In this issue, we discuss the challenges of remote work from employee and management perspectives, how to engage better with customers, and what’s driving technology trends in retail. 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.

In today’s remote working world, it is essential for your team to be connected seamlessly no matter what device they are using. If you are exploring ways to improve how your team communicates, TCI’s Host provides a locally supported, customized service with all-in-one collaboration and mobility tools, so your business won’t miss a beat.

How much time do you waste by losing the thread of a conversation? TCI Host makes all your communications available from a single hub on your desktop. It’s always there but never in the way. Keep an eye on every call and message and never lose sight of important details.

Gone are the days when teams worked in close proximity and shared a simple project document. In paper, no less. Nowadays, though, team members can be anywhere – at home, on the road, in another country. To stay connected, multi-party videoconferencing, desktop sharing and audio conferencing are key. Everyone on the team can collaborate in real-time.

Big deal on the table? Need fast thinking and even faster decision making? TCI Host helps you connect with the one person who has the information you need to close the deal – at the precise moment you need their help. With one click, start a meeting and keep the conversation going.

Nothing ushers in a greater sense of urgency – and stress – than checking your voicemail after a long morning of meetings. With our Outlook voicemail integration, messages are sent to email so you can scan and prioritize who to call back first.

The flexibility to work anywhere is a benefit – except when an answer is needed fast. With presence, employees make their whereabouts known to everyone in the organization. So, when a customer calls asking a question only a subject matter expert can answer, everyone knows where and how to reach them.

Working outside the office is often frustrating because employees don’t have access to the tools they have in the office. But TCI Host transforms this experience. With its mobile app, employees take the office everywhere and get the same experience on the road as they do at their desks. Whether in the office or on the road, they can join a meeting with a single click, without the need to enter those cumbersome participant codes. It’s that easy.

Which does your sales team love more? Their phone or their CRM? Please, don’t make them choose! When you integrate your phones with your CRM application, salespeople never have to switch between the two. They stay in the CRM to make and receive phone calls. Plus, it saves them from the dreaded task of data entry. Just by answering their phone, items are automatically added to their to-do lists.

Sales teams shouldn’t be the only ones who have all the fun. TCI Host also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook and G Suite, easing the adoption of your new phone system throughout your business.

Here’s one last thing you might not know, and it may be the best part… You can have a seamless and reliable communications and collaboration tool without breaking the bank. TCI Host offers everything as an affordable monthly subscription.

Our project team handles all the transition details to get it all going for you! Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Before COVID, Workforce Optimization was a high priority, particularly for customer-facing businesses that depend on live agents to drive sales and service. But how do you optimize a workforce working outside the traditional boundaries of your IT systems?

Workforce Optimization relies on data and analytic insights to improve operational efficiencies, reduce costs, and increase worker productivity. It focuses on business areas that “touch” the customer, like contact centers. Workforce Optimization business solutions should encompass a broad range of tools and applications:

1. Interaction Recording to gain a complete picture of the customer experience and ensure compliance with industry requirements. This includes voice calls, chat sessions, videos, and screen shares between customers and employees.

2. Quality Management to monitor the quality of conversations, evaluate employee performance and identify and close employee knowledge gaps with coaching and eLearning tools.

3. Coaching and learning for agents to hone their skills using the right tools and tailored training.

4. Speech and Desktop Analytics to identify keywords, spot trends, highlight critical issues, and detect positive and negative emotions in recorded conversations.

5. Workforce Management to lower attrition rates and raise schedule adherence by giving agents the power to check their work schedules, trade shifts, request vacation, and add overtime availability.

6. Customer Surveys to collect valuable information and insight from customers, employees, or constituents.

7. Performance Management to measure and manage operations with real-time dashboards, key performance indicators, and historical reporting.

8. Business Analytics with a holistic view of customer journeys to help determine whether you’re meeting service levels and exceeding customer expectations.

As organizations navigate the new world of the remote and hybrid office workplace, they must consider how they approach Workforce Optimization. Questions that organizations should ask include:

To help organizations find the right solution for their business, TCI and Mitel offer Workforce Optimization solutions with a wide range of choices in how you buy, deploy, and manage them.

Mitel Workforce Optimization solutions can be purchased as a perpetual license or monthly subscription. Mitel has bundled tools such as interaction recording, quality management, and analytics in unique tiers: Essentials, Premier, and Elite.

You also have the choice in how you deploy Mitel Workforce Optimization solutions, whether on your premises, in your private cloud, or in the public cloud managed by you or with added support.

While the definition of the workplace may be changing, the importance of optimizing the workforce for better customer outcomes remains the same. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

The conversations around this phenomenon and the increase of workplace digitization often prioritize the needs of employees and customers. Customers drive revenue, and employees primarily drive output. Yet managers are the ones who make the decisions that shape both income and production, so your managers’ concerns should have equal weight.

Thanks to ever-evolving technology, tools exist to support managers transitioning to hybrid and distributed work. TCI’s strategic partner, Mitel has taken steps to help this process by partnering with RingCentral.

This collaboration allows you to upgrade your existing cloud solution to the most robust platform available on the market: RingCentral Message Voice Phone (MVP service) - especially designed for today’s workforce.

With team members divided by state lines, national borders, and sometimes oceans, a vital communications tool is essential for managers to oversee employees. RingCentral MVP allows managers to lead more efficiently.

RingCentral MVP integrates with existing collaboration and project management tools, which allows managers to adapt without adding to existing employee change fatigue. Some of the tools that can be combined with RingCentral MVP include:

RingCentral MVP is helping Phoenix Virtual Solutions, a virtual staffing company for healthcare providers, increase its staff with ease and convenience. Its assistants are spread across the globe, which makes onboarding cumbersome. The RingCentral platform simplified the process.

-Rommel Ragasa, VP of Admin and Business Development at Phoenix.

Let’s talk about how to strengthen your leadership and management team with seamless Cloud Communication Tools. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

If you’re not engaging with customers on their channel of choice, you can expect that your competition is. However, the proliferation of communications channels and ever-increasing customer expectations makes this more difficult by the day.

Constellation Research recommends a three-stage approach on how to engage customers on their turf:

Sounds great in theory, but how can you apply this to your business?

This white paper maps out how to better engage your customers

As one of the largest telecom operators in the world, Orange Group has over 256M customers worldwide, 28M Facebook likes, and 250k followers on Twitter. How do they stay on top of all that social engagement?

They moved to an omnichannel digital engagement solution that enabled them to:

How does Orange Group stay engaged with all its customers online in real-time?

TCI’s partnership with Mitel and RingCentral will help you refine your digital customer service strategy so you can:

Are you prepared to engage your customers where they are? Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

The pandemic accelerated an evolution already underway in retail – digital is transforming how and where consumers shop, what they buy, and their expectations for support and experience.

Evolving consumer behaviors combined with a hybrid workforce are driving the six leading communications technology trends in retail. Here’s what’s in store…

Supply chain resiliency will continue to challenge retailers for the next several years. It’s not just bottlenecks and a shortage of materials crimping the chain. Consumer shopping behaviors make it more difficult for retailers to stock the right quantities of the correct goods.

Ongoing communication can help retailers and their supply chain partners minimize disruptions and keep stores and warehouses stocked with just enough of the right items. Cloud communications and collaboration tools like web chat and video conferencing keep retailers connected and on the same page with vendors worldwide. Combining data from the Internet of Things (IoT) and automation make it possible to keep real-time tabs on inventory levels so you can keep the correct number of items on the shelves.

“Reduce, reuse, and recycle” isn’t just about bottles and cans anymore. In the circular economy, returns are given a second life. This is a particularly compelling concept for retail for several reasons. In 2021, retail returns jumped to an average of 16.6 % compared to 10.6 % a year prior.

As a result, many retailers are putting conservation programs in place to put returns on shelves or sell them at a discount. A smooth return process is key to the success of such initiatives. Contact centers can be optimized to make it easier for consumers to reach retailers and work out the details of returns, from shipping the product back to refunds.

Amid the “Great Resignation” and labor shortage, retailers find it challenging to hire and retain staff in both stores and call centers, where turnover has traditionally been high.

Although retailers have increased pay and offered better benefits, they still have another tool in their arsenal: employee experience. More than eight in 10 retailers say they plan to invest most heavily in employee recruitment and retention, Deloitte found in a recent survey. By investing in communications and collaboration tools that empower employees and support flexibility – including where and when employees work – retailers can elevate the employee experience.

Like other industries, retailers are also adopting hybrid and remote workforce models. For instance, many contact center agents now work from home offices. Employees are often on the move, even in brick-and-mortar retail stores and warehouses.

As the workforce becomes more mobile, retailers can leverage communications and contact center technology, AI, and machine learning to deliver a stellar customer experience. In the hybrid workplace, humans and AI assistants work together. Machine learning is used to analyze customer behavior and determine patterns. Employees can use these insights to design hyper-personalized experiences that keep customers fully engaged.

From the start of COVID in March 2020 through March 2022, e-commerce sales increased 33 %, according to McKinsey research. Consumers have adapted to shopping online, and the trend seems poised to continue. However, they’re now also ready to shop in-store. McKinsey also found that in-store spending increased 8 % year-over-year in March 2022, up from 5 % in early 2021.

By seamlessly blending the digital and real-world experiences throughout the buying journey, retailers can reach shoppers where they are – and deliver goods however they want – at home, curbside, or in-store.

Easy access to customer information means retail staff in stores can order an item for a customer and have it shipped to their home without any fuss. In the contact center, agents can manage interactions across all channels – voice, email, SMS, web chat, social media, a website – via a single interface and deliver a consistent experience every time.

Blending the digital and real worlds has raised the bar for accessibility and ease of use. It should come as no surprise that after two years of online shopping, almost 40 % of internet users worldwide now report a preference for chatbots over virtual agents. Their usage is also predicted to grow alongside the rising demand for service during what have traditionally been non-business hours. Chatbots don’t care if it’s 2 am.

Chatbots play an essential role in creating faster, frictionless transactions. AI-powered chatbots can answer basic questions, then hand off customers to agents or in-store staff to finalize purchases.

Retailers must deliver an exceptional experience to customers and employees to stay ahead of the competition and thrive amid modern-day challenges. The proper communications and collaboration technology makes it easy to keep your workers and customers engaged, happy, and informed. TCI and Mitel have the technology necessary for retailers to make this happen.

Modern times call for modern tech. Grow and evolve with TCI, your local technology partner. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.