Everybody wants to work smarter, not harder. In the age of hybrid work models and labor challenges, your employees need technology tools that make communication and collaboration easy and seamless. When deploying a UCaaS (unified communications as a service) platform, you provide a foundation for them to do this. But how does UCaaS productivity improve? You’ll want to seek out these eight features.
The UCaaS Landscape: More Businesses Adopt this Turnkey Solution
While UCaaS was in demand before the pandemic, the need to enable remote work environments accelerated adoption. These mass deployments equated to a market worth nearly $39 billion in 2020, with an expected CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 23.6 percent through 2028.
Spending on this technology experienced massive increases, with more investment in video conferencing, team collaboration, and security for these deployments.
Its popularity is booming. According to a report, it’s 86 percent more popular now than before the pandemic. Why the new sentiment? Businesses are pivoting to hybrid work models and thus require flexible technology.
With greater adoption of and the need for UCaaS, you’ll find you have lots of options. However, not all UCaaS systems are the same. If productivity is a priority in launching the platform, there are specific features that make all the difference.
Unified Interface and One Login
Some UCaaS products aren’t truly integrated. Rather they are a collection of modules that may not be accessible from one login. That can significantly hamper productivity. If users have to play the “swivel chair” of jumping around in systems for chat, voice, video conferencing, and file collaboration, they’ll waste time. On the other hand, a system that has a unified interface enables them to save time.
Desktop and Mobile Apps
UCaaS means freedom and mobility for your staff. They can make and receive calls, join video meetings, and answer chats from any device. They simply need to install the app on their desktop and mobile device, securely connect to the internet, and log in to the system. By enabling such access, your employees can get more done no matter where they are.
Screen Sharing Fosters Collaboration
No matter where your workers sit, collaboration is still a key to success. Back-and-forth email chains and multiple versioning of documents derail productivity and impact deadlines. With screen share, colleagues can look at the same document and discuss changes and action items. Having this visual along with the conversation enables project task completion.
Virtual Voicemail
Accessing voicemail messages can be challenging with some systems, requiring pins or other actions to retrieve. Further, people may not always be in a place where they can listen to a recording.
Virtual voicemail eliminates these issues by transcribing the message automatically. Users can then view it and address anything that’s pressing. They can also forward to it another party if needed. This feature may seem minor, but it can greatly impact productivity since users don’t have to take numerous steps.
File Collaboration Co-Editing
Often documents or content require multiple stakeholders to create, review, and edit. That gets very messy if you’re using one Word document. It’s not effective or productive and can lead to errors.
The best way to boost collaboration productivity with UCaaS is to have a file storage platform. It’s a secure yet accessible way to share documents. That way, the document stays in one place, and people don’t waste time trying to find the latest version.
Contributors can also co-edit in real-time. These files also receive real-time backup, so you don’t lose anything in the editing process.
Integrations Help Workers Find What They Need
UCaaS productivity also depends on your teams having what they need to complete their job responsibilities. Often that includes access to customer information, commonly stored in a CRM (customer relationship management) system.
Integrating your UCaaS with a CRM can boost productivity at just the right time, such as when communicating with a customer. Look for integration features for CRMs and other tools to ensure a streamlined workflow for all.
Data Analytics Can Inform Productivity Discussions
Another key feature of UCaaS that supports productivity is call analytics. You can track the usage and performance of customer-facing roles, such as sales and support. By viewing this data, you can spot trends and patterns that can help you optimize efficiency.
For example, the length of calls may exceed your projections. If so, your employees may be making or receiving fewer calls. That can eat into productivity, so you want to dig into why. Based on what you learn, you could develop more training or realize the need to hire more staff to ease the burdens of current employees.
Reliable UCaaS Prevents the Productivity Woes of Downtime
Finally, reliability is key to productivity. While it’s not a feature per se, it plays a huge role in workflows. If the product has quality issues or constant outages, your teams will be unable to communicate and collaborate. That sets them back and endangers your entire operations. When comparing options, get the facts on their uptime, redundancy, business continuity plans, and other pertinent stats.
Find All These Productivity Features and More with Intermedia Unite
We designed Intermedia Unite as a UCaaS that enables wherever, whenever communications. It’s a complete platform that’s easy to deploy, use, and maintain.
Explore all its features and find out why so many businesses trust it.
The Intermedia Team
Intermedia helps businesses of all sizes connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. And, as a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for our channel partners to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success.
May 10, 2022
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