Why an SMB Needs a Unified Communications System to Grow

As I’ve written about quite a few times, the drivers for buying a UC phone system that you might typically hear are:

• Efficiency improvement
• Productivity gains

These are typical since, with UC, there can be other forms of communication beyond phone calls all tied into a single system. Therefore, there does not have to be context-switching to communicate. This saves time. For instance, instant messaging can happen during a conference call. Or you are connected to your smartphone outside of the actual business environment so you can “expand” your office hours. Or as I’ve written about recently you can work remote or WFH. Or because all the calls are on IP, the business can save mobile phone and PSTN trunk charges. Add this all up and the business obtains efficiency and productivity gains. Due to the inability of many businesses right now to actually see their customers face to face, phone calls are becoming more important than they have been in recent years. Some business can only be transacted on the phone or on the internet, and for a phone call, the physical office may not actually be even open.   Those businesses with Unified Communication features such having a business phone number ring right to a laptop or smartphone (so you don’t even have to be in the office and can be remote or at home to get an office phone call) and instant messaging so you can collaborate better with your colleagues (even when you are on the phone) have fared much better than those with a basic phone system.   But that’s probably even not enough. Some small businesses are now understanding that having a basic contact center would enable so much better customer service. These small business owners know that features such as music on hold, callback when available, call queues, call recording and routing rules (such as time of day routing or department routing) are also important. You can look bigger, you can get the call to the right person at the right time, and you can keep your customers happy. And that’s all part of the growing trend in Unified Communication systems – add basic call center functionality to the UC system. And Sangoma has all that, that’s why we are an excellent choice if you are in the market for a new UC phone system. We offer one easy to understand price, all the products you need to complete your system (Phones, Headsets, Desktop and Mobile collaboration client, Video collaboration, Gateways, SBC) are from us, and we include basic call center features. In one word, we offer VALUE.