Can you really say your communications are unified if your contact center isn’t included? After all, what is a contact center, if not an essential way, to communicate with your customers?
For too long, businesses’ contact centers have been separate from the rest of their communications, often using disparate and incompatible systems. But organizations have begun to understand that their contact center needs to include unified communications capabilities and vice-versa. Bringing the two together into a single environment can create a unified digital workplace that gives agents the necessary tools and support.
With that in mind, let’s explore the benefits of integrating UC and CC.
Better Collaboration, More Productivity
Think of all the unified communications features that teams use on a daily basis: softphones, video and audio conferencing, chat, screen sharing, and so on. Now think about the tools your contact center agents use, and you’ll see a lot of overlap.
There are also some unified communications features that your average contact center solution doesn’t include that would help agents with both internal and external communications. These can include features like presence, file sharing, and instant messaging.
No single agent can be expected to know everything, and every agent needs the right tools and knowledge to support their customers. Everyone at a company can and should play a role in managing customer relationships, so when agents have to reach out to subject matter experts within the organization, that expert should be available and able to help. When the communications and contact center platforms are disconnected, this can take time, leaving customers impatient and frustrated.
As UC solutions help employees communicate and collaborate quickly and from anywhere, integrating UC into your contact center can enable agents to access subject matter experts and other resources when needed. Unified communications features can let agents know when those experts are available, connect with them quickly (whether over voice, video, or messaging), and collaborate in real time. This helps them resolve customer issues more efficiently without putting the customer on hold or forwarding their calls to someone else. The expert can even assist in the background, or the agent can bring them all together into the call to resolve the customer’s issue.
An integrated solution lets contact center agents use the same interface and features for internal and external communications. Whether they need to message a coworker or take a call from a customer, it’s all done on the platform they’re familiar with (and they don’t have to switch between apps constantly).
UC solutions also help streamline workflows, which allows contact center agents to manage their time more effectively and handle more customer inquiries.
It’s not just contact center agents that can benefit from the integration—there are several contact center features that can be useful for internal communications. Teams like the help desk, payroll, and HR can use contact center features to provide better assistance within the company. And when innovations get added to one platform (like the growing use of AI in unified communications), both will benefit from it.
A Better Customer Experience Across Channels
Combining UC and CC can improve the user experience for agents, but it also helps improve the customer experience. When agents have the tools they need to work effectively, they can provide customers with better and faster assistance, creating a good experience for everyone involved and reflecting positively on your business.
Additionally, unified communications features can help contact centers with their omnichannel communications. Customers want to be able to reach customer service across multiple channels, including voice, chat, email, and social media. Unified communication helps support communications on all those channels so that customers can reach agents quickly, no matter their preferred method.
