Owners of small businesses across the country are looking for different unified communication systems to improve productivity across all departments of their companies. One option some companies turn to is replacing the phone system they currently use in the office with one that has the latest technology. The newest phone systems feature VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), which uses Internet Protocols, also known as IP addresses, and operate on the internet.
Small businesses can also increase productivity by switching to a unified communication system. So what can a unified communication system do for a small business? The answer is quite simple: by streamlining the use and management of various communication methods into one platform, a company can focus more time on getting business done. Businesses can access email from anywhere, set up conferences easily, and send instant messages between offices and locations, leading to a more efficient workplace by switching to a unified communication system.
Benefits of Unified Communication Systems for Small Businesses
Most small business owners research as much before making a company-changing. Small business owners looking to integrate all their communication methods turn to unified communication systems for their offices. A unified communication system will integrate all of an office's communication methods into one interface. Those communication methods include the following:
- Cell phone
- Landline phone
- Fax
- Instant messaging
- Text messaging
- Web conferencing
- VoIP
- Screen sharing
- Voice Mail
When all these communication methods are put into one interface, your employees can find others and contact them quickly without wasting much time making phone calls or writing emails. Another added benefit of a unified communication system is that you can give the phone number of your office to a client. Your office and cell phones will ring when the client calls that number. This helps you miss fewer calls from clients, increasing productivity and profits all in one shot.
Improve Business Processes
Implementing a unified communication system is a strategic business decision. Different communication tools can be used concurrently and interchangeably to create a cohesive communication network. This allows businesses to communicate via multiple channels and access the platform on the same UX. You can scale up your unified communication system as your business grows as well to keep up with demand.
Increased Employee Productivity
With better connectivity modes, unified communication systems allow employees to be more productive via multiple channels instead of having face-to-face meetings. This means that employees waste less time waiting to make decisions and more time executing decisions.
All employees can always be reachable via unified communication systems and mobile apps. This also allows employees to work from anywhere without being confined to an office environment.
Better Collaboration
With the rise of telecommuting options, it is easy for employees to feel so far apart from one another. This can be remedied by using a unified communication system to help team members collaborate seamlessly from wherever they are. Chat features ad file-sharing capabilities of unified communication systems allow teams to collaborate efficiently without going back on forth via email.
The end-user experience of unified communication systems is also consistent among all users. And with high-quality video conferencing features, unified communication systems have reduced the need for travel while bringing about the same level of collaboration among team members.
Organizational Agility
As employees are more organized with communication via a unified communication system, your business operations will become more streamlined. Management will benefit more from a unified communication system to monitor and support employees' delivery strategies. This way, management can track employee performance and provide special resources whenever needed.
A significant feature of a unified communication system is that a phone call can be transferred from one phone to another with little difficulty. For instance, you are out of the office but scheduled for a news conference at 1 pm. You begin the meeting on your cell phone while out of the office, then walk through your home's front door, where the call can be transferred to your home phone.
Now say you leave your home, the call moves back to your cell phone, and then you return to your office. As you enter your office, the ring can quickly transfer to your office phone.
Another excellent feature of a unified communication system that benefits a small business today is the call forwarding feature. This feature will help you track down your boss or co-worker for an important sales call when the two of you are in different places. The system will know your boss's or co-worker's phone number and will forward the call to their location. This feature saves you a ton of time calling various numbers to track down your boss or co-worker.
Reduce Costs
Investing in a unified communication system can save businesses more money than it costs. By consolidating all communication channels, a unified communication system can streamline internal and external communication to better workflows for your employees. And using a single platform to consolidate all these channels can save businesses money in paying for different subscriptions. But the most significant ROI you will see with a unified communication system is the increased revenue due to better employee performance.
Better Cybersecurity
Most unified communication system providers go to great lengths to ensure their platforms are safe from cybersecurity threats. With role-based access and multifactor authentication, a unified communication system can be secured from any unauthorized access. IT admins would also have an easier time using unified communication systems since it only requires security updates and upgrades for only one platform.
AI for Increased Efficiency
Artificial intelligence has improved unified communication systems allowing smoother manual work completion and automation to streamline how your employees use their time. Meeting transcription, meeting scheduling, and other automated tasks can be handled by the AI allowing your staff more time to be creative.
The best unified communication system can easily be implemented in your business to streamline communication. After comparing the best unified communication system vendors and learning more about how to write up your unified communication system RFP with our guide to writing a RFP for a new communications system.
