The digital age has created endless choice for the discerning consumer, and an ever expanding list of potential difficulties for businesses ranging from logistics to product problems.
This has shifted company resources towards customer support, particularly in the hyper-growth tech industry where outsourcing CX is most commonplace.
This customer-centric focus has given many companies a competitive edge. This is punctuated by the cloud-based contact centre industry’s $17.5bn projected value by 2021 (US) with 91% of businesses operating in the industry experiencing growth.
As CX becomes one of the strongest competitive advantages, the Blueface team investigate major changes in the industry and outline why a Unified Communications portal can boost your operational efficiency (and your Net Promoter Score).
Customer Urgency

Time is limited, for your staff and your customers.
According to Markets&Markets, over 61% of customers expect a first-time resolution to their problem and usually that doesn’t involve call transfers.
You can increase customer patience (willingness-to-wait) or allow self-service with IVR system and ensure they experience minimal transfers with user friendly call flow designer.

While 79% prefer calls, busy customers expect a speedy solution via live message (Whatsapp, Zopim, WeChat etc.), email and social media (public and potentially toxic).
Dependent on the industry in which your business operates, missing these messages could be extra costly and cause backlog your phones.
Unified communications allows account administrators and team leaders to corral customer touchpoints and maintain clear visibility – even remotely after hours for emergencies.
Flexible Scaling

This shear rate of scaling enabled by new technologies has had some unexpected consequences. Inefficiently managing the new sites, employees and technologies can have adverse effects on any business, and with quick scaling – mistakes are easily found.
Real-time account management with an endlessly scalable cloud-based phone system allows businesses to scale confidently, even in highly competitive sectors.
Cloud comms infrastructure de-risks scaling as businesses are no longer dependent on physical “on-the-ground” equipment or third parties for localisation.
Companies can establish a global presence in new offices, co-working spaces or home workspaces from their headquarters in moments. This makes global talent search easier, expands your company’s skillset and allows for a quick local presence.
Extra flexibility is delivered through soft clients such as the Blueface Softphone App, which enable you can easily implement Bring Your Own Device policies, allowing new agents to join the company network instantly. With Softphone, your employees’ mobile device or tablet can soft-integrate with any office network.
No more lines. No more calls to your provider. Admins can add a user, devices or even new physical sites from the UC Portal, cutting down ICT-spend allowing a business to focus on their core competencies (on a global scale).
Real-Time Account Management
Customer care has historically been a high turnover industry and as a result it can be hard to retain staff members. Mercer’s 2016 research outlined that turnover is still the #1 problem facing the support-focused contact centre industry.
Surface-level Google-esque perks with kitschy, conversational themes like Pizza Friday and Ping Pong Socials have been introduced but they serve as stop gaps.
Cultivating a social working culture is a good start but what happens when there’s no improvement? Companies must continue their work at improving retention and to begin to explore ways of being fluid with employee onboarding.
With a Unified Communications Platform, you can pair staff with devices immediately without the need to start a user account (handy with high turnover).

As soon new support staff start – they can be set up with their own device, which also helps the business keep track and as they progress, accounts can be made instantly.
New cloud-based telephony allows remote account management from administrators – any office, any user, from anywhere in the world.
This efficiency combined with the cost-saving call rates provided by IP-based telephony way without having to pay for new lines or extra support functions.
New Technologies, Faster Obsolescence
The introduction rate of new technologies has skyrocketed, consistently bringing obsolescence to old legacy equipment like a physical PBX.
This is particularly true in telecoms as the largest providers around the world are undergoing a widespread IP-migration.
We’ve seen the true-cost of business telecoms infographic (think iceberg, buried treasure) but that number looks to worsen for old systems in the future.
With cloud-based telephony reaching a tipping point, PBX systems maintenance will become a specialisation and may prove even costlier in terms of finances and time-spent.
Did you know?
The UK’s biggest provider, BT has set 2025 as the IP-migration date.
While this doesn’t mean those with analogue lines will be shut down immediately, it will herald the start of the end for line-based telephony.On a consumer side, touchpoint technologies have ballooned too and businesses need to pay close attention to each contact avenue.
A Unified Communications portal helps businesses track email, fax, live chat messenger, call time and more with detailed call analytics.
Create smart workflows for your staff and ensure your customer’s voice is heard on any platform with valuable data from a UC Portal.
Customer Experience Visibility
Global eCommerce is driving growth in every industry but companies often struggle to manage the extra volume that comes with global operations.
Outsourcing to contact centres like Voxpro allows companies like AirBnB, and Google and a host of tech companies to continue to innovate without damaging their reputation.
Contact centres specialise in operational efficiency to drive revenue and much of this is achieved through IP-first telephony.
IP-driven telephony combined with a UC Platform integrates with your phone system, giving you the same detailed call breakdown and user flexibility you’d find in a contact centre.
Have multiple international offices? You can set time of day rules so the phones automatically switch over to another site, in another corner of the globe.
With Unified Communications provider, your operation can achieve that coveted contact centre efficiency and direct contact lets customers know they’re more than than tickets.
Infinite Users, Infinite Sites, One Provider

This post has covered how administrating multiple office accounts and adding new users with a Unified communications portal is a breeze – even for the biggest organisations.
A not-so-secret advantage of IP-telephony is that it is not geographically bound and with that – neither are the providers.
IP-first Blueface provide service and a suite of features that make managing your telecommunications infrastructure simple. With data centres dotted around the globe Blueface customers can be sure of compliance and quality anywhere in the world.
As a bonus, rather than a swathe of international phone bills to wade through, Blueface Unified Billing offers transparent billing data.