When a crisis flares up, mass-messaging tools help governments broadcast information about threats and keep people safe. As more governments develop smart networks of sensors, cameras, and other devices, they need a coordinated approach to mass messaging.

That’s one of the reasons why CBTS recently integrated robust mass-messaging capabilities into our cloud-based Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution. Our enterprise unified communications solution now includes InformaCast Fusion from Singlewire Software, which gives our government clients a portfolio of mass notification tools for emergencies.

Adding mass-messaging technologies is a natural evolution of our UCaaS solution. These tools help government entities such as cities, counties, and regulatory agencies send precision-guided alerts to their employees.

How mass-alerting technologies help governments

Government agencies have long depended on sophisticated messaging systems for police, fire, medical, and disaster response. Mass-messaging tools deliver similar capabilities to government leaders and staff.

The core features of InformaCast Fusion illustrate the advantages of these tools:

Central communication dashboard. Because it’s hosted in the cloud, InformaCast provides a standard communication interface across PCs, tablets, and smartphones. From here, managers can direct messaging to phones, conference rooms, billboards, road signs, IP speakers, and other communication venues.

Multiple media. Managers can send recorded or live audio messages. Other formats include SMS text, email, phone calls, and push notifications. Facebook and Twitter updates also are available.

Delivery, reading, and response. Managers can confirm a message is delivered and read. They can send messages requiring responses to determine who is available and direct them on what to do next. If people need help, the app can help send rescuers to the scene.

Escalation. Sometimes the first round of alerts gets a low reading and response rate because the recipients weren’t clear on the severity of the emergency. In these cases, managers can escalate their messaging to help clarify. This phase might also include informing the news media if necessary.

Geographic location. Most smartphones have built-in GPS, which helps emergency communications managers figure out who is where. Alerts can be targeted to people within specific areas, and they can form a virtual perimeter that tells people to avoid a dangerous area.

Common mass-messaging scenarios

It’s important that governments can clearly communicate and coordinate with the appropriate teams during emergencies. Government officials have to address threats such as:

• Natural disasters. Storms, sinkholes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions — any number of natural threats can require the need to communicate with employees at all levels.
• Traffic challenges. Multicar crashes on busy expressways can slow traffic to a crawl. Toxic-gas leaks and train derailments can endanger people across a wide geographic area.
• Public unrest. Protests turn violent. Brawls break out at festivals. Often government employees attending these kinds of events can become crucial information sources to the public, reducing the risk of panic or destructive rampages.

With the right mass-messaging tools, government officials can deliver information that protects the community’s well-being.

Reaching all your people all the time

Some UCaaS providers offer mass-messaging tools as an option. At CBTS, we believe that mass-alert capability is so crucial that it comes standard with our UCaaS offering.

Our system ensures you can send alerts to everybody who reports to you, whether they use a desktop phone, PC, tablet, or smartphone. In a crisis when seconds count, that can make all the difference.

To find out more on mass messaging and UCaaS, contact the experts at CBTS.

Read about creating a plan for communicating emergencies in this eBook.

Related Articles:

Check out our three-part series on creating a roadmap for Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS):

Part 1: Start with a deep assessment

Part 2: Create a thorough process analysis

Part 3: Rally stakeholder support

When a crisis like a fire, tornado, or active shooter occurs on a college campus, administrators suddenly become grateful for all those students glued to their smartphones.

Mass-notification technologies can instantly tell students, staff, and visitors how to respond in an emergency. That can streamline the work of emergency first responders and limit potential harm to specific areas of the campus.

Sending mass notifications has obvious health and safety benefits. The core challenge is deploying mass-notification tools across all the communication modes on a modern college campus. That requires a thorough understanding of the devices on a campus network and a careful strategy to ensure nothing gets overlooked when trouble strikes.

Mass-notification technologies can now deliver across in-building devices, desk phones, overhead paging systems, IP speakers, digital signage, and computer desktops. Colleges and universities need to send alerts via live audio, pre-recorded audio messaging, SMS text, email, phone calls, and push notifications.

Let’s look at how campuses are addressing these challenges.

Typical mass-notification scenarios

College administrators adapt to threats in specific areas and across geographic regions:

Natural disasters. During a snow storm, mass notifications can tell students to stay in their dorms when a blizzard makes it unsafe for staff and faculty to reach campus. In hurricane country, notifications help students evacuate safely. From tornadoes to floods to earthquakes, mass-messaging can ensure everybody receives the same guidance.

Crime. Hacking attacks can shut down computing infrastructure. The mass shootings that capture the headlines are exceedingly rare, but if one happens on a college campus, mass notifications become mandatory. Many more kinds of crime from arson to sexual assault might require a mass-alert response. The technology gives campus leaders the freedom to tailor notifications to whatever need arises.

Accidents. A four-car crash ties up traffic or blocks access to campus parking. A noxious-gas release from the physical plant requires an evacuation. A fire in a high-rise dorm requires exit instructions. Sending instant alerts reduces the risks arising during these situations.

Challenges with mass-notification technologies

Mass notifications must be able to reach specific kinds of devices and deliver specialized content in an emergency. These are some of the challenges campuses face:

Multiple populations. Administrators cannot limit their view to students, faculty, and staff. Campuses also have vendors, visitors, media, and external emergency first responders to think about. Mass-alert technology can be customized to reach all of these people via text message, phone calls, and other delivery methods.

Delivery, response, and confirmation. A high-quality mass-notification system has a software console that provides real-time updates about who has received notifications. That gives administrators an idea of how many people know about the crisis. Messages can be configured to require a “please respond” message to find out who is safe and who needs help.

Escalation. If campus leaders need to expand their messaging or recraft it to reinforce the severity of a situation, escalation capability allows a standardized method of stepping up to a higher alert level.

Conference calls. Leaders from multiple schools or departments can be automatically summoned to a conference call to manage a crisis. Configuring this capability in advance ensures a much faster response to an emergency.

Geolocation. A well-designed mass-messaging system can send alerts to people already within a specific geographic area. Moreover, it can send an alert when people enter an area, creating an electronic perimeter that warns people to leave dangerous areas.

CBTS offers advanced mass-messaging capabilities

CBTS recently integrated InformaCast Fusion, a cloud-based mass-alert technology from Singlewire Software, into our Hosted Enterprise Unified Communications (UC) solution. CBTS Hosted Enterprise UC delivers advanced capabilities like VoIP, teleconferencing, and global collaboration via a cloud-based managed service. CBTS experts handle the complications of configuring phones, allocating bandwidth, and ensuring high-quality communications, all for a predictable monthly fee.

The addition of InformaCast Fusion ensures that our Hosted Enterprise UC clients have top-tier mass-messaging capabilities. For college campuses, that means administrators always have the tools they need to send specific messages to defined groups of people in precise geographic locations. That helps campus leadership manage crises, reduce hazards, and save lives—all in real time.

If your campus needs advanced mass-messaging capability, talk to the experts at CBTS. We can also help with a clear communication strategy during emergencies.

Learn More

Check out our three-part series on creating a roadmap for Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS):

• Part I: Start with a deep assessment
• Part II: Creating a process analysis
• Part III: Rallying support from stakeholders

Employees in branch offices often need as much bandwidth and application access as their peers in the main office. SD-WAN technology helps them get it.

SD-WAN is a new generation of technology designed to overcome the shortcomings of conventional branch-office networking. Much like virtual servers using software to replace racks of dedicated hardware, SD-WAN abstracts a physical network into the virtual realm. Virtual servers and software-defined networks are far easier to configure, support, and upgrade than their hardware-based peers, so IT departments of all sizes are embracing them. These are just some advantages of SD-WAN.

Small and mid-sized businesses with branch offices are excellent candidates for SD-WAN because it reduces costs and simplifies their network operations.

An ideal alternative to MPLS

Until a few years ago, most organizations connected to their branch offices via MPLS (multiprotocol label switching). While MPLS can deliver high performance, it’s costly to configure and maintain. It’s also poorly suited to the rise of cloud applications. Branch office personnel on MPLS networks often encounter service blips such as voices cutting out during a VoIP conversation, or latency interrupting a video conference.

Because so many people depend on cloud-based apps such as Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365, they need networking technologies that plug the gaps of MPLS. That’s where SD-WAN comes in.

Key advantages of SD-WAN 

SD-WAN technologies allow small and mid-sized companies with branch offices to leverage public Internet services, which typically offer plenty of bandwidth at a far lower cost than MPLS. That’s an attractive proposition because of the time and expense involved in servicing and configuring an MPLS network.

MPLS requires IT resources to visit the branch office and work through a list of manual chores when setting up the network, or updating the network to add hardware or software. SD-WAN uses single network equipment that connects a branch to the main office and the public Internet.

The SD-WAN technology can be managed and supported via a web interface, which dramatically reduces the number of technician visits. Much of the configuration is automated, reducing support costs.

MPLS delivers a high-speed connection to a single application. Unfortunately, performance degrades if users must deploy multiple applications over a network. Thus, the widespread use of cloud applications is a poor fit for MPLS networking.

How SD-WAN outperforms MPLS

MPLS delivers powerful network performance in narrow circumstances. Traditionally, organizations have used the Internet only as a last resort because MPLS outperformed the public Internet. But the low cost and rising capacity of Internet bandwidth created an opportunity for SD-WAN.

SD-WAN technology analyzes and rebalances network traffic in real time. SD-WAN anticipates the packet loss that degrades Internet service and delivers a digital workaround. The result is users enjoy high performance and low latency across all of their cloud-based apps.

A flexible option for remote offices

Organizations with remote offices may have dedicated security devices. Typically, SD-WAN equipment has this security functionality built in, and SD-WAN equipment also can encrypt data in transit, bulking up network security.

SD-WAN delivers features and performance that small organizations with limited IT support could never afford in years past. The advantages of SD-WAN allow smaller organizations to level the playing field with corporate giants.

Partnering with an SD-WAN provider

SD-WAN offers multiple benefits, but it takes substantial IT acumen to configure it properly, optimize it for peak performance, and support all of your branch office users. Many organizations depend on a managed services provider to support SD-WAN. Instead of investing in new networking hardware, consider partnering with a service provider that will install, configure, and manage your SD-WAN, helping you make better use of your finite IT resources.

As longtime experts in configuring networks and designing systems for enterprises of all sizes, CBTS has the skill to deliver SD-WAN performance that meshes with your precise business needs. We will ensure that your users have access to their favorite cloud apps, and that you have the necessary networking technology.

CBTS partners with VeloCloud, a top provider of SD-WAN technology, to deliver SD-WAN as a managed service. To learn more about the nuts and bolts and advantages of SD-WAN, download “SD-WAN for Dummies,” VeloCloud’s guide to the technology.

Today’s business world is filled with seemingly unending e-mails, phone calls, and meetings. In order to keep your organization’s various departments running smoothly, all team members must stay updated on project developments and day-to-day operations.

A new cloud-based unified communications solution can help transform your business activities — and having the right partner will lead your team toward success. CBTS provides industry-leading cloud-based unified communication solutions, and we’re sharing our advice on how to choose a partner that will ensure long-term prosperity with your new technology. Check out the four unified communications essentials below.

Training and support 

The new solution will greatly enhance your overall communications experience, including new features and functionalities that your old PBX lacked. High-quality training and support is crucial to guarantee your teams maximize the solution.

CBTS is there to provide 24x7x365 coverage to keep your system working properly and make sure your teams understand all of the available tools and assets. We are with you from day one, providing support with planning, implementation, and management to provide a seamless transition. Additionally, we offer on-site and WebEx-based training, and a robust self-service portal.

Monitoring tools

When migrating to a new cloud-based system, you want to be certain all the moving parts work properly. Network monitoring and analytics tools can help establish an optimally performing solution for your business.

CBTS cloud unified communication solutions offer network monitoring tools and constant analytics that can enhance management control and monitor for service issues. By partnering with us, you get a bird’s-eye view of your system and the ability to catch and fix issues before they occur.

Auditing and road mapping

Keeping the big picture in mind is vitally important when implementing a new cloud-based solution. Communications auditing and road mapping is key for boosted performance. Your audit should cover three essential elements:

• Technology: Compile an inventory of your current tools and features, physical equipment, and underlying network.
• Processes: Outline all of the current communication avenues operating within your business.
• People: Who could be impacted by the transition? Audit everyone affected including staff, partners, suppliers, and customers.

Once you have a clear picture of your technology, processes, and people, analyze what will change with the new transition. What are the benefits each group will see from leveraging the cloud?

The auditing process can seem overwhelming, but CBTS offers a range of resources to support your transition and benefit your team at every stage. We also proactively suggest new services for improving your experiences, always ensuring you’re getting the most out of the cloud.

Experience

CBTS has implemented cloud unified communications solutions for organizations large and small, within every industry. With our experience, we understand that no IT solution is one-size-fits-all. We tailor each of our solutions to meet your business goals, always keeping client relationships top of mind. When you work with CBTS, you are partnering with an organization that truly appreciates the nuances of your business and will be by your side as your company evolves.

To learn more about the steps for a successful cloud communications journey, download our free guide.

A software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) solution has several advantages over conventional enterprise Wide Area Networks (WAN). Cutting costs and simplifying IT operations are among the top advantages of SD-WAN for enterprises.

A conventional enterprise WAN can deliver a similar user experience to employees scattered across states, regions, and continents. An enterprise WAN can be very good at delivering a specific application to a branch office or remote production location.

Limitations of a Conventional Enterprise WAN

In the past few years, the limitations for enterprises have begun to grow:

• Insufficient bandwidth. A conventional WAN may struggle to keep up with the bandwidth requirements of today’s cloud-based applications such as Salesforce and Office 365.
• Time consuming route configuration. Configuring a WAN requires IT technicians to visit the remote site, install a router, and revisit the site every time a glitch needs fixing. Setting up and supporting the router is time consuming because much of the work is manual.
• Expensive MPLS connectivity. MPLS connectivity is far more expensive than public Internet service.
• MPLS connectivity deficiency. Moreover, the shortcomings of MPLS connectivity often undermine the value of real-time apps like VoIP and video conferencing — producing echoes, cut-outs, and other audio annoyances.

These issues have opened the door for software-defined wide area networking, or SD-WAN.

Advantages of SD-WAN for Enterprises

With SD-WAN, enterprises can abstract their branch office network into a software application that provides centralized access to the entire network. Low-cost public Internet reduces connectivity costs while granting ready access to cloud-hosted applications.

Let’s take a quick look at the advantages of SD-WAN for enterprises:

1. Superior application experience

Today’s mobile workforce needs access to a wide array of SaaS products for scheduling, collaboration, navigation, communication, and many more functions beyond the essential CRM and office productivity software so many enterprises use. Moreover, IT leaders need to support their networks on any device in any location that has Internet connectivity. These twin forces create a strong incentive to adopt cloud technologies.

MPLS-connected WANs can deliver solid performance to a single application, but the architecture isn’t well suited to using multiple cloud-hosted apps. With so much compute and storage functionality moving to the cloud, conventional WANs can’t keep up with the needs of distributed enterprises and their always-on employees.

2. Sophisticated traffic management

The notion that public Internet service can outperform a dedicated MPLS line seems naïve at first glance. Businesses used MPLS precisely because of its superiority over public Internet services, which suffered from packet loss that degraded the user experience.

The perpetually falling cost of bandwidth, however, motivated the pioneers of SD-WAN technologies to overcome these challenges. Today’s SD-WAN for enterprise software and hardware can optimize and rebalance public Internet traffic to outperform MPLS while granting access to a vast array of cloud applications.

3. Simplified networking

SD-WAN systems use a networking appliance that’s easy to configure and scale to an enterprise’s precise needs. A centralized interface allows IT pros to configure, manage, and monitor the system from a single, easy-to-use dashboard.

Across the width and breadth of a global enterprise, the savings in technician site visits alone can prove substantial. When combined with the lower expenses of public Internet services, the low cost and reduced complexity make SD-WAN for enterprises a compelling choice.

SD-WAN as a fully managed service

The simplicity and cost advantages of SD-WAN make it an excellent candidate for cloud-based fully managed services, even at the enterprise level. When you partner with a managed SD-WAN provider, you hand off a substantial volume of networking duties to experts who design, implement, manage, and monitor your remote-office networking.

That frees up your IT staff to devote more time to your company’s most important priorities. With every enterprise embracing big data, machine learning, and advanced analytics to survive disruptive threats, the fully managed option can give your company a computing edge.

Managed SD-WAN from CBTS helps enterprises move beyond MPLS connectivity. Our experts have decades of experience with data centers, networking technologies, and enterprise-level IT challenges.

To learn more, download our free guide: Software-Defined WAN is a Business Imperative.

Related Articles:

First things first: What is SD-WAN?

Why is SD-WAN Critical to Your IT Strategy

Wi-Fi is an important part of customer service.

Travelers want to respond to work emails while waiting for their flight to board. Sports fans crave the ability to live-stream the Hail Mary pass from the big game at a packed stadium. Diners enjoy reviewing restaurants on Yelp while they’re waiting for the check. Tourists can’t resist posting Instagram pictures from city landmarks.

Fortunately, advances in Wi-Fi technology allow companies, municipalities, and other entities to deliver immersive, unforgettable experiences to people’s mobile devices.

It’s crucial to remember that commercial-grade Wi-Fi networking equipment is mandatory for connecting large groups of people. Residential-quality gear doesn’t have the security, configuration options, and management controls for access points and switches built for business use.

Moreover, you need an experienced technical partner that understands the complexities of broadcasting the Internet over a wide area to masses of people. At CBTS, we’ve implemented advanced Wi-Fi solutions in places like college dormitories, airport terminals, hospitals, and public shopping districts.

These are four fundamental steps we’ve discovered while helping our clients implement high-quality Wi-Fi networks:

1. Prioritize the quantity, quality, and configuration of access points

Wi-Fi access points (APs) use radio waves to broadcast the Internet over a defined area. They must have the capacity to deliver a fast connection to large volumes of users, all of whom might be streaming videos or downloading large files.

When you’re designing a Wi-Fi network, you need to ensure that APs are placed in strategic locations that beam the Internet into areas including rooms, hallways, and stairwells. You need to scout out dead spots and tweak your configuration to shrink or eliminate them.

Interference from other APs is a constant concern. Indeed, if you install too many APs, you can actually degrade people’s download speeds. You can also pick up interference from nearby businesses.

All these challenges underscore the need to partner with trained and certified Wi-Fi experts who know how to set up and manage the most advanced wireless networks.

2. Account for high-capacity users

High-end Wi-Fi equipment can deliver gigabit-level speeds over wireless networks. These technologies allow you to accommodate high-bandwidth users. If visitors to your business give video presentations in a meeting room or project multimedia presentations in an auditorium, they might not need a wired ethernet connection.

Today’s commercial-grade 802.11ac Wi-Fi gear has plenty of bandwidth to accommodate demanding Wi-Fi use cases. Access points can come with ethernet ports allowing you to plug in Internet of Things sensors to glean insights from network traffic and a vast array of data points.

Management software can help you tune your network to exacting specifications. Access points broadcast on 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz frequency bands. 5Ghz bands have higher speed and shorter range, while 2.4Ghz bands have slower speed and higher range. Strategic placement of APs and careful configuration of your Wi-Fi network can make the most of the options from these bands.

3. Make security a priority

Wi-Fi broadcasts have no inherent security. They’re just like using walkie-talkies: Anybody within range of an AP can listen in. These are key ways to enhance Wi-Fi network security:

• Password-protect your network and encrypt broadcasts.
• Segregate and isolate users so they have no way to access other areas of your network.
• Create multiple authorization levels to tightly control who goes where on your Wi-Fi network.
• Create login screens and unique identifiers that ensure only authorized users access your Wi-Fi.
• Educate your users about protecting their data while using Wi-Fi.

Wireless technology providers are getting more serious about security all the time. They’re creating more options to thwart hackers without ruining the user experience of everyday online travelers.

4. Partner with an experienced enterprise Wi-Fi developer  

Whether your Wi-Fi-connected customers number in the dozens or the thousands, you need an experienced partner to pair you with the technologies that match your precise needs.

CBTS has deep wireless experience across a breadth of industries and technologies. Joining forces with Aruba Networks, the HPE enterprise wireless experts, we’ve helped a host of clients turbocharge their Wi-Fi offerings. Recent projects:

• Providing free Wi-Fi in multiple shopping areas throughout Greater Cincinnati.
• Upgrading APs and improving bandwidth in college dormitories.
• Giving a local hospital the capacity to connect up to 30 wireless devices in patient rooms.
• Delivering world-class Wi-Fi access to a hub airport.

For an in-depth account, check out how we gave a Midwest hub airport the capacity to provide Wi-Fi to everybody in the terminals on the busiest travel days. Download the free case study here.

Related Articles:

Cities help fans make wireless connection

Reliable WiFi access vital to universities

7signal helps clients maximize WiFi potential

This is the third in a three-part series sharing our tips for creating your unified communications roadmap. Check out the first installment – “UCaaS roadmap starts with deep assessment”, and the second installment – “UCaaS roadmap continues with process analysis”.

Auditing your hardware and mapping your processes form the foundation of a transition to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). But there’s one more step you cannot afford to neglect: securing stakeholder buy-in for transition.

Stakeholders can be a variety of people in your organization—top executives, middle-managers, team leads, clients, and external vendors. Getting them excited about unified communications can encourage adoption of the technologies and win over skeptics who are resistant to change.

Here are five ways to help secure stakeholder buy-in for UCaaS:

1. Educate your staff on the benefits of the new solution

Start in the executive suite. Even if they approved your new UC solution, leadership might need an extra round of persuasion to encourage everybody who works for them to embrace the new services. If they get excited about UC, the solution stands a much better chance of catching on with everybody else.

Have another demo ready for managers, outlining the specific benefits for their teams and the new work processes. Point out intuitive features and advanced processes that help people collaborate. Make it easy for all leaders to get their staffs excited about UC.

2. Provide formal training

Everybody needs an opportunity to learn how the system works before it goes live. Tailor your training to specific roles. Your warehouse staff probably doesn’t

need the same depth of training as your customer-service reps. Your UCaaS partner should have all the tools, resources, and documentation to support your training efforts.

3. Make sure everyone can access training materials after implementation

Your team will discover the limits of their training the first day on the job. The primary limit is their natural tendency to forget what they’ve learned when the system goes live.

Make sure everyone knows where to access training and resources. Make sure your vendor has a guide that includes lessons from training and step-by-step instructions to walk employees through all the new features. And make experts available for a few weeks to help people who feel stuck.

4. Clarify any changes to working practices

A cloud-based UC system allows people to work anywhere with an Internet connection. That gives you an opportunity to create work-at-home options for your staff. Will this option be available to your staff?

5. Think beyond your workforce

The collaborative features of UC can streamline your work with vendors, partners, suppliers, and clients.

Set aside time to bring them up to speed on features like text messaging, video conferencing, and integration with CRM software. The last thing you want to do is allow a technology transition that alienates your core external audiences.

Everybody needs to feel invested in your new UC tools

Your cloud-hosted UC system can help you unleash innovation in every corner of your organization, and extend it to all the people who make your business possible. Stakeholder buy-in for UCaaS is pivotal to making it happen.

CBTS engineers have put together a guide to unified communications in the cloud. Download our Guide to Start Your Cloud Communications Journey and start your transition today.

Related Articles:

Six ways UCaaS drives business transformation

3 elements to a UCaaS roadmap

UC journey begins with three steps

This is the second in a three-part series sharing our tips for creating your UCaaS roadmap. Click here to check out the first installment – “UCaaS roadmap starts with deep assessment”.

In part one of this series, we advised how to audit your communication system. The next step is to map out the processes you use now, and plan how those processes will evolve after your transition to unified communications (UC).

Making sense of your current communication processes

Many business communication processes evolve in an ad-hoc fashion because they’re always adapting to changing business priorities and shifting customer preferences. Companies that endure mergers, consolidations, or rapid growth are especially prone to uncessarily complex communication processes.

Your transition to UC will reconcile these processes and mold them into a holistic system that streamlines communications, improves customer service, and encourages collaboration with vendors and colleagues. But first, it’s crucial to identify these processes and understand their functions because you’ll have to replicate them during the UC transition. You’ll also want to flag redundant processes that can be eliminated.

As you analyze current processes, keep these questions in mind:

• How do you handle inbound customer calls in multiple scenarios?
• What happens if there’s no staff available to take incoming calls?
• How does your call volume vary at different times of the day?
• How does your team share information, collaborate, and manage projects?
• How do processes differ for internal teams vs. external partners and vendors?

Each process you identify must be assessed to determine whether it is essential in the new UC environment. When eliminating or modifiying current processes, make sure you train employees, partners, vendors, and anyone else who may be impacted by the change. You may face some resistance to change, but educating them on the improvements that the new process offers will help soften the blow.

Create better processes in your UC system

After mapping your current processes, it’s time to explore the opportunities for UC processes. Your goal is to tap the full potential of UC to encourage collaboration and streamline digital conversations.

Questions to consider:

• How can new features like instant messaging and screen sharing improve collaboration?
• Which features must be enabled to deliver quicker, more well-informed responses to customer queries?
• How will you tap the cloud’s ability to remove geographic boundaries and optimize your call-handling processes? For example, you can establish processes to route calls over multiple locations during busy times to ensure that all calls are answered.

Why process analysis is so essential

UC systems offer a vast variety of communication and collaboration options. You must choose the ones that help your business and avoid the temptation to embrace “nice-to-have” features that might not improve your business conditions. Just because you can adopt a new feature does not necessarily mean you should.

The UC experts at CBTS are here to help. We’ve implemented UC systems in major industries throughout North America, so we know the most prudent, effective UC processes. We also understand the complex challenges of migrating from older, PBX-based systems to the latest cloud-based UC systems.

Want to learn more? Download our free guide for mapping out your journey to cloud-based unified communications.

Related Articles:

Six ways UCaaS drives business transformation

3 elements to a UCaaS roadmap

UC journey begins with three steps

This is the first in a three-part series sharing our tips for creating your UCaaS roadmap.

Once you’ve made up your mind to embrace Unified Communications (UC), it’s time to start building a roadmap to get you there. You’ll need a savvy combination of technologies, processes, and people to make the most of UC opportunities. A robust UC roadmap will keep you moving in the right direction every step of the way.

To build your UC roadmap, you must be clear on two points:

• The tools you’re already using, and how you’re using them.
• The new UC tools that hold the most hope for transforming your business.

A three-step process can help you develop the technology-and-features component of your UC roadmap.

Step 1: Assess your equipment

Make an inventory of all your devices—handsets, tablets, smartphones, PBX gear, etc.—including the location of each item. Your UC system has to replicate these device functions, so it’s crucial to document them at the beginning.

Establish priorities for offices, departments, and divisions that should be the first to migrate to UC. Map out a strategy for implementing UC in each of these areas.

Consider a phased migration to reduce the strain on your IT team. Each phase helps you work out the bugs and learn to prepare for problems rather than merely react to them.

Step 2: Identify tools and features

Audit your staff’s communication and collaboration techniques. Find out all the tools they use, how often they use them, and what the tools accomplish. You may find people are using non-business approved applications and tools to plug gaps in your system.

Once you understand your people’s processes and tools, start identifying cloud-based apps and other UC services that can make their jobs easier. Keep a sharp eye out for:

• Innovative tools people have been doing without.
• Unauthorized apps and services that haven’t been vetted by your IT team. Make sure you understand why people resort to tools.
• Business functions that UC tools can transform. You have dozens to choose from; zero in on the ones that can do your organization the most good.
• Opportunities to improve collaboration. You may be able to meld video conferencing with text messaging to strengthen relationships with customers, for instance.

Step 3: Analyze your underlying network

UC brings a host of high-bandwidth operations into your LAN and WLAN. Make sure your network can cope with the demands of real-time voice and videoconferencing.

If you anticipate that UC will widen your customer base, make sure you plan for expanding your network capacity. A cloud-based UC solution allows you to pay for only what you use, and it can scale with you as your needs change.

Finally, make sure your firewall and other security technologies dovetail with your UC program.

Aligning the present and the future

Crafting a well-thought-out UC roadmap will help ensure that everything you’ve learned from building your business informs the development of your new UC system. CBTS expert engineers can guide you through every aspect of a UC transformation.

For more guidance, download our free eBook on perfecting your cloud communications journey.

Read about Unified Communications from CBTS.

Related Articles:

Six ways UCaaS drives business transformation

3 elements to a UCaaS roadmap

UC journey begins with three steps

In today’s competitive retail environment, businesses must understand their customers better than ever before. Data and analytics provide opportunities for retailers to engage their customers in new ways—through targeted promotions instead of spam, by redesigning stores based on where customers spend the most time, and by providing an experience that encourages repeat visits.

Jon Lloyd, CBTS Senior Solution Design Engineer, recently discussed the ways retailers can engage consumers and create experiences that keep them coming back.

Q: Why are data and analytics so important to retailers?

From a retail standpoint, the longer a customer is in the building or on the website, and the more relevant options you present, the more the customer spends. It’s all about understanding what holds their attention.

Q: How can retailers develop that understanding?

Wi-Fi is a great way to collect data. Customers want free Wi-Fi, the data is easy to collect, and customers are willing to answer a few questions to gain access.

At a coffee shop, for example, maybe the first time a device logs in, the question is, “What’s your favorite pastry?” The next time, the question is, “Do you prefer coffee or tea?” Or, “What’s your age range?”

Over time, we start to compile all this data to create a customer profile.

Q: What else do retailers need to develop customer profiles?

E-mail and apps are critical. Without them, you might have location beaconing—how long a device stays in the network.

But if the customer downloads the app or provides an e-mail for receipts, now I’ve correlated where they’re at in my store, what they’re doing, and how much they’re spending.

It used to be that customers knew that retailers were going to spam them with e-mail, and hit them with a million things they’re going to delete. But when retailers ask for an e-mail to send a receipt instead of printing it, customers are more willing to engage.

Q: What do retailers need to do to make use of this information?

You need a platform that correlates your customer data, such as an analytics and location engine (ALE), where an artificial intelligence engine goes through and finds qualified candidates and determines the return rates. In other words, who opened your messages?

You need technology that allows you to set the fields that are important to you and your business—someone who’s visited three times in the past, but not in the last six months, or someone who has spent $500 in a single visit.

Once you’ve created these custom fields, the technology can do powerful things. Consider the example of a bookstore. We see from the location data that the users spend most of their time in nonfiction. Now we can correlate that with increasing the nonfiction display.

Or, if we know the customer connected to Wi-Fi the last time they came in and spent $40 and bought two books, we now have the classification of the genre of the books. So we can e-mail a coupon for that specific genre, instead of saying, “Here’s 10 percent off.”

It’s all about understanding what brings a customer in your store, what keeps them in your store, and what they buy.

Q: What potential pitfalls do retailers need to keep in mind?

It’s got to be a good experience. Consider going to a Starbucks or Panera while you’re traveling. Those brands understand the importance of the customer experience—people know that the Wi-Fi is great, it’s going to be easy to connect, and they’re not going to have to jump through a bunch of hoops and re-authenticate several times.

When it comes to building a profile, customers are willing to answer a question or two at a time. One airport asked 12 questions at once. Connection activity fell from 70 percent to 40 percent. Progressively building a profile over time is a much better fit.

Q: How can CBTS help retailers develop solutions that work for them and their customers?

The first piece is understanding the technology—that’s our core competency. We’ve done the homework for you.

We also understand your business. We’ve worked with other retailers and learned from them. We’ve also lit up Greater Cincinnati with free Wi-Fi in the urban core and other high-traffic areas, and have learned from our own experiences. We can come in and say, “This is what other retailers are doing,” and present customers with new ideas.

The ultimate goal is to create an experience that drives customer loyalty. Wi-Fi is a tool to do that, but it’s a tool that simply unlocks the ability to create a customer profile, and that’s what allows you to build that uniquely catered—almost subliminal—experience that makes a customer say, “I don’t know why I prefer this store, but I do,” and keep your business front of mind.

Read how CBTS helped an auto retailer provide a more robust Wi-Fi solution to serve consumers, generate valuable analytics, and create revenue potential.

Related Articles

Four steps to providing Wi-Fi connectivity

4 Reasons Retailers Love NaaS

How retailers keep up with competition