In this issue, we discuss a variety of challenges many organizations face in their quest for more productivity, better customer response, and additional cost savings. TCI can help organizations achieve these goals with technology solutions. Our topics include…

Contact me today to discuss how TCI’s products and services can help your organization get more out of its technology investments – now and in the future.

  

(703) 321-3030 | cornbrookst@tcicomm.com.

We’ve seen a lot of changes to the call center and customer experience landscape over the years, from cloud communications and virtual agents to more strategic thinking around analytics, more flexible social media interactions, and innovative ways to involve artificial intelligence. And when the pandemic pushed businesses to modernize their business communications overnight, we’ve seen even more shifts in how businesses meet the evolving needs of both customers and their employees.

Here are nine technology trends that are helping companies deliver the best quality customer experience. See how far your business has come in building customer relationships that last — or which of these trends may need to be on this year’s to-do list.

As early adopters continue honing AI applications for call routing, we expect to see more connections forged between various media channels and streamlined call center response.

A forward-looking digital transformation strategy is going to be essential for business competitiveness. And it’s not just about using the right channels to interact with customers where they are; the smartest businesses are integrating technologies to provide full customer context with each interaction and leveraging system data to provide proactive service.

Gone are the days of relying on supervisor skills and know-how to get the most out of contact center agents. Now, even smaller businesses are taking advantage of sophisticated analytics to turn data – like call and screen recordings, chats, SMS messages, and more – into useful feedback for their agents. We expect more advancements in analytics as companies continue to implement more unified communications platforms and strategies.

More businesses are recognizing that while a customer journey may begin on one channel, valuable insight and feedback from the customer can be gained on a completely different channel. Responsive businesses are using this trend to create a superb customer experience by unifying communications across channels into one stream. This helps their customers by connecting them with an agent who knows their purchase and service history and provides valuable context. Most importantly, the two-way conversation is public on a social media platform, so other customers can see how the business solved the problem.

Many businesses have already adopted cloud communications as part of their communications strategies, but cloud communications have become particularly important for contact centers. The steady increase in remote call agents has made cloud communications a necessity for businesses who want to take advantage of seamless team communications and collaboration. With cloud communications, traditional office-based contact centers can take on new locations, and grow and contract workforces as market needs demand.

Just as customer expectations have evolved in the last few years, so have the expectations of the employees that make quality customer experience possible. And dissatisfaction in the work environment and culture has led to high agent attrition in the contact center space and beyond. Businesses that want to remain competitive will provide their employees with the culture and technology that empowers an efficient, productive, and flexible workforce.

Lower overhead, time zone flexibility, and variable working hours have made remote contact center workers a stable trend in 2022. With constantly improving unified communications, remote workers have become a permanent and beneficial part of the contact center environment. By using collaboration tools, contact center agents can be mobile, with access to real-time analytics and customer context.

The high priority on process improvement and self-service since the pandemic has addressed the issue of increasing workload for contact center agents, as well as the difficulties around achieving the desired service levels or Average Speed of Answer (ASA). Giving customers information quickly helps reduce call volumes, and easy-to-navigate FAQs help narrow down calls to those with sufficiently complex issues. Quick access to self-serve solutions also provides an emotional benefit to customers (that DIY-fix high!) and reduces overall call times.

SMBs are extending traditional contact center agent desktop features to employees that work outside of the contact center to supplement customer-facing employees. Blended UC/CC solutions that bring customer and employee experiences together into a single user experience tear down the silos between traditional contact center agents and the rest of the organization.

If you need more help determining how to apply these trends to your call center, TCI's local experts are here to help. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Traditionally for technology investments, CFOs most often preferred capital expenditures over operating expenses because they could take advantage of the amortization and depreciation of those investments over an extended period. There’s a growing argument, however, that operating expenditures (OpEx) have distinct advantages over capital expenditures (CapEx).

Operating expenses are used for the day-to-day costs of running a business and can be more stable. But technology developments are occurring faster than companies can digest and are the reason many CFOs are shifting from capital expenditures to operational spending.

The cloud is a perfect example of how to apply OpEx for technology expenditures. As an operating expense, the cloud allows a company to:

If you’re looking to reduce communications costs, the cloud can save you money:

The cloud offers a better path for growth. It not only saves you money through economy of scale, but also scales cost‐effectively as you grow. You never have to worry about adding more servers and switches as you add more employees. You simply add more seats in the cloud at a fixed monthly cost and have the assurance that new employees are connected to all your business communications from day one.

Ready to talk about your path to the Cloud? Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Sourcewell is a municipal contracting government agency serving the public sector.

First, Sourcewell goes out to competitive bid nationally on a wide range of products and services that would benefit their members. They then award the contract to the selected vendor. Sourcewell sets up the legal authority between vendor and member.

The member organizations then have access to the vendor’s services at Sourcewell, resulting in accolades like this from a school district:

Working with TCI as your local technology partner, Sourcewell members can purchase Mitel telecom solutions without issuing an RFP, including:

Mitel is the exclusive Sourcewell telecommunications equipment vendor based on its record of innovation, product quality, customer service, pricing, and overall market leadership.

Simplified procurement and savings … More reasons to go with TCI and Mitel. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

TCI’s Managed Wi-Fi Service… Simplify and speed up your day-to-day operations. Our Managed Wi-Fi puts intuitive yet powerful tools in the hands of your network administrators:

Wi-Fi 6 Support… TCI supports enterprise-class Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) access points to solve density and throughput challenges. With up to 8 transmit and 8 receive antennas, your applications will always operate at peak performance. In addition to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios, many APs offer a dedicated security radio that:

Wireless Made Easy… From growing offices to large corporate enterprises, TCI designs, implements and maintains the wireless networks that keep local businesses connected and running strong. Our expertise includes:

Whatever your environment and business goals, TCI can design, deploy, and support a cloud-managed wireless solution for you.

Our certified infrastructure experts will ensure your mobile workforce has access to the connections they need to stay productive… Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

As of June 30th, 2022, there will be no new contracts accepted onto the MiCloud Connect platform. However, if you are currently a Mitel cloud customer considering an upgrade, replacement, or realignment of your current infrastructure, here are 8 reasons why making the change to RingCentral MVP is going to be good for your business in the long run.

The RingCentral MVP platform complements our leading UC on-premises, subscription, and private cloud solutions. With RingCentral MVP, Mitel cloud customers now have more choice and flexibility in how they evolve their current communication and collaboration infrastructure to enhance efficiency, improve productivity, and deliver better customer service experiences.

RingCentral MVP rounds out its communication and collaboration options with full-featured phone capabilities built on a global calling footprint in over 44 countries, local and toll-free numbers across more than 110 countries, and customization settings in 17 languages. Mitel’s 6900 IP Phones are now officially certified with RingCentral’s MVP platform, making it easier for existing Mitel cloud customers to scale operations quickly with employees who can work from anywhere.

RingCentral MVP streamlines all communication and collaboration into a single, unified, collaborative, cloud-based hub for team messaging, HD video meetings, and telephony. This intuitive solution makes it easier for employees to work efficiently on mobile or desktop clients, so they can interact with each other, partners, and customers whenever they need to and from wherever they are.

RingCentral MVP optimizes the virtual meeting room and makes it easier for you and your team to stay connected. Enjoy HD audio and video, and screen share with up to 200 interactive video participants. Easily schedule meetings with calendar integrations with Office 365 and Google Calendar. Get in-meeting chat, virtual backgrounds, closed captioning, cloud recordings, and powerful background noise reduction technology for a great participant experience.

Messaging is still one of the best ways to stay connected with team members when a video meeting is not needed. RingCentral MVP’s integrated messaging features make messaging a more powerful tool for all instant interactions:

Too many independent tools keep employees bogged down with managing technology rather than doing their jobs. RingCentral MVP eliminates communications silos and technology gaps with over 275 pre-built integrations and more than 500 open APIs you can leverage to enhance business applications and workflows.

RingCentral MVP has a proven record of providing service to small, medium, and large businesses in a variety of industries. It’s a secure and reliable platform with 99.999% call service uptime. This ensures your communication system is always running whenever your employees need it.

With so much riding on the capabilities and performance of your communication and collaboration system, it’s important to keep tabs on how it’s performing and how it’s being used. RingCentral MVP is delivered with a simple, centralized web-based user and system administration feature that makes it easier to structure rich analytics and real-time reporting.

Talk to TCI today to make your transition seamless and get the features you need with no hassle or disruption to your business: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Virtually every business is under pressure to accelerate its speed of innovation. Process transformation represents an important innovation opportunity. By integrating communications into the applications and business workflows they use most, organizations can drive improvements in employee productivity and customer satisfaction.

Mitel’s CloudLink implements those innovations faster and more easily than ever before. An efficient microservices architecture acts as a universal application development and deployment engine to provide our customers with faster access to updates and features.

The use of the CloudLink architecture has allowed Mitel to deliver innovations to large, complex applications more rapidly, frequently, and reliably - portfolio-wide. Mitel’s popular product, MiCollab, provides a perfect example as it includes functionality provided by CloudLink microservices.

MiTeam Meetings (a video collaboration application, designed for continuous workspace with video, chat, and file sharing) is another example of an application built via extensive use of CloudLink microservices.

TCI will keep you updated on more CloudLink innovations as they emerge. Let’s talk about the business processes you want to communications-enable to improve productivity and your Customer Experience. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.