Running any small business can be a challenge. Between managing day-to-day activities and addressing quarterly tax and insurance responsibilities, it’s easy for small business (SMB) owners to get overwhelmed.
Thanks to technology solutions, many of those tasks and duties are getting easier, especially when their IT teams integrate the latest tools and automate repetitive, day-to-day processes.
Those “force-multiplying” systems allow businesses to get the most out of their limited resources. Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a perfect example, providing SMBs with a powerful communications experience that gives them access to collaborative features with near continuous upgrades and improvements. These cloud-based platforms make it easier (and faster) for employees and customers to connect, share information and automatically initiate actions. These are all important elements in work-from-home (WFH) and hybrid work environments that allow MSPs to provide their SMB clients with a powerful and seamless communications network.
Even before the pandemic, mobility solutions were on the rise, with companies looking for new ways to expand their geographic sales coverage and hiring opportunities. UCaaS helps SMBs achieve those objectives. The flexibility of the cloud gives companies the ability to recruit and set up new sales teams virtually anywhere – putting more boots in or near targeted communities.
The good news for MSPs is that relatively few businesses understand how to implement, configure and optimize the user experience with UCaaS. Providers can deliver those services, bringing next generation communications capabilities to their clients’ employees from any internet-connected device. As the needs of SMBs continue to change, UCaaS can smooth the transitions and empower both the remote and office-based workforces.
Now is a good time to begin those conversations. How can your SMB clients benefit from UCaaS? Here are a few key advantages:
1. Boost Employee Collaboration
In a small business, it’s important to have all your departments on the same page. When each team has its own set of tools, silos can develop, and things start slipping through the cracks, especially when co-workers are offsite. UCaaS creates easily shared repositories. With useful features like group messaging and video conferencing, team members can easily connect from any location (even from smartphones). File sharing and task tracking, as well as integrations with other business-critical solutions, can simplify collaboration.
2. Empower the WFH and Hybrid Workforces
The ability to communicate from various devices through voice, SMS, and video is a huge advantage for businesses with employees working from home, either temporarily or long-term. UCaaS gives your clients greater insight and visibility into their operations with various metrics and tracking options. Management can leverage productivity and accountability tools to identify issues and collaborate with team members to boost sales, oversee accounts, or attain other business objectives. In uncertain times, MSPs can give their clients more control and oversight to stabilize operations and better support their employees.
3. Improve Customer Service
Communication is the key connection point between businesses and their clientele. Providing a quality customer experience has become a top priority for many organizations, so it’s more important than ever to enhance every interaction today. UCaaS boosts SMBs capabilities in that area and can optimize every step of the customer journey – from the lead prospecting and onboarding to account manager check-ins. Quality conversations with up-to-date information makes that possible.
4. Enhance Scalability
Unlike traditional phone systems, adding a new UCaaS user requires no new equipment and training is simple – a win-win for everyone, including MSPs. Similarly, during downsizing, there is no need for SMBs to get stuck paying for unused extensions and surplus equipment. MSPs can turn UCaaS seats on or off, while installation and disconnection costs are minimal. That’s a good way to increase customer satisfaction and grow relationships, leading to more contract renewals and higher long-term revenue.
5. Save Money
Since UCaaS utilizes the cloud, cost-conscious SMBs can minimize their investments in hardware and eliminate unexpected support and service bills. Employees can leverage existing phones, PCs, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices to save even more money.
6. Integrations
UCaaS is an excellent stand-alone tool but gains even more power when integrated with other applications, including CRMs, collaboration platforms and recruiting tools. Connecting these systems empower employees with better project management workflows, as well as improve the efficiency of their communications and reporting processes. For example, a CRM integration with a UCaaS platform can allow workers to log calls, dial directly by tapping the app's interface, and view relevant customer or prospect information on a single screen.
7. Minimize Downtime
Not every UCaaS solution is the same. The good news is the top channel vendors, including Cloudli, offer MSPs an added layer of security and reliability, and that redundancy minimizes downtime. As with other cloud-based solutions that make continual and uninterrupted updates, end-users can expect fewer application-related disruptions.
Provide Complete UCaaS Support
Those are just a few of the benefits UCaaS can bring to your customers. With many SMBs struggling to adapt their workplaces and operations to meet today’s business demands, MSPs must deliver new solutions to make it happen.
UCaaS sits at the top of that list. Virtually every business could use a communications and collaboration makeover. And not just with the technologies, but also with designing, procuring, implementing, and supporting those systems. Cloudli helps MSPs tackle those objectives with effective and easy to set up solutions and a top-notch partner program.
Learn more about Cloudli's UCaaS solution here, or by scheduling a demo.
