contact center applications

This week, I’m extremely excited to share that NEC has entered a global partnership with Intermedia, a leading provider of cloud-based communications solutions.

Together, we are introducing an NEC-branded suite of fully integrated, born-in-the-cloud solutions to help businesses communicate and collaborate from anywhere at any time. It’s the new generation of our UNIVERGE BLUE™ cloud communications portfolio, built on Intermedia’s innovative and proprietary technology and backed by its world-class support.

The way businesses work has changed.

The COVID-19 pandemic will forever change the way businesses think about work. It’s not enough for businesses to accommodate a few remote workers. Businesses now must be flexible and ready to adapt to teleworking at a moment’s notice.

Today, more than ever, businesses need the ability to communicate and collaborate from anywhere at any time, both internally and externally. While recent headlines may highlight a seemingly smooth transition to a remote workforce at global scale, there are still tens of millions of workers who do not have the ability to work remote. This is largely because many businesses are still using on-premises solutions and haven’t found a partner that could help them seamlessly transition to the cloud.

As the current global market share leader in on-premises business phone systems, NEC understands the obstacles that many of these businesses face. We chose Intermedia because their platform offers our customers a seamless integration between premises-based and cloud solutions.

NEC’s commitment to cloud-based communications

Business communications is in our blood. For 120 years, NEC has transformed the way the world works through Information and Communications Technologies. As mentioned before, we are the global market share leader in on-premises business communications systems. In 2015, we launched our Smart Enterprise initiative which is committed to helping businesses meet the demands of today’s digital workforce, and helping customers migrate to the cloud is cornerstone to that initiative.

Businesses have been migrating to the cloud for years now, and the pace at which they are migrating only gets faster. While we had developed and deployed our own Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution in the United States, we came to understand that supporting and expanding this home-grown offering globally at the current rate of market expansion was unrealistic. We needed to align with a born-in-the-cloud provider, like Intermedia, and focus on expansion through our long-established global channel partner network, currently more than 2,000 strong.

We selected Intermedia for many reasons. For starters, our market research, channel partner feedback and customer feedback all conclusively pointed to Intermedia as the trusted market leader in cloud communication services. Additionally, Intermedia’s cloud platform is highly scalable with frictionless deployment options and simple user administrative tools, meaning a frictionless experience for our customers’ employees and better customer experience overall. Intermedia’s platform also provides seamless migration from on-prem to cloud – perfect for NEC’s customer base.

NEC and its global network of channel partners are already going the extra mile for our customers working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. This partnership with Intermedia will allow us to do even more to advance business continuity and allow more workers to work safely from home while increasing their productivity.

Introducing NEC UNIVERGE BLUE™ CONNECT, UNIVERGE BLUE™ ENGAGE

Businesses need tools that are easy to deploy and use, and provide users with an integrated experience. We built the new generation of UNIVERGE BLUE with this in mind.

Built on Intermedia’s innovative and proprietary technology, UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE are born-in-the-cloud solutions designed specifically for businesses of all sizes and the channel partners who serve them. The solutions are elegant, reliable and easy to deploy, while remaining highly scalable and extremely cost-effective.

UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT is a cloud-based communications platform for business that combines a full-featured cloud-based phone system, team chat, video conferencing and online meeting and file sync and share, all available to users through desktop, web and mobile applications. It helps improve the communications and collaboration of businesses, while being easy for channel partners to sell, install and support.

UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE is a cloud-based contact center designed to fit business needs from the small, single channel to the large and sophisticated omni-channel environment. A fully featured Cloud Contact Center as a Service solution (CCaaS), it combines robust functionality, with carrier-grade reliability, and world-class deployment and support services. NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE helps businesses differentiate from the competition where it matters most – the customer experience.

UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE will be brought to market through NEC’s robust Channel Partner community. For more information on UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT and ENGAGE, visithttp://univergeblue.com or reach out to us via the form below.

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Upon entering the Knott’s Berry Farm theme park in Buena Park, California, you’re immediately immersed in another time. My first impression was of the charm of the place, its friendly “olden days” feel with a sense of Old West adventure. Even with the drama of live-action shows, the addition of its famous wooden roller coaster, exciting rides, shops, and dining choices, Knott’s Berry Farm has managed to retain its historical feel. But is all this history and charm really typical of a customer’s very first impression?

Actually, my first experience with Knott’s Berry Farm began online, followed by a phone call for more information. Just as most people these days would go online to purchase tickets, or book a full vacation package.

The Knott’s Berry Farm theme park is just one part of a larger brand experience. The company also offers the convenient on-property Knott’s Hotel lodging for guests, and the nearby “Soak City” Water Park. As a potential customer, my first impressions could well have been formed by speaking with a contact center representative who assists with guests’ vacation arrangements.

I dare say we’ve all experienced long hold times, and struggled to navigate prompts on an older phone system, trying to reach a live agent just so that we can solve a problem or simply make arrangements to pay for goods or services. Knott’s Berry Farm sought to solve this exact challenge for its customers.

With three distinct Knott’s entities to consider, all struggling with older systems that had long since passed end-of-life and support, Knott’s Berry Farm was faced with some big decisions. Decisions about how to make essential and long overdue changes in their communications system without incurring critical downtime, or disrupting their daily operations, or causing staff re-training headaches—and, since it would impact thousands of end-points, what is the most dependable yet flexible solution with the most efficient network?

Basically, how do you select the right new technology and then transition over from the old, while still maintaining ongoing operations of a giant multi-faceted entertainment enterprise?

Our Knott’s Berry Farm story will share with you the challenges, solutions, and successes of their recent strategic migration to two (2) UNIVERGE SV9500 communications platforms, complete with NEC’s UC for Enterprise (UCE) suite of unified communications (UC) and contact center applications. They chose this flexible, comprehensive UC solution that is fully networked, highly intuitive for staff, provides critical operations information, simplifies administration, has built-in disaster recovery–and was actually cost effective. In their own words, “It was a seamless transition”.

By providing routing assistance and delivering effective toolsets for the newly networked call centers–as well as basic features such as Caller ID, Collaboration, and Mobility for other Knott’s personnel, the upgrading from their existing NEC systems that have served them well, not only helped to enhance customer service between the hotel and park operations, it effectively improved the operation’s internal communications as well, simply by enabling much-increased functionality.

First impressions are important for this kind of Entertainment/ Retail/ Hospitality industry, and are really all about a happy workplace, providing a worry-free environment that can create great memories, for guests and staff alike. Knott’s Berry Farm can now deliver an improved guest experience, from the very first “Thank you for calling Knott’s Berry Farm”, to the last fond farewell.

If you’d like to learn more about this historical venue’s modern day move to state of-the-art communication solutions just let us know, and we can provide you with a free consultation with one of our hospitality experts.

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Tags: contact center applications

Knott’s Berry Farm – How Does a World-Famous Theme Park Make a Great First Impression?