A third of customers will abandon a brand they love after just one bad experience according to a survey by PwC of 15,000 international consumers. The obvious conclusion is that customer experience ought to be an absolute priority for businesses aiming to maintain or expand their market share. The challenge for enterprise is to optimise experiences across the multiple channels through which customers now interact. How do you enable consistent quality of communication across the physical, online, mobile and social spheres?

Unified cloud communications brings disparate channels together in a manageable system, which not only makes interactions faster and more convenient for customers but also facilitates healthier collaboration between employees, improving productivity, problem-solving and job satisfaction. Businesses that still rely on outdated PBX systems, designed solely for desktop landlines, will struggle to integrate the breadth of communication tools that today’s customers and employees are beginning to expect, including chat, mobile, soft phones, desktop phones, instant messaging and video conferencing.

Only by embracing cloud capabilities can businesses deliver multi-channel communications in a streamlined, scalable and cost-effective manner that eradicates complexity and minimises stress upon internal resources.

These are the reasons why 8x8 has developed a single cloud communications and contact centre platform. As a fully accredited partner of 8x8, CDW’s cloud services team ensures businesses gain the full benefits of the platform. From build and budgeting to integration and implementation, CDW’s end-to-end services deliver a fully orchestrated solution that allows its clients to concentrate on what they do best.

Let’s look at five key business benefits of cloud communications.

1. Winning customers

Every department is now a service department. In today’s highly competitive market, customer loyalty is no longer entrenched in our social culture. Premises-based phone systems offer siloed, fractured and inconsistent communications that reinforce breakdowns in employee and customer interactions and slow your ability to provide service. They simply can’t compete with the cloud’s ability to seamlessly integrate communications systems with business applications and processes. The implication is businesses that more quickly adapt to this modern approach to communications will be the clear winner among customers.

2. Encouraging collaboration

The PBX systems that became popular in the 20th century were never designed to support the remote, distributed workforce of the 21st century. Employees increasingly demand the ability to work flexible schedules from the location of their choosing, across multiple devices. According to a 2015 study, 85% of employees use a mobile device for work. And yet most traditional PBX systems, with their hardwired infrastructures, can’t easily accommodate needs of this increasingly wireless, mobile workforce. When employees use tools like personal laptops, mobile devices, Google Hangouts, Skype and Facetime to communicate remotely, information leaves company networks to unsecure devices, and collaboration becomes more difficult.

3. Always on

One of the most significant challenges associated with PBX is the cost and complexity of ensuring your phones are among the first services restored after any adverse event. Cloud solutions enable seamless and cost-effective recovery of communications. With the potential to implement a money-back guarantee of 99.99% uptime, CDW and 8x8 offer painless protection from a disaster that could put your phones out of action for several hours. 8x8’s communications-as-a-service model gives companies enhanced call quality on a supremely stable and reliable communications platform. By including seamless failover capability that requires no additional capital, rack space or servers to maintain, they are able to deliver maximum communications uptime, so your business can stay connected no matter what happens.

4. Greater efficiencies

Transitioning voice, collaboration tools, contact centre and real-time analytics to the cloud removes the need to purchase, provision, manage and maintain on-premise equipment. While connecting employees around the globe, unified cloud communications remove the expense of expert administrators, reduces the number of vendors and generates fewer bills and apps.

5. Global reach

Not all cloud solutions offer the robust capabilities and reliable platform to work as a successful communications model for companies. 8x8’s Cloud Communications and Contact Centre platform supports 50,000 global businesses of all sizes, with a cloud solution that can grow with you, easily scaling up or down without compromising features. With 15 available data centres across the globe, 8x8’s platform offers international local, toll-free and local number transfer services in over 80 countries. Plus, 8x8’s patented geo-routing algorithm delivers the highest call quality regardless of location.

To find out more, contact cloudenquiries@uk.cdw.com or speak to your Account Manager.