Your Desk Phone Is Obsolete

I was 16 the year my parents gave me my very own phone to keep in my very own bedroom. I’m talking about an old-school handset that I only inherited because my mom and dad had finally upgraded our home phone to a cordless model. They’d even acquired a separate answering machine that recorded messages on a teeny, tiny cassette tape. Talk about a throwback!

Last year, my parents called to tell me they’d decided to ditch their landline altogether. Now, when I phone home, it’s typically while I’m commuting; I have Bluetooth connected through my car, dialed to Mom’s mobile number and answered through her Apple watch.

When a Phone Is Not a Phone

We all know the introduction of mobile phones dramatically impacted how, when and where we reach people. But as convenience and anytime availability continue to shape habits and demand, we’re seeing telephony capabilities merge into a multitude of devices—from computers to watches to smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. If your business isn’t already employing unified communications (UC) and collaboration, now’s the time.

In their 2017 Cloud Communications Survey, No Jitter cites that 36% of IT professionals use cloud UC applications. Another 22% of respondents plan to do so within the next 12 months. This trend is not surprising since cloud communications allow for greater business elasticity and agility.

As businesses continue to seek simplicity and cost savings, the prospect of turning to a single vendor for communications as a service becomes appealing. The right solution can enable a business to reduce vendor contracts, eliminate hardware (e.g., desk phones) and associated maintenance, and easily scale UC users without scaling infrastructure. The right UC solution can also bridge real-time communications, such as video and voice, with traditional telephony tools like voicemail and contact lists.

Voice Is the New Digital

Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) technology brings the power of telephony to a web browser, enabling employees to make and take calls from anywhere with as little as a laptop and an internet connection. For global and remote workforces, the use of a softphone introduces flexibility that speeds onboarding times, reduces hardware and networking infrastructure, and thereby reduces IT impact—all while creating business continuity.

If I can’t drive in to work on a snowy North Carolina morning, I want a system that lets me listen to voicemail and jump on conference calls from wherever I am—using just my computer or cell phone. I consider it a bonus that WebRTC also powers real-time video and screen share, so I can truly collaborate with distributed teams.

Connect With an All-in-One and One-of-a-Kind Tool

Before joining the Marketing department at Genesys, I worked on the Product Management team, helping to implement UC features in Genesys PureCloud. Originally, the UC offering (PureCloud Communicate) and Contact Center offering (PureCloud) were designed as separate systems with separate interfaces. But we quickly realized the benefits of building an all-in-one solution with a single interface—a product that could simplify software use, package key tools for employees in one accessible place, and connect departments and individuals across an entire organization. Thus, PureCloud was born.

The UC functionality of PureCloud opens doors for contact centers to employ remote agents, and for those agents to quickly locate and engage with knowledge experts within their organizations. For employees working in departments apart from the contact center, PureCloud Communicate helps them stay connected via phone, chat, video and content management tools—all in a single application. It packages voicemail, call recording and faxes alongside file sharing and powerful search tools, so it’s easy to access your communications. For IT professionals, PureCloud makes it possible to manage all your business’ cloud communications services with a single vendor.

Bridging organizational silos for improved collaboration is just one of the benefits of PureCloud. Download Ten Reasons to Choose PureCloud by Genesys to learn what differentiates our cloud call center solution from others.

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