%20Success%20Stories/3M%20-%20main.jpg)
%20Success%20Stories/Baylor-CS-Image-2.jpg)
As technology races forward, everyone needs to stay on top of the latest developments. In this article, we'll take a deep dive into the emerging trends in business voice communications in 2024 that are shaping the future of how we stay connected.
The past few years have seen a meteoric rise in the adoption of cloud-based solutions for business communication, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. Essentially, cloud-based voice communication allows you to ditch traditional on-site hardware and replace it with digital platforms delivered as a service.
This includes unified communications as a service (UCaaS), contact center as a service (CCaaS), and communication platform as a service (CPaaS). While these solutions have plenty of differences, they also have a lot of benefits in common. They provide tremendous cost savings, high flexibility, and near-infinite scalability.
When it comes to the cloud, we’re talking about collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, omnichannel contact centers like the Genesys Cloud CX, and highly customizable cloud platforms like Twilio. These are some of the best products on the market currently, but we’ll touch more on them later.
With how commonplace remote work has become over the last few years, mobile communication is a necessity. Fortunately, this is easier to do now than ever before.
Throughout most of the world, people have access to faster and more reliable connections. On top of that, modern collaboration platforms work just as well on mobile devices, making it easier than ever for users on the go to stay connected with their teams.
Accessibility is also a hot-button issue in the communication space. Teams are now more diverse and widespread than ever, often containing members from as many as four different generations with very different skills and experience. That’s why modern communication technology is investing so much in accessibility features like immersive reading and real-time translations, and making sure each platform is simple and easy to use.
AI is making waves in the communications space. It most often takes the form of voice assistants and chat bots, adding new levels of automation to an organization’s communications environment.
For example, modern contact centers come with intelligent call routing. This means they use AI to automate where calls get connected, ensuring each customer gets connected with the right agent. Meanwhile, modern collaboration platforms use AI in features like real-time translation, interpreting text or speech into other languages in a matter of seconds.
These AI-powered technologies can be available to your customers 24 hours a day and can free up your users' time so they can focus on more important tasks. On top of that, AI technology continues to develop, and is poised to only get better as time goes on.
In today's digital age, security and privacy are more important than ever. As technology continues to evolve, so too do threats of cyberattacks. Each different platform and solution has its own security measures in place to keep data encrypted and fend off cybercrime wherever possible.
Just about every platform on the market right now offers end-to-end data encryption, both in-transit and at rest. They also offer multi-factor authentication (MFA), though in this day and age that’s almost the bare minimum for security.
Microsoft, Genesys, and Twilio are leading the communication industry in security right now. All three companies continue to invest resources into building robust security architecture, such as Microsoft Azure Active Directory. They also maintain compliance with stringent security requirements.
Of course, security standards will continue to change. It remains to be seen which companies and which platforms will be the most secure in the years to come.
With the ever-evolving landscape of business communication, the integration of multiple platforms and channels in one communication environment is essential and can even be a challenge.
UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS seek to make that less of a challenge. We have articles that explain in-depth what each of these solutions is, so going forward, we’ll assume you already have a basic understanding of each. To stay on theme, we’ll look at the UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS solutions making waves in 2024
Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex remain leaders in the UC space. Teams covers calling, meetings, and messaging, and integrates with the Microsoft 365 suite. Webex provides high quality video conferencing, strong network performance, and enterprise level security, making it ideal for larger organizations.
Then there’s Zoom, the darling platform of the COVID era. With an intuitive interface and a surprisingly broad set of features, Zoom is an ideal platform for organizations of all sizes.
Read: Teams, Webex, and Zoom: Breaking Down the Big Three
When it comes to omnichannel contact centers, it’s hard to beat the Genesys Cloud CX. With high security and advanced AI integration, it allows users to build a comprehensive customer journey and dramatically improve their experience.
That said, Five9 has its own strong offering. Its contact centers emphasize automation and integration with CRM software. On top of that, it boasts a very user-friendly interface. The NICE inContact CXone on the other hand emphasizes improving agent performance and provides many comprehensive analytics.
The CPaaS solutions provide application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow users to build elaborate and flexible communication platforms. The three leaders in this category are Twilio, Vonage, and MessageBird.
Each platform offers global reach, robust security, and omnichannel capabilities. To determine which one would work best for your organization may require going into the nitty-gritty of the APIs. It all depends on what meets your unique needs.
At Continuant, we keep our finger on the pulse, staying on top of the newest communication trends each year. The platforms and solutions continue to grow and change, and each year new advancements are made in security and AI technology. We do this for two reasons: to develop our own solutions, and to help our customers stay informed.
Whatever solution you need, be it UCaaS, CCaaS, or CPaaS, we’re willing to provide. We’ve got more than 28 years of experience in communications and have been named partner of the year for both Microsoft and Genesys. That doesn’t mean we’re married to either of those platforms. With total vendor agnosticism, we can provide whatever you think is best for your organization.
