There are lots and lots of features with voice telephony solutions. It’s important not to get carried away with all of them. There are lots of reasons why you might want to upgrade your small business voice telephony solution or buy a new one. One might be because you have an old system and it’s about to fall over. But another might be because you want more than just voice in your business telephony solution. In other words, a key goal is increasing your organization’s productivity by taking advantage of the right new features available in today's solutions.
Unified communications (UC) is the current buzzword in the business voice communication space these days. Enabling employees to manage all their communications— instant messaging, voice, email, chats, audio/videoconferencing, file and screen sharing and more—from a single application has emerged as a productivity enhancer.
But remember a few key points about UC:
- Does your vendor offer a mobile client in addition to a desktop client?
- How good is the presence feature of the client? Presence has emerged as a real productivity booster because it’s faster than email or voice mail if you need a quick answer.
- Can you move right into a phone call from an IM session?
- Can you integrate into / offer a light contact center? Many small businesses like to “look bigger” by offering contact center options. If the base UC platform has basic contact center options that enable basic call routing (to either a desktop phone or a mobile client) this will enhance the contact center capability.
When choosing a new voice telephony solution that has UC features, remember that value is key. You want to purchase the best value-based solution so you get the right features at the right price.
