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Combining Voice & CRM Empowers Your Customer Support & Sales Teams

Hopefully, your customer care and salespeople are busy – responding to prospects and clients, juggling different tasks, taking customer orders, and closing sales. But how can Cloud Voice help them conquer the challenges of a slow season?

Relationship-building is an integral part of a customer-facing salesperson’s job…

With so many current and potential customers, your people need historical records and detailed customer profiles. When your CRM is integrated with your Voice service, salespeople have ready access to all the information they need to personalize their conversations – even when it’s the customer calling your office.

The details of any sales call are a critical component of relationship-building…

Cloud-based phone solutions not only track call records but also allow salespeople to attach client details and notes so they can follow up more effectively in the future. Employees can even record calls to playback whenever there’s a need to reference them.

As the sales day comes to a close, salespeople review the day’s work and tie up any loose ends. They gain renewed confidence that they won’t drop a call, won’t lose track of important client information, and, most importantly, won’t miss a sale.

Customized Cloud Voice gives salespeople the apps they need to make more calls, send more emails and collaborate more efficiently.

Provide your people with the tools they need to ratchet up sales in any season… Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Better Business Performance in 2022 Starts with Your TCI Technology Planning Session

With budget season here and 2022 right around the corner, now is a great time to start aligning your office technologies with your strategic business goals.

Don’t let aging or out-of-date technology slow you down…

A TCI Technology & Business Review gets you prepared for the year ahead, whether you’re considering…

  • Cloud, Onsite, and Hybrid Voice Migrations
  • e911 and Mitel-powered HIPAA compliant solutions
  • CRM/customer database integration
  • Managed Services
  • Data Protection
  • Dedicated Space, Infrastructure, Cabling, and Wi-Fi
  • Telecom and Broadband services
  • Meeting and Team Collaboration
  • Call Recording for voice documentation
  • and much more

Not familiar with the latest innovations or apps?

We’ll get you up to speed so your business can connect more easily and become more productive than ever with better tools.

Schedule your 2022 technology planning session with TCI today. Contact us at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Keeping Up with Contracts? Engage TCI Before Your Next Auto-Renewal

Whether it’s a Broadband or Business VoIP service contract, or a maintenance renewal on a phone system, it’s important to be aware of their upcoming renewal dates.

If you don’t track your contracts’ anniversary dates, they could auto-renew without you being aware of it. This may cause you to miss valuable opportunities to negotiate better deals or seek alternative service providers.

When you work with TCI…

Our team will be your advocate when it comes to uncovering the best service arrangements and deals for your business, especially when it comes to:

  • Voice & Unified Communications
  • Broadband, Carrier & Telecom Services
  • Managed IT and Security Services & Support

You can count on TCI for…

  • Speedier negotiations and contract execution. No more wasted time comparing apples-to-oranges, trying to deal with one-size-fits-all solutions, or getting locked out of better solutions that become available.
  • Improved savings and ROI through negotiated price reductions and/or quantity discounts.
  • Reduced miscommunication and disputes with suppliers and service providers by leveraging Performance Guarantees and SLAs.
  • Ongoing consultation to keep Network and Carrier services in line with your business objectives.

When it comes to getting better deals on your technology services, TCI has you covered. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Connecting Your Remote Workers with Proven, Easy-to-use Collaboration Tools & Meeting Apps

In today’s workplace, office walls have dissolved. There are people on every team working from home or on the road, in coffee shops, or in flight. Their colleagues may live and work in another city, across borders or oceans away. Yet the pace of work continues to accelerate, which means collaboration and communication must be seamless and in real-time.

This is why many employees use their own mobile devices and gravitate toward standalone messaging and video conferencing apps. But this approach isn’t ideal and, in an effort to be more connected, we find ourselves endlessly switching between applications and logging in multiple times.

For a true collaboration experience, today’s workforce needs an all-in-one solution that lets them communicate and collaborate across time zones as if they were in the same room. Convenient Team Meeting apps provide this experience.

A Team Meeting app makes collaboration much more efficient and meetings increasingly productive. With all the information employees need available from a single workspace, team members find it easier to work, share and store project details.

Here’s how an all-in-one collaboration app will enable you to work better:

  • Connect to the office from anywhere. Team Meeting apps make all your contacts, data, and documents available from any mobile device or desktop computer. You’re no longer tethered to a physical location. Wherever you are, you have easy access to all the details about your latest project.
  • Do away with multiple tabs. With a piecemeal solution, it’s all too common to end up with multiple apps, browsers, and tabs open across your desktop or mobile device. Team Meetings eliminate that hassle. One window provides a comprehensive view of your work and access to all your communications.
  • Stay on point. A key benefit of all-in-one solutions is that meetings become more focused and more efficient. When you’re switching among windows, it’s easy to get distracted by unrelated items. But when you never leave the environment, it’s easy to stay on-point and on-task.
  • Close the conversation gaps. How often do you start a conversation in chat, then realize you’d accomplish more with a verbal discussion? With Team Meetings, you can seamlessly transition between talk, chat and even video.
  • Hop into a virtual meeting room. More than one person involved in resolving an escalating issue? You can also start instant meetings right from your chat thread or phone call.
  • Invite all experts. Many projects require input from a variety of professionals to move to the next level. With its multi-pane view, Team Meetings allows up to 16 of your colleagues to appear on video at once. If more voices are needed, you can invite up to 100 participants to gather on a single meeting bridge.
  • Always be in the right place at the right time. No matter where team members are (a conference room in the next building, a hotel room 400 miles away or a home office on the far coast), they’re able to collaborate seamlessly. Team Meetings allow you to communicate across time zones and geographies as though you were in the same room.
  • Keep everyone on the same page. When you want everyone’s input, passing around a key document by email or paper can be terribly inefficient. But with file and screen sharing capabilities, you and your team can collaborate in real-time. It’s faster and more efficient and ensures everyone is clear on key decisions and agrees on next steps.
  • Stay on top of work in progress. Some projects have an extended incubation period or are simply ongoing. Team Meetings provides you with a permanent virtual workspace where you can continue to collaborate on documents, in meetings, and through conversations.
  • Avoid losing track of ad-hoc decisions. Projects are often complex with many moving parts. With multiple team members contributing, it’s easy to lose the thread of a conversation. With a persistent chat log, you always have simple access to key decisions or important discussions.
  • Be confident you’re securely connected. As you update a team document from the road, the last thing you need to worry about is who’s snooping the airport lounge Internet connection. Mitel has you covered. MiTeam Meetings was developed specifically with mobility and security in mind, so you can be sure your work stays under wraps.

As personal and effective as working face to face, Team Meeting apps offer plenty of advantages. When you enable a true collaboration experience, not only will your team be more informed and reach decisions faster, but they’ll also set new productivity records for your business.

TCI’s experts are ready to ensure your team has all the voice, chat, and video capabilities they need to seamlessly connect with anyone, at any time, from anywhere. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

e911 Compliance… How New Rules & Legislation Protect Your People and Visitors

New federal regulations have been passed that will impact emergency 911 calling from businesses: Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act. These mandates are intended to protect everyone in your office or building – employees and visitors – by improving access to emergency services:

  • Kari’s Law applies to newly installed multi-line telephone systems. Users must be able to directly call emergency services by dialing 911 without having to dial a prefix to reach an outside line.
  • Ray Baum’s Act requires that 911 emergency operators be provided with the specific location of the calling party so that appropriate assistance can be dispatched to that location.

FCC order and detailed rules here

If you’re planning a new telephone system, you should be aware of these requirements and ensure that your providers’ offerings can comply with these government mandates.

Compliance Challenges

As you take steps to comply with the new 911 rules, you’ll want to keep in mind several factors – including the technology used in your Voice and IT environment, network topology, and the geographic scope of your phone system deployment.

Also, many states have adopted their own 911 regulations which may contribute to compliance confusion.

Need help with e911 calling compliance in your business? TCI can help. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 



Why Workforce Management Solutions are Essential for Contact Centers and Your Business Profitability

With growing demand for a consistent contact center experience regardless of channel – in combination with more complex customer requests – implementing and using a sophisticated Workforce Management (WFM) solution is essential for business profitability.

Whitepaper: What is Workforce Management – Download PDF

Improved Forecasting

Cutting-edge WFM solutions allow for tweaking and fine-tuning your forecasting process. Too high a forecast and agents are idle, as are the workstations – a waste of resources. Too low a forecast and customers get annoyed by long waiting times. Agents become overworked and drained, negatively impacting performance and absenteeism. Without accurate forecasting, your business runs the risk of losing customers, and acquiring new ones requires much more work and resources.

Overtime Savings

Another area that can be addressed by WFM is overtime. It’s easy to reason that a few minutes here and there can’t make much difference, but that number adds up quickly and significantly, affecting pay raises and performance bonuses in the long run. With WFM, thresholds can be set up to keep an eye on scheduled time and keep track of overtime, taking corrective measures if necessary. The solution also makes it easy to determine whether it makes more sense to add staff or plan for a few hours of overtime a week.

Leveraging Simulations

With WFM tools, you’ll be able to monitor, measure, and carry out simulations that test and evaluate a range of parameters to identify those that are essential to organizational performance. Should you invest more resources in making forecasting accuracy as close to perfect as possible OR will this result only if you succeed in improving scheduling that’s suffering from a dip in early morning peaks? Where should you act first for the best results at minimum cost?

Mitel WFM Product Overview Brochure – Download PDF

Talk with the TCI team about your contact center and WFM technology requirements to ensure customer and agent satisfaction while maintaining efficiency and profitability. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.



Why it’s Time to Make Your Move to the Cloud

Whether your old phone system can’t be upgraded anymore, or you need to enable remote work, or a new regulatory requirement can’t be supported, at some point you’ll have to hang up your trusted old phones and move to the cloud. Here’s what you can look forward to…

Simplify Communication, Management, and Budgeting

When you combine flexible communications, mobility, and the cloud, borders disappear, barriers collapse, costs drop, and productivity rises. If these sound like the kind of advantages you want to bring to your business, let’s talk about a move to TCI Host, our customized Cloud Voice service.

  • Talk, Chat, Share & Meet – TCI Host offers all the features of advanced on-premises platforms without the hardware and management headaches. Plus, you get the unlimited scalability, seamless mobility, and open integrated technology that you’ve been looking for to bring your business communications and business intelligence together.
  • Any Device. Anywhere. Anytime Communications – TCI Host fits into the way your office team works. Use a desktop phone, smartphone, or softphone on your laptop. Just one phone system supporting your business no matter when and where your team is working – office, home, or branch locations.
  • We deliver & set up everything – Unlike many providers, who will drop-ship phones and expect you to install and configure everything, our certified Cloud Voice experts come to you and set up everything to your specifications. After we install it, we’ll test everything to make sure it all runs smoothly.

With Cloud Voice, your team can deliver an exceptional Customer Experience. More competitive advantages to look forward to…

  • Be more productive – Bring all of your communications tools into one cloud and one application for a seamless experience on any device – anywhere in the world. Easily manage voice, email, and IM from a single screen to reduce management complexity and boost productivity.
  • No hardware, no headaches – Say goodbye to capital expenses, maintenance, and service fees with a hosted business phone system. You get great call quality, industry-leading reliability, and an easy-to-manage phone system with no upfront costs – everything you need for one low monthly price.
  • Free up IT resources – Don’t waste valuable IT resources on aging PBX hardware. With TCI Host, you enjoy new features faster, you can add or remove lines in minutes, and you always stay up to date with automated upgrades.
  • Pay as you grow – Unlike premises-based PBX systems, TCI Host always provides just the right amount of capacity at the right time to ensure you’re paying for only what you need and not a penny more.
  • Keep your business running – TCI’s cloud-based hosting platform can deliver ultra-high reliability and seamless disaster recovery so you always stay connected with colleagues and customers.

TCI can help you migrate to a cloud solution customized for your business needs. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

5 Ways Your Current Phone System Can Limit Your Success

Has your phone system kept pace with the times? More importantly, is it capable of helping you meet tomorrow’s challenges? Here, we outline five attributes you’ll want to consider when you’re thinking about improving your technology.

1. Ability to Add Features and Functionality

Make sure your phone system can keep pace with technological change and has the ability to embrace cloud-based applications and customized solutions as required. Look for these features and attributes:

  • Third-party integrations allow you to take advantage of cloud-based business process applications.
  • Easy & intuitive communications tools that are as simple as consumer apps will speed adoption.
  • Admin portal enables users to make real-time changes to preferences, permissions and groups.
  • Flexible service plans enable users to change service plans in real time as their needs change.

2. Productivity

Is your phone system boosting worker productivity or draining it? Reduce employee frustration and increase productive work time with these features:

  • Find me – Follows employees so they can get the call the first time around, regardless of the device they are using.
  • Presence – Enables employees to see when other co-workers are available, in a meeting, on a call or out of the office.
  • Collaboration tools – Makes it easier to exchange ideas and get work done with video, instant messaging and file and desktop sharing.
  • Application integration – Boosts the power of your CRM by seamlessly integrating calling features, call histories and customer data.

3. Scalability

Nearly every organization can benefit from the agility that comes from aligning its phone system with business needs. Look for these attributes:

  • Plug-and-play – Provides phones that are easy to install without costly upgrades.
  • Flexibility – Easily scales to support both the office and your mobile workforce.
  • Reduced complexity – Avoids complications that add costs and hinder your ability to scale.
  • Intuitive – Supports easy deployment by administrators and enables users to quickly be productive.
  • Simple licensing – Delivers flexible licensing so businesses can scale up or down as their needs change.

4. Mobility

Does your current phone system provide the same easy features and functionality to all staff members, no matter their location or device? If not, consider these capabilities:

  • Mobile applications – Allows personal devices to be integrated with your phone network.
  • Connectivity – Wi-Fi/cellular call handover to stay connected everywhere.
  • Collaboration tools – Provides team and video collaboration, instant messaging, and conferencing to facilitate greater collaboration from anywhere.
  • Security – Delivers features that keep voice and signaling safe, even in public hot spots.

5. Your Budget

Consider whether a CapEx or OpEx budgeting approach makes more sense:

  • Purchasing a standalone system can add complexity and require additional staff and time-consuming administration, resulting in greater costs over time.
  • Consider productivity-boosting options to upgrade your system in an easy-to-manage way that frees up IT resources and saves money.
  • Add new capabilities that seamlessly work with your existing system as your business needs change – without having to pay for features you don’t need.
  • If your system needs a complete overhaul, it may be cheaper to move to the cloud.

Communications are vital to your organization’s success. If your current phone system is holding you back, it’s time to discuss an upgrade. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Exploring UC as a Service? Questions that Uncover what Your Business Actually Needs

With constant change, how can you be confident you’re making technology investments that will help your business meet the needs of employees and customers today while also supporting future growth? Unified Communications as a Service certainly makes it easier to scale and add new features as needed, but there’s a bit more to the equation that requires consideration.

1. What Technologies Will You Need To Future-Proof Your Organization?

Shared workspaces, single-click access to real-time audio and video conferencing, and a seamless experience across multiple devices are just a few of the features you may need right now. Unified interfaces and omnichannel communication are other popular features.

But what might you need in three, five or 10 years? You may not know the answer, so partner with a provider with a focus on innovation. TCI’s Mitel-powered solutions have a track record of being one step ahead. Mitel has been a global leader in the move to the cloud, and your local TCI experts have been supporting remote work well before it took over the working world.

2. What Type Of Workforce Do You Need To Support?

In-person, remote, hybrid – chances are your business needs to be able to support them all. Flexibility and scalability are the most important characteristics when it comes to meeting the needs of today’s ever-changing workforce.

What are the most important communications tools your staff needs to thrive no matter where they are? Some of the items that may be top of mind are a mobile-first design and a unified experience across devices.

Depending on your business, however, file sharing, archiving projects by subject or a personal dashboard for task tracking may be what your employees really need. Be certain the solution you select gives your employees a wide array of options when it comes to communicating and collaborating with each other. The system should make it easier to get work done, and employees should find it simple to use – from anywhere and on any device.

3. What UC Provider Qualities Matter Most For Success?

Every business will answer this question slightly differently, but you can’t go wrong by starting with your partner’s history and reputation. What do their customers say about them? What kind of success stories can they share?

And while a strong relationship can take time to develop, there’s still nothing wrong with trusting your gut. In your initial meetings, anyone who tries to push a cookie-cutter solution that doesn’t exactly meet your needs is definite cause for concern.

Does the provider have a history of reliability? How focused are they on security? Do they make you feel confident your business will stay connected no matter what challenges may arise?

It’s critical to properly assess your needs before you make any big technology investments. With TCI you can rest easy knowing your long-term success is just as important to us as it is to you. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Call Recording… Capture & Archive for Improved Compliance & Customer Service

Here are just some of the compliance regulations your organization may need to address:

  • SOX: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act
  • HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
  • PCI-DSS: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
  • Financial Services Authority
  • FDCPA: Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

For businesses that need to record voice transactions, service calls and other conversations as part of meeting their compliance obligations, there’s a convenient solution… Simply add a call recording capability to your phone system.

Just some of the benefits…

  • Better customer service
  • Timely training
  • Dispute resolution
  • Tracking down information for customers
  • Isolating critical aspects of each conversation

Today’s call recording solutions support single-site workgroups and multiple locations with advanced features. Monitor all calls, or record on demand. Recordings are stored anywhere you choose. You also have access to several useful features…

  • Search and retrieve calls for playback
  • Attach to email, link to CRM records, and more
  • Assign access rights to individuals and groups
  • View the real-time status of users

Learn more about how call recording solutions can help you organize and improve your business communications.
Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.