We’re passionate about unified communications (UC). UC comes with plenty of benefits that have only become more important as your digital space has started to matter more than before. Here’s what to look out for in the UC space in 2023.
Everything as a Service (XaaS)
You’re well aware that everything is either on the cloud or moving there. Now, unified communications as a service (UCaaS) is less of a tool and more of a business hub. After all, workers are frequently not at the office or not at the same office, but they’re all online in their unified communications environment.
As a result, we’re seeing huge growth in X as a service (XaaS), where X means everything. UCaaS, communications platform as a service (CPaaS), contact centre as a service (CCaaS), network as a service (NaaS)—it’s all poised for growth. And in the next couple of years, it may all converge into XaaS.
Even More Collaborative Video
Zoom may have been the story of the pandemic, but let’s first point out that video conferencing is more than Zoom, and second, it isn’t going anywhere. Go ahead and put video meetings in the “things the pandemic changed permanently” pile. Why? More remote work, less tolerance for travelling long distance to do a meeting, and honestly, the tools have gotten really good. In fact, consultancy firm Gartner is predicting that only 25% of meetings will be in person by 2024. Collaborative video is a key technology of unified communications on par with voice and messaging, and good default features will include storage, meeting transcription, built-in messaging, and beefier security features. In the future, look out for truly game-changing features such as real-time translation.
More Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) and Mobile Integration
IT teams used to wrestle with bring your own device (BYOD) policies. Now that remote and hybrid work is the norm and the thing connecting workers to each other is primarily their own smartphones, get ready for more bring your own carrier (BYOC) policies. Unified communications apps make communications seamless, whether it’s through voice, video, or text, and this seamlessness is aided when workers can stick with their own devices and carriers.
Speaking of devices, we’ve rapidly approached the time when any feature unveiled in a UC suite must be available on mobile devices by default. Phones have mattered more than desktops or laptops in the consumer space for years. Now, business is following suit.
AI Management Tools
As the workplace is more digital, more diverse, and more complicated than even a few years ago, management tools must keep pace to help control the technology stack. More and more, service management solutions will be AI-powered.
For example, new AI-powered management tools might use conversational analytics to alert staff when compliance problems crop up in conversations. Or they might better detect social engineering hacks as opposed to purely technological hacks, such as spear-phishing attempts. AI tools might even help generate data sets out of your communications, driving innovation.
The Rise of Total Experience
A customer using your software has one user experience. A customer using your products has another experience. A customer who reaches out to you over social media, then buys something from your website, and then calls your contact centre has multiple experiences, all potentially different. Finally, your employees who log into your UC platform experience your company in an entirely different way. But why? Granted, all these people are doing different things—but shouldn’t your company, which has a specific brand identity, also convey a specific type of experience?
This is sort of what total experience (TX) is supposed to be. If user experiences (UX), customer experiences (CX), multi-experiences (MX), and employee experiences (EX) are all linked in some way, then said experiences can be better understood and improved.
