Unified Communications & Contact Center Options - Making the Transition
The concept of presence is easy to understand within instant messaging where a "buddy status" is available at a glance. UC takes this a step further by grouping these "buddies" together by specialized skills and attaching them to specific knowledge areas. All of this would be available at a glance. UC allows for real-time delivery of all these forms of communication within a single environment that users can access within a simple interface. For example, customer service staff could have a list of employees knowledgeable about a product, along with the best method for immediately contacting that person who has the correct answers about the details of the product. By clicking on a contact icon, a call can be made, or even a page or a whiteboard session accessed to bridge key information on the product, customer and employee contacts simultaneously. If your business doesn't already have it, Unified Messaging (UM) can offer communications integration, albeit on a smaller scale than UC. Unified Messaging is capable of grouping together communications from different sources, such as e-mail, faxes and voice mail, but does not allow (in all instances) real-time delivery. Unified Messaging systems store these multi-platform communications for the user to access information at his or her discretion. Still, nowadays, UM does provide improved communication synchronization to an extent that was not available just a decade ago. It is important to understand that while UM does offer efficiencies by grouping communications together; it is not the same thing as UC. Oftentimes, these terms are interchanged and interpreted to have the same meaning. Again, they are not the same. Tying communications together in a UC platform can have a tremendous positive impact on productivity at your business. Businesses with offices across the globe have an excellent opportunity to synchronize communications as they occur around the clock in real time. Additional functionality allows calls to be routed according to preset rules. For example, if an employee is working at a remote location outside the office, the UC system can route a call to their cell phone and then a voice message into their voice mail. At the heart of UC is the Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology that allows analog phone conversations to be transmitted over the Internet. UC basically expands that functionality by allowing other communications through the same protocol. Transitioning to UC does not have to be an overwhelming process. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1516089
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