Unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) adoption is gaining steam, propelled by trends such as growing mobile and global workforces and corporate global expansion. UCaaS delivers compelling business value for the modern organisation, from increasing flexibility for on-the-go employees to empowering team collaboration across geographical boundaries.

But businesses that want to make the leap from on-premise PBX systems to UCaaS should be thinking about the UCaaS innovations service providers will bring to the table to help ensure their success now and into the future.

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Cloud-based UCaaS systems open the door to a world of empowering communications and collaboration tools for employees, and analytic insights and efficiencies to business teams.

So, what are the top innovations in UCaaS today? Here are three that should be in IT leaders’ sights:

1. Integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) technology

iPaaS makes it possible for business users to configure and integrate workflows across isolated applications and data without requiring any knowledge of how to make API programming calls.

When iPaaS joins with UCaaS, business processes can be connected to communications functions to enable new workflows on demand across all applications involved in supporting users, customers and partners.

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For example, a workflow could be created that extracts caller ID information to determine if an incoming call to a sales agent is from a customer. If so, the workflow can pull up the buyer’s recent orders from the company’s ERP system to display in the UCaaS platform for easy reference during the conversation.

2. Cloud contact centre integration

When businesses are able to seamlessly integrate a cloud contact center solution with their UCaaS system, the benefits extend to strengthening internal collaboration. For example, agents with real-time voice, chat and video access to subject matter experts throughout their organisation can increase speed of resolution for customer issues.

Things only get better if that cloud contact center is strong on analytics to drive customer satisfaction and business optimisation. By combining streams of data from an automated call distribution and call routing engine, as well as from CRM and other business applications, it becomes possible to gain valuable real-time insights to enhance operations.

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This can include dynamically predicting customer needs to match callers with agents who have the best performance record to meet their requirements; assessing customer and agent behaviours in order to drive optimum business outcomes; and modelling what-if scenarios to determine the business impact of changes in customer prioritisation, routing and agent skill levels.

3. WebRTC (realtime communications) support

UCaaS communications are simplified using this open web framework for real-time audio, video and data streaming from any web browser. It’s a key asset for creating business communications services that make it easy to connect information, resources, and employees and other parties, anywhere and anytime.

WebRTC does away with bulky client software or browser plug-ins to accommodate services such as virtual meeting rooms – where users can immediately set up a video conference across PCs, tablets, room systems, and smartphones that provide a consistent experience – and visual automated attendants for enabling real-time customer interactions straight from any web page.

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WebRTC is about making people more productive, creating a better customer experience, and reducing time-to-resolution from the contact center. But it also has a cost-savings component. Sales and support organisations, for instance, can lower operational costs as they move from toll-free numbers to leveraging WebRTC as central to browser-based call support.

As UCaaS enters the picture for your company, it’s wise to keep these technology innovations in mind so that your business can transform its communications, collaboration and business agility.

Sourced by Dean Manzoori, vice president of Product Management for UCaaS at Masergy Communications

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