Unified Communications or: How I Learned to Respond Quicker and Get More Done

Does your company stink at internal communication?

Okay, maybe not stink, but do you wish it could be better? Be honest.

In our humble estimation, pretty much every company with more than a couple of employees on the payroll should probably raise their hand here, at least to the second question. That’s nothing to be ashamed of! Keeping everybody on the same page is hard work, especially when you have multiple teams—maybe even in multiple offices around the world—all working on interconnected projects and problems that affect one another.

There are dozens of communications technologies available for teams to use to stay in touch and keep up to date with one another—everything from phones and e-mail to desktop sharing, video conferencing, interactive whiteboards, file sharing systems, calendar sharing and presence indicators … you get the idea. But how often do things get lost in the shuffle? We’re guessing a lot.

Say you need a critical piece of information from a teammate. How do you know if they’re available? What is the best way to contact them? If you send them an e-mail, will they be able to receive it at home? If you send them a voicemail, will they be able to access it if they’re away from their desk? If they do get the request, will they be able to respond to it quickly? If they can’t, will they simply forget about it before they become available again? Will it hold up the project?

These are just some of the many issues that unified communications solutions, or UC, are poised to address. A good UC system ties multiple communications technologies together so that anyone, at any time, can send and receive communication on any platform.

If that sounds a little abstract, here’s just one example of what it might look like in practice:

Say you need something from Steve in order to continue your project. Because your system has a presence indicator, you can see that he’s both working from home and currently busy. You decide to call him and leave a voicemail.

Steve, as it turns out, is currently on a conference call. But he gets a pop-up notification on his computer that someone just left him a voicemail. If he weren’t already on another call, he could simply play the message on his computer speakers. Fortunately, because he also has speech-to-text built into his e-mail, he can also read a transcript of the message immediately after it’s been received.

Because your request is a relatively simple one, Steve doesn’t even need to wait until he’s off his conference call. He simply pops up an instant messaging window—straight from his e-mail—and gets you the info you need, within minutes of your initial request.

Bam. Problem solved.

Unified communications won’t solve all your problems, of course. There’s no technological solution for the guy who fails to update the login sheet, or refuses to check the digital whiteboard, or never remembers to update key teammates when he makes changes that affect their workflow, or is pathologically afraid of asking any questions, ever. But if you want to do a better job keeping your team on the same page, getting faster responses to questions, and improving teamwork, communication, and productivity across the enterprise, UC is your best friend.

TelDesigns can help you get started with that. We work with UC developers and providers large and small, and have years of experience crafting custom packages for companies in a wide variety of industries. This includes both physical hardware and locally hosted solutions, as well as those delivered over the cloud (Unified Communications as a Service, or UCaas).

Stop getting your signals crossed! Spend less time managing internal systems and waiting for answers, and more time getting those answers and getting work done! Call TelDesigns at (616) 965-2030 today for more information or to schedule a consultation.