Val wakes up in the morning and goes downstairs to her work from home setup, or decides to go into work that day. Either way, she gets to her computer, which is connected to a unified communication system. Because of that there are various ways for her to communicate to other employees or partners / customers. She has the following options:
- A physical phone with a business phone number. This is still the number one way businesses communicate with their customers. Voicemail still happens š, and this can be āreadā either through listening from the phone, the computer, or via a text to speech functionality that is part of the UC system.
- A smartphone, that can either make or receive phone calls utilizing that business phone number because a UC client has been downloaded to it
- A desktop client, that can either make or receive phone calls utilizing that business phone number, because a UC client has been downloaded to it, or it uses a web interface
- A voice conferencing server that is accessible through a separate phone number she has to call
- A video conferencing option that can be utilized through a different application. This is becoming de facto within the business for employees to communicate internally with each other.
- A collaboration / instant messaging / chat option that can also be utilized through yet another application
- Possibly some specialized applications to work in concert with the unified communication systems
- A fax option (if required) that can be utilized through yet another application
- A separate contact center set of applications, especially for customer service or departmental needs to talk to the outside world
This is a dizzying array of applications to manage, for both Val and for the company IT department, or person, or part of a person, depending on the size of Valās business. She and the company have to navigate through all kinds of applications from different companies. What can be done about this? Weāll explore this in next weekās blog.