Unified communication has become a necessity for all businesses and industry verticals. In fact, the growing demand for Unified Communication (UC) solutions has opened a whole new branch of business with UCaaS (Unified Communication as a Service). The VoIP development company builds UCaaS solutions with its expertise in unified communication development.
What is Unified Communication?
UC refers to the phenomenon of integrating all major communication channels within a single platform to empower businesses to take advantage of unified communication, plus, to deliver a universal experience across all major modes of communication. Following is the list of unified communication channels integrated by a VoIP software development company in a UC solution:
- Voice call
- Video call
- Conferencing
- Instant messaging
- SMS
- Fax
- Social media (Facebook and Twitter)
How to integrate Unified Communication in a VoIP Solution?
The VoIP development company uses one of the top VoIP software development technologies from the following:
- Asterisk
- FreeSWITCH
- WebRTC
The unified communication solutions can be developed using a blend of different technologies, so scalability, security, and robustness can be achieved. For example, FreeSWITCH development and OpenSIPs development can build an ideal solution for communication and collaboration with unified communication features. WebRTC development can add added advantages of browser based technology in the unified communication systems or allure more UCaaS users with its mobility and flexibility benefits.
What are the Major Features of a UC Solution?
UC refers to a complete communication and collaboration system that provides access to all communication solutions within a single system. The features of this software can vary and depend on the goals it has to convert for a business. For example, unified communication development for a UCaaS solution can have multi tenancy and similar features, and development for an individual business can have different features.
Some of the common features that you will find in all unified communication solutions are listed below:
GUI modules for each communication channel
Whether a company has used Asterisk development or any other VoIP software development technologies, the company will add a user interface for agents or customers to use for each communication channel. In a majority of cases, the development companies resemble the common interface of the same communication channel. For example, for WhatsApp communication in the UC solution, the Asterisk developers will design the module that resembles the look and feel of WhatsApp. This makes it easier for the users by removing or reducing the learning curve. For each communication channel, there would be a UI built with GUI elements to resemble the original app or software.
There can be some added features in each communication channel. For example, for WhatsApp in a UC system, there can be features like a transcript, export chat, chat templates, etc. Depending on the provider, these features can vary.
Communication mapping
One of the major reasons to invest in unified communication software development is to simplify managing multiple communication channels because consumers are already using them. If a business has to use different communication channels and its software built with OpenSIPs development does not have those channels integrated into the software, then it can cause multiple challenges and concerns. For example, it would waste a lot of time for an agent to keep checking Facebook messenger for DMs and responding there, and coming back to take voice calls. Moreover, if a customer has used more than one mode of communication to connect with a company and those conversations are not mapped, then it would cause a major disconnect for both the customers and the executives.
Improve remote work efficiency with our unified communication platforms.
Communication mapping is the feature that maps all conversations and interactions of the customer with the contact center in a single window. This window may provide a summary of all conversations between customers and the company or it may provide a complete conversation through each channel. It may also have both. The feature offering would be dependent on the VoIP software development company that builds this feature and the UC platform.
This feature helps businesses to leverage the real benefit of using a unified communication platform. They can view all conversations during a live interaction that are sorted by date and time. This helps companies to provide a unified experience, plus, it helps companies to deliver exceptional customer experience by having a complete context of the conversation.
Communication history
This is another good to have feature and completely depends on Asterisk developers whether they add this feature to the platform or not. This feature will show historic details of all interactions between clients and agents of the company. Usually, this does not contain full conversations. However, it shows the timestamp and mode of communication. It may also show a summary or wrap up note of that conversation to help the business or executive take a look at the past interactions. This is also an important feature that businesses must have in their UC platform, which is why a majority of FreeSWITCH development companies add it to their developed solution.
Reports
In any business, reports are essential. They give an overview of usage and other important key performance indicators. Different businesses can have different reports built for their UC platform. However, in general, the FreeSWITCH development companies or any other VoIP company would build two types of reports:
- Summary report for each communication channel and
- Detail reports
There can be multiple detailed reports to show different performance indicators. The companies may also develop custom reports to meet the requirements of the businesses that are going to use this software.
Live statistics or dashboards
This is another very useful feature available in a majority of UC platforms, specifically, in a UCaaS platform. The live statistics show a summary of what is going on in the unified communication solution.
For example, how many calls are going on through a web phone built with WebRTC development best practices? How many WhatsApp chats are going on? How many video calls are going on? How many calls are in a call queue? All these statistics and data will be shown on the UC platform. Regardless of the development of technology, live statistics can be built to show real time data. This is the real demand of businesses to keep an eye on major statistics to ensure productive and efficient working hours.
Added features or functionalities
Along with the aforementioned features, the development companies also add some added features and functionalities or support them. Let’s take a look at those:
API integration
This is a must have feature and is usually offered by the company as a technical service. You can integrate your existing business solution such as a CRM system with your unified communication platform. This will let you use major features of the CRM system within your UC software. You can also ask FreeSWITCH development experts that have developed your platform to build APIs to integrate them within your system. So within your business system, you can add and use features of a unified communication platform.
Automation
Automation is the demand and necessity of time nowadays. It is required not to cut manpower, but to make things faster and assign better and more productive jobs to manpower. Automation helps in removing the tedious tasks from the to do list of staff, which is why businesses look for ways to automate several things that are repetitive. Unified communication software development has a great scope in this direction. Development companies can automate several jobs with their expertise in different VoIP technologies and by harnessing the power of AI and ML. RPA can also be used to develop the best software that automates several jobs and make operations faster without any human intervention.
The experienced company often automates some of the jobs in the unified communication solutions. For example, all incoming calls will be auto attended by the IVR or auto attendant feature added into the system. This is one of the features that have been helping businesses for many years. On the other hand, chatbots or voice assistants can also automate some jobs, but for that know-how of AI is necessary. Thus, depending on the development company, automation features can be added.
Custom features
The development companies also provide the development of custom features in the UC platform depending on the requirements of the companies or clients that use this platform.
Concluding notes
Unified communication is inevitable for businesses as we are living in an era where consumers use multiple communication channels. The UC platforms help in catering to these clients in a more simplified and reliable manner, which is why businesses need these platforms. These platforms are technology independent as they can be used with Asterisk development or any other technology depending on the requirements such as concurrent calls, scalability, multi tenancy, server configurations, etc. need to be achieved.
We have been one of the top development companies that offer the best in the industry services to build UC and UCaaS platforms. If you are looking for a reliable partner for unified communication development, then we can help you with more than 12 years of experience. To discuss this further, contact us.