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Mitel’s CloudLink Solution… Everything Begins with the Gateway Connecting Your On-Premises Platforms to the Cloud

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CloudLink is Mitel’s innovative application development and delivery solution. Our Blog Post from last month provides an introduction and overview. As discussed, CloudLink allows businesses to leverage their existing Voice and IT assets, while adding and extending new capabilities from the Cloud.

A key component of this app development and delivery solution is the CloudLink Gateway. This device connects your PBX to the CloudLink platform and CloudLink applications. It can be deployed on premises, or in the cloud as part of Mitel’s MiCloud service, or as part of a third-party Mitel-powered service.

Adaptors within the gateway communicate with the underlying call control platform of the connected PBX using its signaling protocol or generic SIP. The gateway normalizes the signaling protocols from disparate PBXs so only one signaling and messaging protocol is shared between the gateway and the CloudLink platform.

The CloudLink Gateway enables a cost-effective path to the Cloud. It supports convenient access to customized cloud-based apps and delivery to any device at any location, including your mobile devices and IoT appliances.

Mitel’s CloudLink technology is being rolled out to support businesses of any size. For example, small businesses using MiVoice Office 250 have built-in support for the CloudLink Gateway with Release 6.3.

Next month, we’ll explore the development platform elements of Mitel CloudLink. Meanwhile, if you are wondering how CloudLink can benefit your business, contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Access Mitel’s Entire Pallet of Tools via TCI Host – Your Customized Cloud Voice Service

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TCI Host service is all about flexibility

Add new cloud-based tools to your existing business phone system, and when you’re ready, migrate your platform to the cloud and reduce your overall telecom costs.

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. Managing a multi-site business? TCI Host brings offices closer together.

Powerful Capabilities

Explore some of the collaboration features your users can tap with their mobile or desktop phones. With access to these Mitel-powered tools, your work will no longer be a location but an activity that can be tackled from anywhere:

  • Persistent workspaces for team meetings, conversations, content review and project management
  • Point-to-point Video calling
  • Multi-point Video Conferencing
  • Scheduled and ad hoc conferencing and webinars
  • Participant management
  • Desktop application sharing
  • Public and private chat
  • Web based collaboration
  • Document management
  • Conference recording
  • Integration to other business applications such as: Outlook, Lotus Notes, IBM Sametime, and Google
  • Presence Tools
  • Mobile Softphone
  • Web Client
  • Unified Messaging, including fax via email
  • Remote control of desktops
  • Outlook client plug-in
  • Message retrieval from one synchronized message store

Deploy the tools your people need to serve your customers better.  For a single, low monthly price, upgrade to advanced mobile-enabled, desktop phones (like Mitel’s 6900 series) and access Mitel’s award-winning features to improve your Customer Experience.

Contact us today to schedule your TCI Host demo: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Mobilize Your Enterprise With Mitel’s MiVoice 6900 Premium Desk Phones

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Mitel’s MiVoice 6900 series desk phones enable you to become more mobile with one-touch Bluetooth pairing and seamless integration with your mobile phone.

Not only can you stay productive by easily switching calls between your desk phone and your mobile phone, you can have mobile and desktop contacts automatically sync between your devices.

6900 Series Video Introduction [44 sec.]

Mobile phone users can leverage the exceptional HD audio and comfortable ergonomics of the 6900 series phones for both IP and cellphone calls. The 6900 phones deliver crystal clear audio through a unique corded or cordless voice-optimized handset and high performance hands-free speakerphone.

More MiVoice 6900 Series Phone Features…

  • High resolution color displays
  • Support for Mitel Teleworker, ACD agent and supervisor, hot desking, MiCollab Client and more
  • Secure encrypted voice communication
  •  Quality of Service support
  • Dual 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet ports (LAN/PC), powered USB 2.0 Host port, sidecar expansion port, dedicated 4-pin modular headset port convertible to DHSG/EHS capable
  • Bluetooth wireless interface

The 6900 series also offers a broad array of add-on user installable accessories that enable the phones to be tailored to specific user needs.

Ready for the convenience and productivity that come from adding mobility to your desk phones? Contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

TCI Host – Cloud Voice Solution Simplifies Communication, Management & Budget

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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, it’s time to move to the Cloud with TCI Host.

Talk, Chat, Share & Meet

With TCI Host, you get all the features from the most 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.

TCI Host fits into the way your office team works. Use a desktop phone, smart phone or softphone on your laptop. Imagine… Just one phone system supporting your business no matter when and where your team is working – office, home, on the road, or branch locations.

We Deliver & Set Up Everything

Unlike many providers, who 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 TCI Host, your business communications become a differentiator – a competitive advantage – that drives productivity and helps your people deliver an exceptional Customer Experience.

 

Don’t let outdated communications hold your business back…  Contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

The 5 Most Important Contact & Call Center Trends

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We’ve seen a lot of changes to the call center and Customer Experience landscape in recent years. Cloud communications and a distributed workforce have been on the minds of many our clients. The need to integrate social media channels is becoming more important than ever.

Here are 5 of the strategic trends shaping up to influence businesses and their call center operations…

1. Digital transformation

Businesses are turning to truly digital contact centers that redefine the Customer Experience from start to finish. Seamless integration of technologies across the business provides full customer context with each interaction and leverages system data to provide proactive service.

2. Two-way social media conversations

When customers interact with a business online via social media, they expect a personalized and immediate response. More importantly, the two-way conversation is public, so other customers will be watching to see how the business addressed the problem.

3. Omni-channel communications

While a customer journey may begin on one channel, valuable insight and feedback may be taking place on a completely different channel. Unifying customer communications across channels gives businesses better context for their customers, helps resolve issues faster, and assists agents in identifying better opportunities for future sales.

4. Better contact center analytics

Sophisticated analytics turn data – like call and screen recordings, chats, SMS messages and more – into useful feedback for agents. Analytics programs are being used to build statistical dashboards so agents and managers can get real-time updates on customer experiences.

5. More remote call center agents

With constantly improving unified cloud communications, remote workers have become a permanent and beneficial part of the contact center environment. With collaboration tools, contact center agents can take their work mobile, with access to real-time analytics and customer context.

Need help figuring out how to apply these trends to your business? Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Internet of Things: How Mitel is Giving Machines a Voice

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Connecting devices allow businesses to operate more efficiently. The IoT’s ability to automate tasks like monitoring, sensing, and data collection is driving its adoption across many industries.

A new IoT innovation is being enabled by Mitel – giving connected devices a ‘voice’ to alert people who can interact and address whatever situation a device is reporting.

For example, airports are innovating to give IoT a Voice… an airport outfitted its automated external defibrillator (AED) cabinets with sensors to trigger messages to medical staff whenever a cabinet door opens. In the past, opening a cabinet would simply sound an alarm, but what the alarm was for, or who was responding to it wasn’t necessarily clear. With IoT, the appropriate personnel receive the alert, and they can notify others that they’re responding.

Giving IoT a Voice was also extended to maintenance processes. Environmental sensors monitor temperature and carbon dioxide levels throughout the airport. When, for example, the temperature of a certain part of a terminal exceeds a set threshold, sensors trigger messages to maintenance personnel, who are dispatched to identify and repair the problem.

Think about your own business and how you use devices… In addition to building management, security, healthcare and hospitality, virtually any industry will find applications for this technology, especially those looking to speed customer response.

Ready to give your devices a Voice? Let’s discuss your unique communication and networking needs. Contact TCI today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

 

Mitel CloudLink Streamlines App Development to Empower Business Transformation

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Businesses are continually looking for ways to streamline and automate workflows and increase productivity to the point where all elements of their organization – people, processes, data and things – can connect and communicate seamlessly to enable growth.

Mitel addresses these needs with CloudLink, an application development and delivery platform that allows businesses to leverage existing assets, while adding and extending new capabilities accessed from the cloud.

Why Mitel CloudLink? 

  • Businesses can move toward cloud services using their existing systems.
  • A hybrid cloud approach is easy to deploy and use.
  • Open architecture and APIs accelerate the creation of tailored apps.
  • Tailored applications help future-proof and create “sticky” customers.
  • The subscription model, plus rapid app creation capabilities, open more revenue streams.

CloudLink Components

  • Gateway – Simple, secure and affordable to deploy, this core technology connects on-site call control platforms to Mitel’s open cloud platform. It provides access to next-gen applications and allows businesses to leverage what they already have so they can move to the cloud at their own pace.
  • Platform – Intuitive tools are offered that speed application development while optimizing costs. With no development knowledge required, the platform simplifies delivery of immersive and customized communication experiences.
  • Applications – Leveraging Mitel APls and microservices, CloudLink apps are tailored to the specific communication needs of various industries and verticals. The applications are continuously developed, rapidly deployed, simple to manage, and delivered in real time.

Mitel CloudLink offers a streamlined environment for building and delivering software. It makes your developers more productive, maximizes your IT investments, and enables faster innovation. Bottom line: CloudLink has the power to drive meaningful transformation of your business.

In the coming months, TCI will delve more deeply into various aspects of Mitel CloudLink. Meanwhile, if you are wondering how cloud technology can benefit your business, contact TCI today: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Why Affordable Call and Screen Recording Makes Good Business Sense

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Many industries are faced with legal and regulatory compliance guidelines that require them to record their phone conversations, but businesses in every industry can benefit as well.

Here’s how…

  • Document customer transactions, both Voice & Screen
  • Meet compliance requirements
  • Resolve customer disputes
  • Enhance employee productivity
  • Improve internal processes
  • Train and coach customer service representatives

Call and screen recording also enables improved collaboration by allowing employees to share specific call segments, along with text-based notes. They can send out a request for help throughout the organization, and quickly deliver the right information to the customer, improving the customer’s experience.

Our experts are ready to help you with a call and screen recording solution that’s customized for your business. To get started, contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

The “Cloud” Defined – What it Means for Your Small or Mid-Sized Business

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Imagine being able to access company data, applications, services, and resources Anytime, Anywhere. That’s the idea behind the “Cloud” – an efficient, flexible and cost-saving IT platform – that small and mid-sized businesses are rapidly adopting to save money and improve day-to-day operations.

The Cloud makes it much easier for small and large enterprises to quickly and easily access Voice, Computing, Storage, Software, Development, and Network resources on demand.

Cloud Services offer consolidation and automation of administrative tasks. This allows you to focus on your business instead of managing technology.

There are several types of Clouds to consider…

Public − Operated as a utility by a third party with services delivered over the Web, this multi-tenant arrangement is typically billed on a consumption basis.

Private − Virtual Machines or Apps reside on a company’s own dedicated hosts and storage servers; providing high levels of flexibility, scalability, availability, and security.

Hybrid − A mix of public and private clouds that enables a company to leverage the scalability and economy of a public cloud without losing control or risking mission-critical applications and data to potential third-party vulnerabilities.

Virtualization − Allows a company to run several operating systems and applications, including voice, on a single machine. With this arrangement, shared pools of resources can be created to optimize the infrastructure for better performance, reliability and availability.

Let’s sit down at your planning table to discuss how the Cloud can help your organization get ahead… Contact us today at (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.

 

Managing Multiple Offices? TCI Connects the Dots

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Wherever you have office locations, TCI’s National Account team takes care of everything, including the design and implementation of your new systems. We’ll also arrange the office infrastructure and cabling for you, including wireless access points.

TCI makes it easy for you to expand your business regionally, nationally or internationally, providing you with…

  • Simplified procurements
  • Single point of contact for equipment and services
  • Predictable pricing
  • Prompt handling of change requests
  • Peace of mind

We make it easy to network all your phone systems… on-site, hosted, or a mix of both. You’ll centrally manage everything and your users can take charge of their own features right from their desktop.

Learn more about how TCI can make your life easier no matter how many locations you have to manage. Contact us today at: (703) 321-3030 or info@tcicomm.com.