It’s a multi-vendor world out there.
Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Zoom – whatever ecosystem you’re in, many of your customers, colleagues, and partners are in another.
It’s because competition has fuelled a healthy explosion in unified communication and collaboration tools. And, simultaneously, users have embraced the capabilities and become reliant on them to do their daily business.
That’s all good, of course. However, the separate, disconnected nature of competing systems can make for a clunky user experience.
For Cisco Broadsoft users in particular, interacting frictionlessly with Microsoft users is a challenge. However, integrate those two worlds and suddenly things get a whole lot smoother, faster, and more efficient.
“The more cross-platform inter-activity that exists, the better the experience for everyone – it’s less about Cisco competing with Microsoft, and more about helping users to simultaneously leverage the benefits of both,” says Steve Tutt, Commercial Director at leading Broadsoft application innovator Kakapo, whose white-label Unity solution empowers service providers to enable precisely that.
“Receptionists or call handlers become instantly better at what they do because they are able to field calls more effectively and efficiently. It makes everything slicker for everyone.”
The Kakapo solution cleverly enhances Cisco Broadsoft users’ ability to interact closely with Microsoft O365 tools – specifically Outlook, Teams, and Dynamics.
The Unity unified communications interface shows if a colleague is either engaged on their Broadsoft extension, engaged on a Teams call, or free to take a call via either channel. With just a few clicks, the call handler can also interrogate the colleague’s calendar to see, for example, whether they are on leave or to identify a time when they will be free. Further granularity enables the booking of a call by a receptionist which drops seamlessly into relevant calendars.
“Users can see any of their colleagues calendar events without having to go into Outlook or Teams,” says Tutt. “It means they have a lot more single-view intelligence from a call handling point of view. Being able to share with a caller a full picture and understanding of a colleague’s status makes that interaction much richer. No more annoyingly unsuccessful call redirect attempts; no more frustrated callers failing to get through; no more missed opportunities to project a slick and professional impression. Those things matter because there is nothing more disappointing – for call handler and caller – if a person with whom they are trying to connect is otherwise engaged on Teams, for example, when it first appears they are free to take a call. From a reputational perspective, it looks disorganised and unprofessional.”
Similarly, Broadsoft-powered Unity is able to automatically and seamlessly integrate all call, email and web chat data with the Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool; giving organisations a complete record of every interaction.
“Organisations are rightly precious about their CRM because it is at the heart of their business,” says Tutt. “Unity’s ability to ensure all data is automatically captured and integrated – regardless of how it has entered the business or whether the CRM is part of a Microsoft ecosystem – adds huge value.”
It’s certainly the case that the days of a single communication technology vendor providing end user customers with all of the functionality it needs are long gone. Indeed, based on the global adoption numbers, it’s hard to look past Microsoft Teams when identifying the world’s most popular collaboration platform.
That said, for Cisco Broadsoft users, there is absolutely no need to compromise.
“Organisations can have the best of both worlds,” says Tutt. “They may be committed to Cisco, but with Unity, their service providers can offer altogether more flexible functionality that is also compatible with Microsoft. Millions of organisations are in the Broadsoft camp, and millions are in the O365 Microsoft camp. But there are also millions in the middle, with an overlapping dependence on both. For our service provider partners, that represents a huge opportunity.”
To learn more about how Kakapo can help your and your customers’ businesses leverage Cisco/Microsoft integration, click here.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/OqSrXw4
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