Elite Telecom CEO Matt Newing said with the retail industry facing a lot of pressure from competitors and new technology, not utilizing new online communication and collaboration channels could be a big mistake.

"Unified communications is all about the end user experience and helping to deliver smoother, streamlined services to customers both in store and online," he said. "Customers are more likely to return to businesses that have exceeded their expectations and offered them something different."

According to the report, 39.3 percent of retailers said they would consider adopting unified communications to help improve customer service, 19.6 percent would adopt it to help reduce overhead and 17.9 percent said they'd bring it in to increases staff productivity.

Even though some are willing to adopt this technology, many don't see unified communications as a big trend moving forward. Forty-one percent said social media and other multi-media channels will be the biggest trend to adopt, while 33 percent said mobility and fixed mobile convergence would be a big trend in the future months.

No new technology could mean problems 
This lack of adoption could be a huge problem for the industry, as a recent report by Ovum and Dimension Data showed that 84 percent of U.S. firms have adopted IP telephony. Scott Cruikshank, director of converged communications at Dimension Data, said U.S. businesses have started to see a lot from IP telephony than have companies in other parts of the world, Fierce Enterprise Communications reported.

"There are a lot of benefits when you move to IP," he said. "It supports the transition in the workforce from a workplace environment to more of a workspace… The flexibility you get with IP enhances this move. You no longer have to be tied to a centralized TDM."

Sangoma's elegant Lync Express is the only all-in-one Microsoft Lync server appliance available, combining a Lync Server with an award-winning VoIP gateway in a cost-effective solution that presents significant benefits, including PSTN connectivity and integration of legacy telephony equipment with Lync services.

While companies have previously been slow to adopt new communication technology, she said a big change has come from video technology going from extremely expensive to affordable for businesses of all types. Instead of the hardware being unattainable, employees now all can use their own personal devices and laptops to participate in video conferences, thus making it easier for the IT department to integrate new technology into the workflow. All of this new technology means that "collaboration" has moved on from just being a buzzword, the news source said.

"With new, holistic video and unified communications solutions, people are constantly sharing as well as communicating," IT Pro Portal said. "Whereas people would have previously spoken on the phone, and followed up with information in an email, they are now doing everything, all at the same time – communicating and sharing content all in one seamless collaborative session."

Another trend is improved networks with faster speeds and more scalability that allow video conferencing and other new technology to work well, the news source said. Interoperability also helps to hold everything together, as new tools are easily able to more easily coalesce and integrate together, rather than in past days when it may have been extremely difficult to merge legacy technology with new ways of working.

Small businesses can see benefits
To showcase just how far the technology has come, Mashable said even the smallest company can now benefit from a video conferencing solution. Aside from saving money and connecting remote workers, video can help businesses make and maintain better personal connections with other businesses and clients, and it will go a long way to improve the work-life balance for employees since will be able to work from home more often.

Enterprises have unique and often complex communications technology ecosystems, but all businesses need resilient, secure and always available communication, so Sangoma offers a range of media gateways that offer distinct features and benefits.

"When the contact center is in a storm it's normally the customer who suffers the most," he wrote. "Long wait times that lead customers to try other routes that lead to more transfers. Repeat calls that lead to busier associates who are stressed and pressured to spend less time on calls which then drives more repeat calls."

Company decision makers who do not think it is necessary to offer the best possible consumer call-in experience should consider these statistics: A recent report by the Temkin Group showed that when an organization offers a good customer experience, 18.4 percent of consumers are likely to buy more from them, 19.2 percent are less likely to leave the business and 19.5 percent will recommend the company to others.

Dykes said organizations likely will need to spend more to serve consumers during these perfect storm periods as well, as customers will likely want to vent more and associates will be frustrated. The infrastructure needed to maintain and account for this perfect storm must be built around open standard protocols, with features such as SIP trunking and VoIP to help keep operations running smoothly. During these stormy periods, businesses will just have to endure as best as they can.

What to do when customers are angry
Contact center consultant Gemma Gibson wrote on Call Centre Helper that every business deals with angry customers at some point, so customer service  professionals will need to determine what made this person angry and how it can be rectified.

"You have the opportunity now to either meet their needs exactly or to manage their expectations," she wrote. "In either case, both parties will at least be aware of what will be a successful ending and you can relax knowing that you have agreement from the customer as to what degree you can resolve the matter."

To meet and exceed evolving customer expectations, modern contact centers must be optimized with capabilities that Sangoma's NetBorder Software can provide, such as industry leading Call Progress Analysis, TDM and IP functionality,  and integration of remote agents into an IP infrastructure.

"These are disruptive technologies that are specifically designed to streamline operations, if understood and used strategically," he wrote. "There are inherent benefits to aligning processes and procedures to the cloud and to virtualize core operations. These are advantages that can make a substantial difference to the bottom line."

TechTraget said with a good unified communications system in place, companies can get real-time communication that is better focused on letting individuals talk via applications and systems such as instant messaging, conferencing and PBX exchanges. Programs like Microsoft Lync help companies leverage UC to become more efficient.

Sangoma's elegant Lync Express is the only all-in-one Microsoft Lync server appliance available, combining a Lync Server with an award-winning VoIP gateway in a cost-effective solution that presents significant benefits, including PSTN connectivity and integration of legacy telephony equipment with Lync services.

While the news source said it could be argued that the cloud is less about SIP trunks and more just trunks, there will certainly be many SIP trunks during the hybrid period businesses must go through, something that will likely last a long time.

"And it seems to me it's not so much about what kind of trunk you use to connect to what – whether it's a SIP Trunk to a PSTN cloud, or a pure-IP trunk from your IP campus to the carrier's IP-based UC service in the cloud. It's about how enterprises buy carrier services," Eric Krapf is the Program Co-Chair of the Enterprise Connect, said on No Jitter. "They buy them in volume, from big carriers, and if the carriers come around to the view that they can make money selling a WAN that employs a mix of trunking technologies; and if the enterprise can get its best deal that way."

TechTarget said that companies need a PBX system that will connect all internal users, a quality internet service provider and a gateway that will allow these two services to interface in order to fully leverage SIP trunking. By combining data, voice and video on a single line, companies will likely greatly benefit from SIP trunking.

Sangoma's analog, digital and BRI gateway products support a wide range of line codes and protocols, allowing enterprises of all sizes and with all types of telephony equipment to improve communication by implementing reliable, affordable SIP trunking.

"VoIP offers users a number of advantages including greater cost efficiency, extensive features, greater flexibility, and more," the website said. "In utilizing the service on an iPad, users have a way of reducing their monthly calling costs while also expanding their capability. … Fitting a tablet with a VoIP app enables users to utilize VoIP without having to switch their provider over."

However, tablets need a working Wi-Fi connection to make VoIP calls. While PhonesReview said tone may not be available every time, users can find apps that work on 3G or 4G as well.

PC World said for certain types of users, they may even be able to cut out their service provider and rely on VoIP for phone calls. This, however, would depend on how often and in what situation phone calls are being made. For those frequently at home or at the office, it could be a great move.

VoIP has emerged as the new standard for enterprise communication, and Sangoma offers the media gateways and other solutions to ensure seamless and reliable integration of IP-based communication regardless of an organization's size or its current telecommunications environment.

"Scalability [provides] long-term investment protection with an upgrade path for customers as they grow or their requirements become more complex," the news source said.

Cloud-based systems will also help improve the always-important customer experience, the professional told UCStrategies. In addition, the cloud typically makes contact centers safer by ensuring that the maintenance and oversight of the system is handled by multiple parties.

A post on Interactive Intelligence by Matt Krautstrunk, editorial coordinator for Resource Nation, said that cloud-based contact center solutions can also reduce costs, but that should not be the sole reason for adoption, as since it will let businesses roll out apps more quickly and attain much better customer loyalty as well.

To meet and exceed evolving customer expectations, modern contact centers must be optimized with capabilities that Sangoma's NetBorder Software can provide, such as industry leading Call Progress Analysis, TDM and IP functionality,  and integration of remote agents into an IP infrastructure.

"For example, if you are a company that is differentiating itself on customer experience, your focus should be on first call resolution and satisfaction metrics, not on handle times or average speed of answer," she wrote. "This will help agents better understand your expectations of them, and focus on only measuring  their behavior  which is aligned with your brand proposition –not on artificial metrics that have no bearing to your company's core values."

Other steps to take that can help manage a contact center's turnover rate include:

• Making sure the hiring  process is uniform and the right people are brought in
• Having a good unified communications solution in place to keep technology as simplistic as possible
• Investing in the workforce to help keep the turnover rate low

The importance of this type of  management cannot be overlooked, as a recent report by ForeSee showed that how customers greatly affects business. Those who are satisfied with their contact center call-in experience are 174 percent more likely than a less satisfied customer to call again, 154 percent more likely to make another purchase and 238 percent more likely to recommend the business to friends or family.

To meet and exceed evolving customer expectations, modern contact centers must be optimized with capabilities that Sangoma's NetBorder Software can provide, such as industry leading Call Progress Analysis, TDM and IP functionality,  and integration of remote agents into an IP infrastructure.

"Businesses see a huge difference in their monthly phone bill when they use business VoIP phone service for their Internet calling," the website said. "Businesses that use old analog technology must add more circuits each time they need more room for calls. Analog technology users also need a technician to help them add, remove, or change extension lines whenever they need to make changes to the office's extensions."

IT Business Edge said VoIP also provides better sound quality than analog phones. However, before adopting the solution, people must make sure they have a quality network capable of supporting VoIP.

VoIP has emerged as the new standard for enterprise communication, and Sangoma offers the media gateways and other solutions to ensure seamless and reliable integration of IP-based communication regardless of an organization's size or its current telecommunications environment.

"If a fraudster gains access to your PBX, they can initiate multiple calls to high-priced toll numbers of which they share the revenue," the news source said. "This is typically done at night with the calls being directed to numbers in island nations where the cost of telecommunications is high, meaning higher returns for fraudsters. While VoIP providers do have systems in place to detect unusual activity, these systems generally discover problems after the fact, and not until serious dollars have been extracted – running into the tens of thousands."

Some tips to help prevent security breaches, according to TechDay, can include:
• Applying a daily toll limit with the VoIP provider to make sure overages do not occur
• Using transport layer security with the SIP trunking solution
• Having outside security options, such as firewalls, protecting the network
• Separating data from the network to ensure more stringent protection of sensitive data

TechTarget said with how important VoIP communications has become, the IT team needs to ensure careful oversight of the solution. There is no perfect method of security, so each company needs to minimize their own weak points within the system, as implementing proper measures will mean having a better long-term phone solution.

VoIP has emerged as the new standard for enterprise communication, and Sangoma offers the media gateways and other solutions to ensure seamless and reliable integration of IP-based communication regardless of an organization's size or its current telecommunications environment.