktop applications need to be available for anywhere, anytime connectivity. 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 from an all-in-one tool.

Some vendors require your business 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 your existing investment, while gaining all the tools and features of cloud that benefit your hybrid/remote workers. We won’t force you to move to the cloud.

3. A UC Partner Must Be CX-Centered

Choose a UC partner dedicated to you and your customers. Make certain the UC solutions are not only advanced and full featured, but also focused on a friendly customer experience (CX).

NEC promotes a flourishing channel partner network for local, dedicated support. While there are many unified communications options in the marketplace today, not all technology providers will offer an extra layer of local support through a channel partner program.

Using Univerge Blue Extend, you can provide your customers with voice, chat, video conferencing and contact center solutions integrated with popular business applications like Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and more. You can improve customer service and increase insights to better meet your customers’ needs.

4. A UC Partner Must Be Reliable

Make certain your partner 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 more than 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 you 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. A UC Partner Must Be Forward Thinking

Work with a partner 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 partner who is regularly upgrading platforms for your organization and customers’ requirements.

Univerge Blue delivers tomorrow’s smart workspace today. We are continuously innovating and partnering with industry pioneers to stay ahead of the curve. By integrating with other leading business applications, Univerge Blue streamlines your operations, enhances user experience and makes seamless communication a reality across your entire organization.

Our analytics and reporting capabilities include hundreds of reports at your fingertips. Be at the forefront of fast-changing circumstances. Get access to vital communications and contact center metrics, business data and other key performance indicators (KPIs) to make informed decisions.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.