What Is Unified Communications As A Service (UCaaS)?

Cost savings

Implementing UCaaS allows you to make cost savings in several areas:

• Reduced IT expenditure: Since your UCaaS provider hosts and maintains all UC infrastructure, you save on the costs of purchasing and managing servers, operating systems, and other hardware/software. Managing less IT infrastructure allows you to employ fewer IT staff.
• Lower travel costs: With flexibility, fast connectivity across locations, and collaboration tools, UCaaS is an ideal technology for remote and hybrid working environments. Bringing remote teams effortlessly together saves traveling costs (and lowers your company’s carbon footprint!).
• Single subscription: Paying one cost-effective subscription to access all your enterprise communications removes the cost of multiple subscription plans.

Improved efficiencies and collaboration

According to Harvard Business Review, employees in large organizations spend up to four hours a week toggling between different work applications. This is a sizeable productivity drain by any measure.

UCaaS consolidates voice, video, messaging, and email into a single platform, streamlining your business communications. When your team has convenient, efficient access to everything they need to do their jobs, expect workflows and workplace fulfillment to improve.

Teamwork improves, too, as users have the tools to meet and collaborate productively in real-time from wherever they are located.

Better customer experiences

UCaaS offers features to improve customer service, engagement, and satisfaction levels.

• Omnichannel engagement: Modern customers expect a choice of options to connect with you. They can now engage via voice, video, chat, and SMS, making interactions super convenient.
• Customer analytics: Analytics provide insights about customers’ needs, satisfaction levels, and your employees’ service. This data can be used to improve service quality and develop a client-focused strategy.
• Call service features: Features like voicemail to email, simultaneous ringing, intelligent call routing, and contact centers help ensure no customer call is missed or overlooked.

Security and compliance

Reputable UCaaS providers deliver robust end-to-end security to protect people, data, and communications. UCaaS platform security measures include:

• Network and system firewalls
• Cloud data backup and recovery
• Advanced encryption
• Stringent authorization and access control
• Intrusion and suspicious incident monitoring

Your provider manages all software updates, including patching, to ensure your software has the latest security features.

UCaaS providers must comply with regulations relating to customer communications data. The services typically incorporate protocols and systems to ensure compliance with:

• HIPPA
• The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (OCI DSS)
• Other industry-specific regulations.

Strong business continuity

Your UCaaS platform should provide reliable and resilient connectivity, minimizing costly unplanned downtime. To ensure business continuity, UCaaS systems are built with redundancy. Redundancy means the provider hosts services across multiple dispersed data centers, ensuring uninterrupted availability if one or even two centers go down.

Strategic failover systems provide an extra assurance of service availability. Compare this to a legacy communications system with has a single point of failure—a hardware crash or office fire can shut down critical communications, even the entire operation.

Leading UCaaS providers guarantee over 99.99% uptime in their Service Level Agreements. Rigorous contingency planning and system monitoring help them meet this commitment.

Flexible and scalable

UCaaS is designed to scale as your business grows. You can expand your service easily with a straightforward capacity adjustment and without you needing to acquire, configure, and administer expensive new hardware.

Your provider adds capacity in the background without disrupting business. As you grow and add new users and locations, additional video, messaging, voice, and collaboration connections are seamlessly incorporated.

System flexibility ensures you only pay for the hardware and services you need at any given time. If you downsize, there is no need to pay for excess capacity as your allocation is simply re-sized.

• Cloud infrastructure: Providers use cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud to host services. They may also use their own proprietary cloud infrastructure or leverage a combination of both. A cloud approach efficiently manages large volumes of data and communications.

• VoIP technology: VoIP is a central component of UCaaS. This technology enables voice calls over the internet using popular protocols like SIP (Session Initiation Protocol).

• Video technology: Real-time video calls are enabled by technologies like WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) and Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP).

• Instant messaging: Instant messaging is delivered using various internet protocols to transmit real-time communication. XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) is widely used, but some providers favor proprietary protocols.

• APIs and integration: APIs (Application Programming Interface) are vital in supporting productivity-enhancing integration. They allow you to integrate other business apps and services like CRMs and ERPs with your communication tools.

• Collaboration tools: Software solutions supporting document sharing, virtual whiteboards, and video meetings are integrated with other UCaaS features such as presence indicators (showing team members’ availability) and task management.

• Healthcare providers: UCaaS provides secure and convenient communication channels—like video consultations and messaging—for patients to interact with health personnel remotely. Patients unable to visit a health facility can still consult a doctor or nurse via video call and receive medical assistance.

Collaboration tools allow personnel in different departments or hospitals to urgently convene to discuss medical cases or emergencies.

• Education institutions: UCaaS solutions can integrate with Learning Management Systems (LMS) to provide high-quality video conferencing for virtual classrooms, webinars, and student-teacher consultations. Many UCaaS solutions integrate seamlessly with tools like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, which are already widely used in teaching.

• Legal firms: A lawyer can host a secure video conference with clients to discuss case updates and share confidential documents and audio evidence. They can use instant messaging to track breaking developments and share a live audio call with opposing attorneys.

• Local connection problems: A weak Wi-Fi signal or a loose Ethernet cable can prevent DNS requests from going through.

• Expert UCaaS rollout: We work with you to develop a clear, actionable implementation plan to limit business and employee disruption. Our highly experienced team oversees the infrastructure setup, managing all configurations, security settings, and user accounts. We also attend to the necessary integrations. The process is executed securely and according to timelines.

• Training and adoption: We help train your team to use the new system effectively. Training is designed to be interesting and to ensure your team is comfortable working with the tools—it emphasizes best practices and skills development to ensure the system is successfully adopted by all. After a while, the tech that might have appeared complex suddenly seems simple.

• Ongoing support: As part of our ongoing backup, we take care of all of the following for you:
  • Professional backup – technical support and guidance to help you get the most from your system.
  • System maintenance – maintaining the servers and cloud assets.
  • Software updates – providing the latest features and benefits.
  • Scaling – enabling you to add new applications, users, and offices.
  • Security – cybersecurity firewalls, encryptions, and protection upgrades.

Support is part of our contractual obligation. Exceptional support is part of our mission—our 4.9-star Google satisfaction rating speaks to our dedication to service excellence.

• Regulatory compliance: Our experience in numerous industries (including healthcare, legal, education, and finance) has given us a strong understanding of the regulatory compliance environment. Our UCaaS solutions are designed to support key compliance standards in North America and Europe. Ironclad cyber security is also a critical priority.