Wi-Fi as a Service… TCI Makes High-Speed Office Mobility Easy

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TCI simplifies your life by helping you avoid the complexity of buying and managing your own Wi-Fi infrastructure. Rather than paying a big upfront capital expense, our Wi-Fi as a Service covers everything you need for an affordable monthly subscription…

  • Wireless Site Surveys and Heat Mapping
  • Access Point Cabling
  • Wireless Security
  • Coverage, Signal Strength, Channel Testing, Data Throughput
  • Ongoing Management

Whether you want to add wireless to your office or light-up an entire campus, TCI will design, deploy and manage your Wi-Fi network to keep your business moving forward.

Let our experienced experts handle all the Wi-Fi implementation details for you. Contact us today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Using Contact Center Metrics to Boost Customer Experience in the Real World

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No surprise… Your customers want personalized service and consistent answers when they speak with multiple reps in your business. Further, they don’t want to wait on hold or repeat themselves when transferred. Here’s how three organizations are leveraging the Cloud today to benefit their customers…

  • A Medical Supply Company, which serves its market with 45 agents, gains actionable insight into call center operations. By monitoring system performance in real time, managers can identify heavy call-volume periods, so staff can be allocated in ways that keep wait times to a minimum. Historical reporting reveals patterns so managers can determine if they need additional staff at certain locations or during specific days or times.
  • A Non-Profit that provides temporary assistance to those struggling to pay their energy bills can now move representatives from one queue to another based on call volume. That reduces wait times for customers during peak hours. Call monitoring allows managers to review calls for quality and service levels, improving training and accountability. Call recording comes in handy when a customer and agent have different recollections of a conversation, allowing any miscommunication to be resolved quickly.
  • A Government Contractor implements a nationwide energy efficiency program with a new always-on cloud contact center, allowing 24/7 support to be offered to customers. While remote access had been an issue with the old system, now remote agents have seamless access from satellite offices. Improved call quality translates into fewer dropped calls, which makes customers happy. Real-time call handling metrics let managers analyze the level of service customers receive. Issues can be identified immediately and lay the foundation for future training sessions.

New technology is providing the tools and insight you need to turn your call center into a well-oiled machine.

Let’s talk about more practical ways a cloud contact center solution can help your business serve and support demanding customers… Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Future-Proof Your Data Network with SD-WAN to Lower Costs and Add Flexibility… We’re Ready to Manage Your Deployment or Support “as a Service”

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Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology allows you to do more with your network. Paired with high speed connections and Wireless backups, SD-WAN can help overcome the bandwidth, scalability, complexity and cost concerns common with legacy network services.

The WAN struggle is real

Branch sites have never demanded as much bandwidth as they do today with global business traffic and SaaS application usage both soaring. This results in legacy business WAN links, such as MPLS, rapidly exceeding the capacity for which they were originally designed.

With a software-defined network you can take advantage of broadband and fiber links to significantly save on WAN costs and deliver the desired level of performance you need for critical cloud applications like Voice, Data and Video.

SD-WAN is ideal for multi-site deployments, offering lower operational costs and improved resource usage. The technology also enables service providers to offer the highest level of performance without sacrificing security or data privacy. Here are some of the ways your business can benefit from SD-WAN…

  • Optimize performance – Features like a scalable pipeline and intelligent path selection can improve network performance enterprise-wide.
  • Increase throughput & reliability – Application-aware routing protocols let your network adjust to demands in network traffic.
  • Save time and travel – Handle tasks like pushing policies to branch locations and launching new sites remotely from a central location.
  • Reduce costs – With intelligent software substituting for hardware functionality, you can save as expensive hardware options are consolidated or phased out.
  • Track the performance – of critical web applications travelling through VPN tunnels or directly through the public Internet
  • Easily identify and pinpoint – the cause of poor application performance – LAN, WAN, or server

SD-WAN adoption can be a gradual process… There’s no need to sacrifice existing investments in traditional networking infrastructure. No matter what kind of network solutions you may have in place now, TCI can help you select from the best providers and manage your SD-WAN deployment to make your hybrid WAN easier to implement and operate.

Let’s talk about how SD-WAN can improve the way you connect your business. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

It Only Takes One Person to Derail Your Team’s Progress… Tips for Considerate Collaboration

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What does it take to be a considerate virtual collaborator? It’s a combination of soft skills, communications and collaboration technology, and an awareness of the new rules of etiquette. These five tips will ensure you’re the team player everyone will fight to work with.

  • Break down silos – A considerate collaborator sets up a virtual workspace that’s dedicated to each specific project. Every project contributor should have single-click access, be able to upload relevant documents and share feedback instantly in one place, using web chat.
  • Don’t waste team time – Use a virtual workspace to tag relevant team members, alerting them to project updates and basic information. In this way, you will use your meeting time more effectively, focusing instead on only the more complex issues you need to discuss as a group. Share the agenda ahead of time and include the time allotted for each item. Then stick to the schedule.
  • Respect the distance – One of the pitfalls of mobility is that collaborators aren’t always aware if a team member is traveling on business or at a resort on vacation. Collaboration tools make it easier for colleagues to check the status or presence of other team members – and know when it’s appropriate to contact them. A considerate collaborator checks presence first, and if their colleague is unavailable, they look for the next person in line who can help.
  • Sharing isn’t always caring – While team members always need access to the right information, they don’t need to be bothered with every little detail. Clean up your team’s inboxes by making use of your collaboration tool to engage relevant team members in one-to-one or group chats. Streamline the conversation further within a workspace with @ mentions, which let you tag just the person you need, or with @all for information that affects the whole group.
  • Stay on track with tasks – With task-oriented collaboration software, team leaders assign individual tasks while also getting a bird’s eye view of all assignments within a workspace. The considerate collaborator adjusts workloads when too many tasks overlap. This helps keep the overall project moving forward.

These etiquette tips, along with the right collaboration software, will help everyone on your team stay on track to perform tasks more efficiently and complete projects faster.

When it comes to the collaboration tools your teams need to be effective, we’re ready to help get them connected. Get started today… Contact us at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

 

What to Know About Communications Security in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

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Unified Communications enables your employees to communicate and collaborate more effectively through screen sharing, video meetings, mobile apps and more. But adding AI to the mix promises to send productivity through the roof, so it’s not surprising that over 40% of enterprises plan to incorporate AI into their UC systems by the end of 2019.

Still, even as AI transforms communications, it also raises new security concerns. Let’s take a deeper dive to understand how AI enhances UC and what you need to do to maintain a secure communications environment.

Artificial Intelligence – Emphasizing the Unified In UC

If you thought unified communications was great for efficiency and collaboration, just wait until you see how AI enhances it…

  • Improved collaboration – Integration of AI chatbots into UC apps opens new doors for collaboration by gathering status updates from team members and even alerting members via an app, email, SMS or push notification. When chatbots keep everyone and everything connected, your teams can more easily troubleshoot together, keep track of each other’s progress on projects and share ideas and information.
  • Easier access and use of data – AI virtual assistants improve access to documents and other information, automatically gathering and distributing data to your team’s devices — whether it be a PDF or a video. If questions on a prior discussion arise during a meeting, the assistant retrieves pertinent emails, messages or documents. Attendees stay focused and engaged in the conversation, with all information at their fingertips.
  • Increased productivity – Chatbots field straightforward calls and online chats with your customers, allowing your customer service team to focus on more complex calls and issues. In meetings, attendees concentrate on the content and discussion rather than on the communications tools. The AI assistant even initiates the conference automatically.
  • Better efficiencies – Wouldn’t it be great to have someone else send meeting notes, assign action items and schedule follow-up calls? The AI assistant handles all of it, allowing human attendees to spend their time on more complex and higher value activities. AI also simplifies scheduling by identifying times that work for everyone.

How To Mitigate AI Security Issues…

While the benefits of AI and UC are many, the security of your communications system will also require more attention. AI technology accesses vast amounts of data on products, processes and customers. If an attack occurs, all of that data becomes vulnerable.

  • New standards and protocols will emerge as AI plays a bigger role in communications systems, so you’ll need to remain vigilant to stay compliant with the latest requirements. You’ll also have an obligation to protect the data gathered about your customers.
  • In addition, there are likely to be security challenges with BYOD, as your employees’ AI-enhanced personal devices enter the workplace. Some organizations are already disabling voice assistants such as Siri in the workplace. But, as employees bring newer devices like the Amazon Echo to the office, organizations will need to assess emerging AI technologies for security threats and establish clear guidelines in a formal security policy.
  • A positive note here is that AI actually enhances data and communications security. It will scan for potential threats and alert IT and security teams when vulnerabilities or possible attacks occur. Security professionals can respond far more quickly with the help of these technologies.

As AI and UC blend, you’ll gain an extremely powerful set of communications and team collaboration tools – productivity will skyrocket and data will be more accessible than ever before. But this architecture must have a stable base, with security as a main priority.

Let’s talk about how your business can reap the benefits of AI and UC, while safeguarding your business from risk. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.