5 tips to set your business communications for smooth sailing in a challenging economy

A panel of experts weighed in on 5 tips to keep your business ship-shape through any economic environment by leaning on your business communications solution to deliver more for your business at lower cost.

BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES

Evaluate your costs, uncover redundancies, and determine where it makes sense to consolidate systems, resources, and operations. Look at ways to save money while also improving business performance. Start with a few simple questions:

Does your business use an on-premises phone system that’s loaded with rigid extra costs you may not be aware of like maintenance fees? ala carte services? hardware replacement expenses? service charges for changes and upgrades? and more?

Are you paying multiple vendors for basic communications and collaboration tools like business phones? video conferencing? team chat? contact center? and secure file storage, sharing and backup?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are likely paying more than you should for the business communications functionality that powers most businesses. You may be paying far more than you should.

The right business communications cloud offers all the essential business communications and collaboration functionality in one integrated platform – with a flat-rate for all your calls, chats, file and video conferences anywhere in North America and one predictable monthly charge that is generally far lower than legacy systems.

And, unlike on-premises systems that require a major investment of time and money to add advanced features like video conferencing and file sharing, these features come pre-integrated with a cloud communications platform.

Ask the questions that can free up hidden expenses from redundant and obsolete systems while adding new capabilities to benefit your employees and customers. You may be surprised at what you find.

RUN A TIGHT SHIP

Only pay for what you need, only when you need it. Look for solutions that allow you flexibility and efficiency to adjust to shifts in the economy, seasonal spikes and lows, or market expansion opportunities. If you have to purchase hardware scoped to a certain number of users or are bound to a contract or a set number of users, you should re-evaluate.

Instead of trying to guess or predict what your business will need on an on-going basis, a cloud communications platform gives you pay-as-you-go subscription pricing. You only pay for what you need and only when you need it!

Adding, moving, or changing users with a conventional phone system might take a technician or a call to the phone company. With a cloud communications platform you add users quickly and easily with just a click on a web-based administration console—even from a mobile device.

If you need to decrease the size of your employee base, make sure you aren’t forced to continue paying the same price with your communications system because it’s hard-wired to your office.

If you grow your team, make sure you can do so quickly and easily as your business needs dictate. You should be able to scale up and down and pay only for what you need.

STEER CLEAR OF ICEBERGS

Look for reliable, secure and versatile solutions that allow you to be present for your customers no matter what storms lie ahead. And, be sure to check the reliability and reputation of the service providers you are using.

Every business needs reliable communications tools with good audio and video quality, as well as security and versatility.

A cloud provider with a robust network and core infrastructure located in redundant data centers can provide carrier-class reliability and superior call quality.

Plus, having a mobile and desktop computer application, along with all of your data being backed up in the cloud, means your business continues even in the case of a fire, power outage, or natural disaster.

This reliability and security are priceless.

KEEP YOUR CREW HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE

Free your business up from workforce constraints and rethink your employee location model. Geographic flexibility, speed and agility has shifted from competitive advantage to table stakes. By shifting the way you do business, you can also expand your workforce to lower cost geographical areas, thus allowing you greater flexibility to find and hire talent, while potentially saving money on salaries and benefits. Allowing for more flexibility with hybrid and remote options, you could save on travel expenses and overall real estate costs.

A cloud communications platform means employees can talk to customers, and to each other, anytime, from anywhere, and on virtually any device.

A good cloud-communications solution provides apps for mobile devices and desktops to support your workers anywhere they are located.

Mobility allows employees to access conference calls, videoconferences, chats, faxing, web meetings, and file sharing from their mobile device or laptop.

The cloud can also deliver advanced features like videoconferencing, web meetings, and file sharing to keep your employees seamlessly connected—and for less overall cost than on-premises solutions.

NAVIGATE YOUR BUSINESS TO SMOOTH SAILING

Keeping everyone connected is critical to keeping your business on course. Open new opportunities for collaboration and communication, keeping your employees connected seamlessly, simply and without interruption. Modern communications solutions offer so much more functionality and at lower overall cost.

The days of waiting for the phone company to install new lines or getting on-site business phone hardware set up and connected are in the past.

You can install a reliable, full-featured cloud communications platform almost instantly.

Getting employees connected is as simple as plugging phones into a standard ethernet wall outlet that is common in most buildings or downloading a mobile or desktop PC app.

Easily spin up branch offices or provision remote workers quickly. Rather than requesting a service call or waiting for the phone company to provision lines, you can simply send phones or headsets to new offices or remote workers. Your employees easily plug the phones into an ethernet wall outlet and they’re ready to go.

SET SAIL WITH INTERMEDIA CLOUD COMMUNICATION PLATFORM

Moving to a cloud communications platform is one of the easiest and quickest ways businesses can cut costs while improving business performance.

AboutAndrea Meza

Hi, I´m an author of this blog. Take a look to our latest posts about us and industry related topics.