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Managing Your Multi-Site Enterprise Voice & UC is Easy with TCI Host

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Now you can simplify managing your enterprise phone systems. Join the wave of Multi-site businesses replacing their mix of vendors and outdated phone systems with a centralized, seamless UC as a Service.

Reduce costs, increase productivity and improve customer service 

Our TCI Host service is built on a powerful, scalable cloud platform. It’s a proven solution for deploying and managing all-in-one Voice, UC and collaboration capabilities across every location in your enterprise.

Seamless Migrations

Cloud communications isn’t an all-or-nothing endeavor. There are several deployment models you can choose from depending on your business’s unique situation, and you can shift from one approach to another over time. Our project teams handle all the details for you.

TCI Host brings your offices closer together, providing award-winning customer experiences, and closing the gap on activity with a powerful feature set. Your communications will never be the same.

More Mobility and Collaboration

TCI Host users can access team collaboration tools from their mobile devices and laptops. Designed for today’s workforce, your work will no longer be a location but an activity that can be tackled anywhere.

An All-inclusive Monthly Subscription

TCI Host eliminates the upfront costs of investing in an expensive on-site system. Your low monthly price connects you to a flexible selection of IP desktop phones, integrated mobile apps, award-winning call control features, and outstanding local support delivered by TCI.

Bring it all together

When you combine business communications, mobility and the cloud, borders disappear, barriers collapse, your costs drop, and productivity rises. If these sound like the kind of results you want, it’s time to move your voice, collaboration and customer service to the cloud.

Let’s talk about how TCI Host can centralize and simplify your enterprise communications. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

 

Enable More Agile Teams with Technology – Plus 6 Communication Habits that Drive Success

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An agile team is “marked by ready ability to move with quick, easy grace; having a quick, resourceful and adaptable character.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want their teams to be agile?

But creating a truly agile team is no simple feat. How do they behave? What qualities do they possess? In other words, what does an agile team really look like on a typical day?

Of course, there are numerous communications habits that characterize agile teams. But some habits in particular can be enhanced with the right technology.

Consider, for example, how hosted phone systems and solutions help teams collaborate, share ideas and get more done in their workday…

Here are six communications habits of agile teams – and how technology enhances collaboration.

  • They’re always reachable. You can’t be agile if you’re disconnected. A hosted collaboration and communications solution provides a single experience across devices and lets workers seamlessly move from one device to another. Team members are always “on” and thus more responsive. Agile employees work best when they have access to all communications features, even on their mobile devices, so they can keep working no matter where they are.
  • They share information in real-time. Hosted phone systems and solutions that mirror conversations across all devices in real time allow team members to keep their finger on the pulse of all projects and discussions. Single-click audio, video and web conferencing, in addition to individual and group chat, keep the lines of communication open at all times. Team members make smarter decisions based on the latest information and on collaborative discussion of all issues.
  • They keep team members informed. Persistent workspaces foster collaboration and allow users to chat, share files and even create tasks. Everyone has access to the information they need to do their jobs, and people know what they’re responsible for. The tasks performed by each team member complement those of their colleagues, with everyone working toward a well-understood solution. Time is not wasted searching for information or making decisions that have to be undone after the fact.
  • They’re organized. Organization is a critical quality of responsive and adaptive teams. A hosted phone system makes it easy with task management and file sharing. Consolidate conversations and activities into one space for quick access to anything you need during the workday. Calendar and email integration take organization to a new level, keeping team members on top of events, client meetings and messages.
  • They’re mobile. A communications solution is nothing if it doesn’t offer full mobile support. Features such as a mobile app for Android and iOS, Siri integration and Bluetooth support provide teammates the hands-free experience they need to stay connected without being tied down.
  • They track progress on projects. Agile teams reach the finish line faster by knowing exactly how far they’ve come and what they still need to do. A virtual workspace app such as Mitel’s Teamwork lets them know what activities still require attention. A personal dashboard makes it easy to see project status, propelling each team member toward their ultimate goal.

Arm your team with a hosted phone system that makes it easy to talk, chat and share ideas and information easily and quickly. Create an environment that makes collaboration a breeze and completing projects a snap.

Turn your team into a well-oiled machine whose information and ideas flow freely. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

Get More Done… Tips for Delegating Project Work with Teamwork & MiTeam Apps & Collaboration Tools

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Delegating work to other people sounds great in theory, but let’s be honest… it can sometimes be a struggle to release control. It takes time and effort to send out assignments and follow up on progress, but the reality is you can’t do everything yourself.

The good news is that better technology and mobile apps are helping teams bridge the gap to project success with tools that work…

  • Workspaces – Delegating is much easier with apps like Mitel Teamwork & MiTeam, where you can create focused group workspaces based on projects or teams. Accessible by PC as well as the mobile app, team members can be updated from anywhere, at any time. Send messages and track conversations, share content and files plus add new members to workspaces as required. Working as a team is made simple, keeping information flowing through your organization seamlessly, in one place, so that work can get done faster and smarter, without getting bogged down by email chains.
  • Messaging – Equipping employees with virtual workspaces, Teamwork & MiTeam provides a place where employees can come together to work closely and communicate effectively from anywhere. Send group messages to announce updates to team members, as well as alert specific users with @mentions, even start a conference call, if necessary. The mobile app for iOS and Android enables teams to always stay connected, with conversations mirrored across all devices.
  • Tasks – Virtual workspaces allow teams to collaborate from anywhere, to create and assign tasks, set priorities, check progress, and ensure everyone is kept up to date, from anyplace, at any time. Personal dashboards for every user ensure they are always in the loop, alerting them to what activities require immediate attention. Data can be stored or archived by project, subject or person.

Teamwork & MiTeam apps bring together messaging and collaboration tools into a single solution, empowering your teams to be productive from anywhere. The seamless flow of information throughout your team makes delegation easier and ensures that all tasks stay on track to ensure the success of any project.

Equip your teams to manage projects more efficiently and get more work done. Contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

It’s a New Decade… How to Leverage Smart Workspace & UC Technology in Your Business

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Today, the term “workspace” no longer refers to employees sitting at their desks in cubicles, pecking away at their keyboards from 9 to 5. Workspaces have evolved, and today’s “smart” version allows employees to get their work done from any location, at anytime, using any device.

Millennials now make up more than half of the workforce. That number is expected to hit 75% by 2025. This generation is tech-savvy, demands flexibility and thrives on collaboration. Organizations that let workers choose their own style of work increase retention rates by more than 10%. This means businesses that want to attract and retain top talent have to embrace smart workspaces.

TCI’s unified communications systems enable smart workspaces for your employees and provide a suite of collaboration tools that offer…

  • A single application for voice, video, messaging, audio conferencing and more so employees can easily switch between channels on the fly.
  • A consistent experience across devices.
  • Mobile-first design that supports both iOS and Android.
  • Audio conferencing and web sharing to promote collaboration.
  • Single number reach, making employees accessible on any device.
  • Individual and group chat to keep the lines of communication open.
  • File and screen sharing, which make it easy to keep team members up-to-date on projects.
  • Secure remote access so employees can work from anywhere without having to worry about confidential company information.
  • Multi-region and multi-language support to provide employees around the world with access to the same unified experience.

By keeping your employees connected on-the-go, you’ll also break down silos between departments and locations. In other words, smart workspaces are just as good for the bottom line as they are for employee satisfaction and retention.

Interested in details about smart workspaces and how they can help your team and business excel? Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

 

Want Productive Meetings? Follow These 4 Simple Steps & Use the Right Collaboration Tools

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Unproductive meetings cost U.S. businesses $37 billion a year – and countless hours of exasperation.

When you follow these 4 simple meeting rules, while using the collaboration tools included in our Mitel-powered Cloud Voice service, your attendees will leave meetings informed, engaged, and ready to get the job done.

1. Prepare with agenda-planning tools

A little bit of prep work goes a long way. Ask yourself what you need to accomplish and create an agenda tailored to this goal. Do you need to provide some additional information upfront? Should attendees do some prep work beforehand? What are next steps?

Once you’ve defined the points of discussion, create an agenda and add it to your invite. Be sure to set time limits for each item. Stick to your plan during the meeting by using a collaboration tool with a built-in agenda capability.

2. Determine who needs to be in the meeting

Most meetings aren’t productive because there are too many people involved. Often organizers tend to invite colleagues who “might” have something worthy to contribute.

A better way to determine who should join is to use your freshly created agenda to select the right people to invite. Choose attendees who are essential to the decision-making process or who have a key role on this particular piece of the project. If your invite includes more than 8 people, perhaps it’s time to rethink the meeting. To avoid duplicate conversations, make sure to use a collaboration tool with calendar integration and presence to ensure you’re scheduling the meeting at a convenient time for everyone.

3. Take advantage of virtual workspaces

People find it too easy to get distracted. The trick is to engage attendees throughout the meeting. Collaborate in real-time on documents with screen sharing. See each other eye-to-eye using video conferencing. With Cloud UC services, it’s easy to move seamlessly between desktop sharing and video. Any attendee can share a document or start a video conference with a single tap.

Beyond curtailing the impulse to multitask or daydream, these tools also make communications clearer. It’s easier to grasp the true meaning behind a comment when you can follow words appearing on a page or see the speaker’s facial expressions.

4. Don’t leave ‘em hanging

Aim to end your agenda with five minutes of “wrap up.” Agree on next steps and who is responsible for each one. Ensure nothing gets missed or forgotten by assigning follow-up tasks in your collaboration tool. Mitel Teamwork has the option to build tasks right into the workspace.

With a little planning and a smart communications tool, you can save your business money by making your meetings more structured, more productive and more actionable.

See for yourself how an all-in-one service like MiCloud Connect can bring integrated connectivity to your meetings: Watch the Video (1:35 min.).

TCI is ready to connect your teams with better meeting tools. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Top 7 Reasons Our Clients are Moving Voice & Collaboration to the Cloud

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Business leaders move their communications to the cloud for better mobility, quality, simplicity and reliability. They find it easier to add offices, users and features so they can grow, and they appreciate being able to customize how they connect with customers.

Decision makers are also motivated by their bottom line – they get more and spend less with the latest technology.

Here are 7 practical business reasons to make the switch to TCI’s popular, all-in-one Cloud Voice services.

1. Easy migration

Cloud communications isn’t an all-or-nothing endeavor. There are several deployment models available – Public, Private and Hybrid – and you can migrate your people to the cloud over time or as your business needs change.

2. No hardware, no headaches

Say goodbye to capital expenses, maintenance and service fees with hosted business communications. You get great call quality, industry-leading reliability and an easy-to-manage system with no upfront costs – everything you need for one low monthly price.

3. Free up IT resources

Don’t waste valuable IT resources on aging telecom hardware – we manage the hardware hassles and put your IT people to work on the projects that matter most. With Cloud Voice, you enjoy new features faster, you can add or remove lines in minutes, and you always stay up to date with the newest upgrades automatically.

4. Pay as you grow

With premises-based systems, you pay the price for less-than-perfect call capacity planning by having too little or paying for too much. With Cloud services, you always have just the right amount of call connections to ensure you’re paying for what you need and not a penny more.

5. Enable teamwork and collaboration

Bring all of your team meeting tools into one application – Your people can easily manage video calls and conferences, screen sharing and messaging to connect with in-house teams, partner and customers.

6. Get more done – from anywhere

Your staff can access the same powerful phone and collaboration features from their office phones or seamlessly move with their mobile devices to meet at your clients or work from home offices.

7. Keep your business running

TCI’s cloud-based hosting platform delivers ultra-high reliability and seamless disaster recovery, so you always stay connected to colleagues and customers.

Give your business a competitive Advantage… Get the tools your people need to serve customers better and save some money while you do it. Contact us now to schedule your TCI Cloud Services demo: (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.

 

 

Unified Communications as a Service… 8 Ways it Makes Teamwork and Your Job Easier

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Collaboration doesn’t have to be a complex undertaking. With UCaaS, you get an end-to-end service that puts all your communications tools in one place. Here are 8 ways UCaaS simplifies collaboration – and will make your job easier…

  • Never lose your place with one-stop communication. UCaaS makes all your communications available from a single hub on your desktop. Keep an eye on every call and message and never lose sight of important details.
  • Be as productive on the road as you are in the office. With a mobile app, employees can take the office everywhere and get the same experience on the road as they do at their desk. Whether in the office or on the road, they can join a meeting with a single click, without the need to enter those cumbersome participant codes.
  • Take the conversation smoothly from text to voice with ad-hoc meetings. UCaaS helps you connect with the one person who has the information you need – at the precise moment you need their help. With one click, start a meeting and follow through by assigning tasks.
  • Respond to important messages faster with visual voicemail. Nothing ushers in a greater sense of urgency – and stress – than checking your voicemail after a long morning of meetings. With visual voicemail, messages are transcribed and sent to email so you can scan and prioritize who to call back first.
  • Get to the right person at the right time. With presence, colleagues make their whereabouts known to everyone in the organization. So, when a customer calls asking the question only a subject matter expert can answer, everyone knows where and how to reach them.
  • Stay on-track by setting agendas up front. When you create a meeting invite, you have the option to create a timed agenda. Attendees know up front what will be discussed and how much time will be spent on each item. Your meetings stay on track and are more productive.
  • Live in your CRM. When you integrate your phone with your CRM application, salespeople never have to switch between the two. They stay in the CRM to make and receive phone calls. Just by answering their phone, items are automatically added to their to-do lists.
  • Or live in Outlook or G Suite. Your UCaaS can also integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook and G Suite, easing adoption of your new phone system throughout the organization.

With UCaaS supported by TCI, you can have seamless communications designed precisely for your collaboration needs. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

7 Ways Cloud Voice & Collaboration Makes Your Job Easier

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Collaboration doesn’t have to be so complex… With TCI Cloud Voice Services all of your communications and collaboration tools are in one place, which means you can transition from one device or channel to another – and never lose a word in the process.

Here are 7 ways Cloud Voice simplifies collaboration – and makes your job easier:

  1. Never lose your place – All your communications are available from a single hub on your desktop, so you can keep an eye on every call and message and never lose sight of important details.
  2. Work from anywhere, together – Everyone on the team can chat, share tasks and collaborate on documents within a single workspace, whether team members are at home, on the road, or in another country.
  3. Initiate ad-hoc meetings – Need information fast? Connect with the right people at the precise moment you need their help. With one click, start a meeting and assign tasks.
  4. Prioritize messages for fast response – With visual voicemail, messages are transcribed and sent to email so you can scan and prioritize who to call back first.
  5. Reach the right person at the right time – With presence, employees make their whereabouts known, so everyone knows where and how to reach them.
  6. Set agendas up front – Create a timed agenda so attendees know ahead of time what will be discussed and how much time will be spent on each item. Your meetings stay on track and are more productive.
  7. Live in your CRM – Salespeople never have to switch between their IP phone and CRM application. They can stay in the CRM to make and receive phone calls. Just by answering their phone, items are automatically added to their to-do lists.

You can have seamless and reliable communications and collaboration without breaking the bank. Our service plans and pricing are flexible and designed to adjust to your business needs.

Let’s talk about how TCI Cloud Voice services can transform the way you do business. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

 

Improving Your Customer Experience… Consumers Want More Human Interaction

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According to the latest research, 8 in 10 consumers want more human interaction from businesses, yet 64% believe companies have lost touch with the human element of the Customer Experience, especially as they add more technology into the mix.

Here’s some practical advice on how you can humanize the Customer Experience in your business…

  • Create an engaged workforce by investing in more self-serve and automation options for customer service. By using chatbots, for example, to answer routine questions, customers can resolve issues on their own more quickly. Employees are then free to focus on the more unique and challenging customer interactions where their performance can add real value to the relationship.
  • Empower your workforce. Frontline employees know first-hand what irks your customers. Yet, many companies fail to tap this vital source of business intelligence. One way to fix this problem is to empower employees to suggest process improvements. As they become more invested in making customers happy, they’ll become more engaged and welcome opportunities to use their skills and creativity to solve problems and stretch further.
  • Provide tools that help employees succeed. Contact center agents usually bear the brunt of customer ire. And they get hit with a double whammy: Agents who can’t solve a customer issue on the first call find themselves on the wrong foot with the customer and their supervisor. To change this situation, an agent can deliver a more personalized and human interaction when CRM data is integrated with the communications solution.
  • Make collaboration easy by reorganizing the workplace to enable employees to collaborate on demand. They’ll not only be more productive, they’ll have the tools to build stronger internal working relationships with each other and with remote colleagues. Tools like web chat or video conferencing make the distance between home and office disappear.
  • Invest in training by incorporating tools such as personalization and self-service into internal portals and dashboards. Making it easy to access knowledge bases and subject matter experts will improve employees’ interactions with clients.

When employees are happy and engaged, they bring that outlook to every client conversation. Companies that focus on the employee experience first will deliver a stellar Customer Experience every time.

Let’s talk about next steps to improve your Customer Experience. Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.