VoIP-based Unified Communications Systems - A Great Business Tool
With the advent of VoIP, many companies have come up with unified communications systems. These help to ease the problems of `telephone tag' and deliver a better service to end customers of enterprises using them. With unified communication systems, it is possible to integrate CRM and customer service responses and provide the end user with a seamless way to deal with customers. Most small and medium enterprises today are doing their best to woo and retain customers by offering a great service and customer experience. Both Cisco's Unified Communications Manager and Avaya's IP Office offer facilities that help small and medium enterprises to provide a better service to their customers. Some of the features of each are discussed here.
Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express
Cost Effective Telephony Services to Both Main and Branch Offices
By using VoIP technology and unified communications systems, both Cisco and Avaya have come up with cost effective ways to use the telephone. Whether you need to make long duration local calls or long-distance calls, these products will help to limit your telephone bills. They offer huge savings in voice calls both from landlines and mobile phones. Both the products are easy to deploy, maintain, and administer. This helps bring down the total cost of the product. By unifying communication they make it easier for employees to respond to situations faster.
Moreover, Cisco's Unified Communications Manager Express has a small footprint, a valuable feature in space-starved metros.
Small Private Branch Exchange Available with Cisco's Product
Cisco's product comes with a small private branch exchange that helps you to manage your calls more effectively.
Integrating with Existing CRM Modules
Cisco's product can be integrated with existing CRM modules for better dealing with customers.
Greater Employee Productivity
Both Avaya and Cisco have designed products that increase employee productivity. While with Avaya's product, employees can choose the method of receiving calls, with Cisco's product, all employees have a greater call control, location, and status of other users.
User-specified Call Routing
With Cisco's product, users can program the system with specific instructions to route certain calls to their mobile phones or their home number. This is something that greatly increases productivity and frees employees from being tied to their desks. Knowledge workers, especially those on the move, become more productive because of this feature. This feature is also available in Avaya's IP Office.
Scalable Product for Migration to Greater Numbers
Cisco's product can support 450 employees against Avaya's 250 employees. Moreover, Cisco's product makes it convenient to migrate to a higher system later on. If you are planning to increase staff strength in the future, then Cisco's product is certainly more apt for you.
Avaya's IP Office
Just like Cisco's product, Avaya's IP Office too is a great tool to communicate among your employees and with customers.
Increases Competitiveness of the Enterprise
As Avaya's IP Office increases the possibilities of collaboration, it increases the competitiveness of your enterprise. You will be able to reach customers much more efficiently than your competition.
Resiliency during Power Outages
In case of power outages, Avaya's IP Office will ensure that you can still communicate via the phone. This is because it has built-in resiliency of one branch office system taking over the communication functions of the other.
The only problem with this feature is that for it to function you need to have at least two offices.
Free Conferencing Facility
Avaya's product offers free conferencing facility supporting 64 people at a time. This is something that Cisco's product does not offer. Though Avaya's product can offer point-to-point video calls, it does not support video conferencing as yet. However, it does offer the facility to record conferences, making it a great business tool. If your business needs you to hold a lot of teleconferences, you should definitely choose this product over Cisco's.
Can Be Administered Centrally
Avaya's IP Office can be deployed at more than one location, yet be administered from a central office. This saves on an administrator's salary and, therefore, saves on costs. The product also proactively looks for problems and solves them before they become a major issue. Again this reduces downtime.
Cisco's product does not have this feature yet.
While both Avaya's IP Office and Cisco's Unified Communications Manager Express are great products they have different features. This means that you need to see which features your particular enterprise needs and then opt for the appropriate product. Both are cost effective solutions to today's communication needs. They help the enterprise connect with its customers in more ways than one. If your enterprise is likely to grow into a bigger one with more employees then using Cisco's product makes sense. However, if you need teleconferencing facilities then you need to choose Avaya's product. Cisco's small footprint also makes it ideal for businesses located in metros or other areas where office space is at a premium.
For more info on Avaya IP Office visit http://www.avaya-ipoffice.net
This article was provided by Scott Camball of TRC Networks, Our website address is http://www.trcnetworks.com.
Browse our site and learn why we have become so well regarded as the top telephony company in the GTA. We provide services in Toronto, Southern Ontario, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver. Also, we offer our services in many other Canadian and American market places with Nortel, Avaya, and Cisco.
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