Tags: UNIVERGE BLUE

How Forerunner Technologies has Tackled Customer Issues using UNIVERGE BLUE

Posted by Joe Perc on Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Healthcare, Hospitality, Servers and Storage, Unified Communications Tagged , , , , ,

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE Channel Partner Forerunner Technologies weighs in on the value of using UNIVERGE BLUE to help customers transition to a modern workplace.

The partnership between Forerunner Technologies and NEC dates back many years, but it has taken on a new dynamic in recent times. NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE offers Forerunner Technologies a powerful solution for its clients as they navigate the challenges of a rapidly evolving business environment.

UNIVERGE BLUE is an easy-to-use, cloud-based communications platform that helps businesses manage communications and collaboration between employees. For Forerunner Technologies, the UNIVERGE BLUE platform creates a number of promising opportunities, allowing communications consultants to offer robust solutions to some of their customers’ biggest challenges.

The move to a hybrid workplace

With COVID-19 disrupting the corporate world, many companies were forced to adopt a hybrid workplace. Instead of every employee working on-premises, people were suddenly splitting time between working from home and being in the office. Thanks to UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT, Forerunner Technologies was able to provide a solution for all its customers struggling with this new way of working. It allowed them to retain seamless communication and connectivity throughout their enterprises without letting the transition disrupt productivity.

As the restrictions have eased off, Forerunner Technologies identified that there is still an appetite for hybrid working in the modern world. A lot of their customers are keen to hire talent that either works remotely or semi-remotely. UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT provides the perfect platform to make this easier than ever.

Letting workers adopt their preferred technologies

The new generation of workers has specific demands when it comes to the technologies they want to use at work. Some of them want to use their mobile device to work, others a tablet, and some still prefer their laptop. Thanks to UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT, Forerunner has been able to provide a platform that lets its customers’ employees adopt their preferred technologies.

Individuals are now able to work in a way that suits them the best. As a result, this translates into more productivity for companies. According to UC Today, 75% of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) users experienced heightened productivity. There’s no doubt in the mind of Forerunner Technologies that this is thanks to the flexibility that a system like UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT provides.

LECs are no longer mandated to maintain copper services

The local exchange carriers (LECs) are no longer mandated by the FCC to maintain copper services. This has caused a huge disruption! Forerunner Technologies has seen many of its customers receive short notice periods from LECs stating that certain services will be terminated. Likewise, many service providers have hiked up the prices of legacy telephone lines to egregious amounts. As a result, the only solution is to switch these services to hosted solutions. More decision-makers at top companies are looking for platforms like UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT to help them navigate this transition.

UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT has allowed Forerunner to provide monthly subscription packages that help clients gain control of their bills and clearly understand how much everything costs. When Forerunner can save money providing this service, it will ultimately mean that the service can be sold to customers at a more affordable price point.

Overall, Forerunner has seen savings between 15-35% for most customers. UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT has also given them an easy way to allow customers to pay for what they need.

Forerunner Technologies is thrilled with its partnership with NEC. This cloud-based system has transformed the services it can provide for customers as a premier national communications consultant for enterprises and SMBs. In a world driven by the concept of hybrid working, UNIVERGE BLUE Cloud Services is allowing Forerunner to give customers a steppingstone toward a cloud-based work environment. This helps customers offer better working environments for employees, catering to their specific needs. It opens up the talent pool and lets them grow as companies.

UNIVERGE BLUE offers a product that delivers a better all-around experience for everyone. Customers enjoy monthly savings while also receiving a better way of communicating and staying connected.

For more information on NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE and its capabilities for your business, visit the UNIVERGE BLUE website.

How Artificial Intelligence Can Take Customer Service to New Heights

Posted by Jessica Andrews on Posted in Analytics, Cloud, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Hospitality Tagged , , , ,

A Look at the New Interaction Analytics and Evaluator AI Features in UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE

You have probably heard some of the recent buzz around Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (AI) – how it is the wave of the future for Contact Center technology and smart business. Emily Potosky, Senior Research Principal for Gartner’s Customer Service & Support practice, describes in the 2022 Gartner report entitled “3 Ways AI Benefits Customer Service Organizations” that “Customer service and support leaders are optimistic about the value AI can provide and plan to substantially increase their adoption of AI capabilities over the next two years.” At the same time, she explains how there are conflicting messages about the real benefits of AI and the right solutions in which to invest. According to the report, insights, user experience, and process improvement are three key ways that AI can benefit customer service organizations going forward.

Contact Centers as Critical Touchpoints

As you certainly know, your business thrives on creating and retaining satisfied customers. Your Contact Center is a critical customer touchpoint, where the quality of your interactions can determine whether a customer becomes a passionate, lifelong company advocate or chooses to exit your customer base forever. This is why the power of AI to offer accurate insights into your Contact Center’s daily customer interactions is an appealing way to maintain oversight and drive continuous improvement for customer service, experiences, and processes.

Consider the immense value it would have if your organization could gather meaningful, actionable insights from the voluminous inbound and outbound calls your agents handle each day. Your collection of customer conversations holds tremendous value. However, no one in your organization has the time to review each and every customer conversation manually, and random sampling will simply provide an incomplete picture. The beauty of AI is that it makes the impossible possible.

Gather Actionable Insights and Enhance Customer Experiences with UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE

UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE from NEC is a Contact Center as a service (CCaaS) solution offering not only the benefits of enhanced call center functionality and remote-office flexibility for a low monthly fee per user, but also a powerful suite of AI features that are reason enough to move your entire Contact Center to the cloud today.

The Interaction Analytics feature for ENGAGE uses Artificial Intelligence to enable Contact Center supervisors and your leadership team to easily identify and focus on those conversations that matter the most to your business. By analyzing and tagging customer conversations for sentiment and designated keywords, the guesswork eliminated. Supervisors can gather powerful insights about customer experiences, review recorded and transcribed conversations of interest, act quickly to address trends or issues they see, and move your business ahead of customer demands and expectations. Insights from ENGAGE Interaction Analytics can also be leveraged to help with coaching and training employees and improving customer satisfaction overall.

Evaluator, another AI-powered tool for ENGAGE, utilizes sentiment analysis to monitor the performance of frontline agents and helps supervisors to easily identify those agents requiring additional training or coaching, allowing them to act instantly on specific conversations as needed. The tool also allows supervisors to provide constructive feedback to agents and for agents to respond to this feedback within the application, as a way to build employee skills and improve customer service levels and retention rates.

The benefits of AI can extend to every area of your business, through an effective keyword tagging strategy. For example, a customer service manager could stay informed of any conversations containing keywords like “cancel” or “unhappy,” to see how frontline users are handling these difficult conversations. Sales and marketing could flag competitor names or review conversations that have been flagged for positive or negative sentiments to identify new product value propositions or customer pain points. Product development could tag for keywords like “broken” or “missing,” to identify opportunities for product improvements or new features.

ENGAGE: Real Benefits, The Right Solution

Salesforce quote

According to a recent research study conducted by Salesforce, 88% of customers indicate that the experience a company provides is as important as its product or services, and 94% indicate that a positive customer service experience makes them more likely to purchase again. These customer statistics are really not surprising, but definitely help to explain why the right AI solution for any Contact Center needs to offer the real benefits of insights, user experience, and process improvements – as the Gartner report mentioned earlier explains. ENGAGE Interaction Analytics and Evaluator AI are the right solution for tapping into the wealth of information that is currently hiding in your daily customer interactions – insights that will allow your Contact Center and business to continually improve, create positive customer experiences, and soar to new heights.

Ready to learn more about UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE?

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Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Fill out the form, and we will get back with you.

How the Hybrid Workforce Has Brought Cloud-Based Phone Systems to the Forefront of Business

Posted by Jim Richardson on Posted in Cloud, Unified Communications Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Cloud-based phone systems have exponentially grown in popularity over the past few years. Improved ROI, decreased cost, and easy scalability are just a few of the many benefits they offer.

With the recent increase in work-from-home employees, cloud-based business phone systems are now an indispensable part of the hybrid workforce.

Workers can utilize the same phone system tools as their office counterparts, no matter where they are physically located—through their laptop, IP phone, tablet, or cell phone.

Are you like many of our customers and wonder, what is a cloud-based phone system? Read on to learn more about how the hybrid workforce has affected cloud-based phone systems and the value you’ll get from installing one.

What are Cloud-Based Phone Systems?

Traditional phone systems (PBX) require expensive on-site servers and annual software subscriptions. When something goes wrong, it becomes a 911 rush to find a qualified technician to come out and fix the problem.

Cloud-based phone systems, such as UNIVERGE BLUE from NEC, offer a fully-featured phone system with high-definition (HD) audio and a wide range of features, such as:

  • Call Park
  • Call Forwarding
  • Find Me/Follow Me
  • Hold Recordings or Music
  • Conferencing
  • Messaging Applications

The cloud-based phone system provider handles the server and software maintenance. This helps eliminate the huge monthly expense of on-premises servers and software licenses as well as helps reduce on-site maintenance and management labor costs.

We have found that our customers can save an average of 15-25% over the life of the phone system when making the switch from an on-premises system to a cloud-based system.

Benefits of Cloud-Based Phone System

Cloud-based phone systems offer a wide range of benefits, such as:

  1. Reliability—cloud-based phone systems offer a 99.999% uptime backed up by a Service Level Agreement.
  2. They’re easy to scale without a huge investment. When you need to add new lines, simply call the company hosting your system and inform them. They’ll make the changes on their end without any effort on your part.
  3. Reduced hardware and labor costs—you don’t need an on-site control box, and all maintenance is done in the cloud. This means that your equipment is continually updated with the latest security patches/etc. When updates are available, the phone will let you know, and updating is as simple as clicking a button on your phone.
  4. Easier to connect with customers—you can place phone calls and send text messages that appear to come from the company regardless of if the app is installed on an employee’s personal cell phone.
  5. Some systems, such as UNIVERGE BLUE, come with a transcription feature. If someone misses a phone call, they can look at their email and see who left the voicemail, along with a transcript of what they said.
  6. A cloud-based phone system is much more secure than a premises system. For example, an old premises-based phone system can be hacked—attackers will randomly call and recognize the voicemail prompt, and from there, they can tell what system it is.

The hacker can then enter the user’s system, start making international calls, and racking up substantial long-distance bills. With the cloud, that’s eliminated because everything is encrypted, and NEC and their security specialists handle all the security stuff.

Cloud-Based Phone Systems Have Evolved Due to the Hybrid Workforce

According to many sources, the hybrid workforce is not only here to stay—workers and job applicants will start actively seeking companies that offer it. Cloud-based companies have seen the increased demand and are now offering a wide range of additional features and benefits such as:

  1. The ability to connect to the cloud from any internet-connected device. If you’re working in the office in the morning and pack up to go home after lunch—you won’t have to bring any additional equipment to work from home or in the field. When using a cloud-based phone system, you won’t have any concerns on having to take work equipment with you to stay connected.
  2. You can also work from a cell phone signal instead of a traditional home or office internet connection. Workers will still have access to the cloud-based phone system when power outages occur, provided they can receive a cell phone signal.
  3. With UNIVERGE BLUE, employees have a choice when using their personal cell phone. They can choose to take and make calls from the mobile client where the caller ID shows up as coming from the company or they can call directly from their cell phone where their personal caller ID is displayed to the person on the other end. System administration is super easy with the cloud-based phone system’s web-based portal.
  4. Many applications have also been developed to help people in the hybrid work environment. These include messaging, productivity, and collaboration tools such as call flip, SMS text, file sharing, team chat, and web meeting.

Is a Cloud-Based Phone System Right for You?

The value and benefits offered by cloud-based phone systems have far-surpassed traditional PBX on-premises phone systems. You and your employees will experience increased productivity, flexibility, and productivity, while employers will save money by being able to effortlessly scale up or down as needed.

UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT is an easy-to-use cloud-based communications platform that helps employees to be more productive and collaborative. It includes a full-featured phone system combined with chat, web/video conferencing, basic contact center functionality, and file sync, share, and backup capabilities.

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Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Fill out the form, and we will get back with you.

How Peavey Electronics Keeps the Music Alive with UNIVERGE BLUE BACKUP & RECOVER

Posted by Mike Mitsch on Posted in Cloud, Security, Servers and Storage Tagged , , , , , , ,

If you’ve seen live music, you’re sure to recognize the Peavey® logo. As one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments, amplifiers and audio systems, Peavey® Electronics has helped musicians and audiophiles to achieve high-quality sound production since the 1960s. In the pursuit of perfection and reliability, the company wanted to improve the resiliency and security of its network infrastructure and critical data in its SAP HANA® implementation.

Peavey turned to NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE® BACKUP (BaaS) and RECOVER (DRaaS) managed service offering after the challenges with their legacy backup and recovery approach.

Peavey’s Critical Data Requirements

Peavey uses SAP business warehouse software to generate daily business reporting pertaining to areas including finance, inventory, and sales. Notably, Peavey uses SAP HANA® to deliver real-time inventory information to its global network of distributors and resellers. It relies on SAP HANA for up-to-the-minute product availability and inventory levels for customers. Without this information, channel partners do not have access to inventory information and might move to another vendor’s product to purchase. In today’s fast-paced, online-centric marketplace, this is especially a threat for Peavey.

Modernizing SAP HANA Backups

Peavey required a modernized approach to its backups to reduce the administrative load on their small IT team. In addition, they looked to reduce backup errors, increase protection against cyber security attacks and ensure complete system backups with no performance impact. Another added bonus of working with NEC was the availability of modern infrastructure, including cloud-hosted storage.

Peavey chose NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE® BACKUP and RECOVER managed service offering to meet these objectives and more. The NEC managed service offering allowed Peavey to:

  • Automate SAP HANA native full and incremental Backups
  • Implement automated data archiving
  • Enhance cyber security by implementing the 3-2-1 rule of data protection best practices
  • Include additional disaster recovery capabilities against natural disasters and cyber-attacks through optional UNIVERGE BLUE RECOVER without the purchase of additional systems
  • Centralize visibility and control via the UNIVERGE BLUE COMMAND CENTER

The biggest value that NEC has brought to Peavey is the ability to offload tasks and responsibilities of its IT team. Peavey has strengthened its data protection at lower operating costs and IT administrative overhead.

Read the Full NEC-Peavey Case Study

The NEC UNIVERGE BLUE Difference

NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE BACKUP (Backup as a Service) and RECOVER (Disaster Recovery as a Service) offers control and compliance to meet data protection best practices. The managed service offering is based on industry-leading backup software such as Commvault® and Veeam to deliver backup and recovery services. The service also leverages NEC HYDRAstor® distributed grid storage systems that are hosted off-premises in Iron Mountain® data centers. Managed services are provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days per year via NEC’s Network Operations Center. NEC will also configure and tailor the solution to meet or exceed your business’s unique requirements.

Typical benefits provided with NEC UNIVERGE BLUE BACKUP and RECOVER include:

  • Meeting 3-2-1 rule data protection best practices
  • Offloading tasks from IT Staff
  • Reducing insider threats
  • Providing proof of best practices for Cyber Security Insurance

Learn about NEC UNIVERGE BLUE BACKUP and RECOVER from this Evaluator Group Product Brief.

Read the NEC-Peavey Electronics Solution Case Study

With the help of NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE BACKUP and RECOVER managed services, Peavey can keep the music alive while NEC patches servers, replaces old hardware and provides secure backup and reliable data recovery. Be sure to read the NEC-Peavey Electronics Case Study to learn more about how the companies worked together to secure the critical data necessary to ensure continued success.

To learn more about NEC UNIVERGE BLUE BACKUP and RECOVER, download this Evaluator Group Product Brief. Or to become authorized to sell the solution, request authorization and take the training available in the NEC Learning Management System.

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Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Fill out the form, and we will get back with you.

UNIVERGE BLUE is not just a suite of services, it’s a strategy for NEC’s Channel Partners

Posted by Doug Green on Posted in Cloud, Unified Communications Tagged , , , , ,

As a global leader in communications solutions with over 75 million global users, NEC relies on a large Channel Partner network to drive the best results for those customers. NEC started offering services for products well over a decade ago in response to the service-model demand from customers.

In the “NEC UNIVERGE BLUE is a Strategy, and a Suite of Services” Podcast, I sat down with NEC’s Director of UNIVERGE BLUE Sales Strategy,Mike Mitsch to discuss NEC’S UNIVERGE BLUE Partner Program. In the podcast, we learn how UNIVERGE BLUE helps NEC’s end-users successfully meet their cloud migration plans while enabling the Channel Partner to remain close to the customer and effectively “own” the relationship, even as the customer moves to the service model.

What is UNIVERGE BLUE?

NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE offers a comprehensive set of unified communications, collaboration, backup/disaster recovery, and contact center services. UNIVERGE BLUE incorporates all the clients’ business communication methods and devices into one integrated, easy-to-manage system.

According to Mitsch, UNIVERGE BLUE not only delivers enterprise-grade cloud communications and backup as a service, but it’s been tailored to the needs of the Channel Partners who historically, literally, installed the NEC base, and that base’s customers.

“UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES Channel Partner Program was designed to give our Channel Partners choices” explains Mike. NEC understands that partner programs are not “one size fits all” – and that is why NEC lets Channel Partners choose from three, robust Channel Partner models based on what’s right for their business and their customers, and how they want to make money.

  • Customer Ownership Model: In this model, the customer contracts with the Channel Partner who has full ownership of billing, bundling and support. They take top line revenue on a Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) basis.
  • Agency Model & Revenue Share Model: In these models, the customer contracts with NEC through the Channel Partner. Channel partners are still fully involved with the customer during the sale and on-going support, while NEC handles billing if that’s what the partner prefers.

UNIVERGE BLUE – A strategy for Channel Partners

The ever-changing cloud services industry doesn’t just have an impact on service providers and their customers, but the people in the middle of the sales cycle too. For years, NEC has been committed to delivering solutions that appeal to their channel partner’s target audience and deliver bottom line revenue. Now that the cloud model is growing in desirability, NEC is helping Channel Partner’s rethink the way that they go to market with cloud services, so they can continue to provide personalized support to end-users while accessing the same value.

“There can’t be just one way to adopt cloud-services. NEC’s customer base is comprised of many on-premises PBX users, so we developed our program to provide these partners a bridge into a hybrid environment.” Mike explains that by offering flexible deployment models, Channel Partners can appeal to any audience – those who want to stay on-premises, take a hybrid approach, or migrate entirely to a cloud environment.

Why should new Channel Partners consider NEC?

Mike shared a few reasons why new Channel Partners should consider the UNIVERGE BLUE Channel Partner program. The first reason is self-service. The program was tailor-made for Channel Partners to sell, install, and support. NEC designed UNIVERGE BLUE from the ground up with input from their Channel Partner community and with the goal of making it easy for them to sell cloud services profitably.

NEC also offers a variety of onboarding education and support, so when new Channel Partners are brought on, they can quickly start adding value and displacing their competition.

Additionally, Mike points out NEC’s longevity in the IT market and their large customer base. “NEC’s brand recognition and large following gives new Channel Partners access to our PBX customer base – the ability to choose a Channel Partner model that is best for them is the icing on the cake.”

Synergistic suite of services, combined with excellent partner training

Mitsch explains that UNIVERGE BLUE was built to coexist – customers need their communications to integrate with other commonly used business applications. Mitsch describes UNIVERGE BLUE to be a synergistic suite of services, combined with excellent Channel Partner training. Mitsch also points to NEC as being one of the early adopters to have Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) integration with Microsoft® Teams, signaling to the Channel Partner community that NEC Corporation of America is a path into the Teams market, with a package that’s designed to anticipate an on-premises network and the adoption of cloud by the customer.

Cloud Services for Any Industry

A few significant industries that will remain conducting business in person are healthcare, hospitality, and education. These verticals have a long history with NEC and UNIVERGE BLUE is now helping major organizations to move to the cloud. “We leveraged our industry expertise and verticalized our UNIVERGE BLUE Solutions, making it much easier for our channel partners be competitive within these industries” Mitsch shares.

Whether it is doctor’s office or a government agency, there are innumerable vertical and horizontal opportunities for NEC’s Channel Partners to deliver UNIVERGE BLUE to companies looking to offer a better experience to their customers. By working with NEC, Channel Partners can look to the future and focus on expansion to help customers stay competitive as cloud services become central to a greater customer experience.

To learn more about the NEC UNIVERGE BLUE Channel Partner Program, visit www.univergeblue.com/partners and visit the Channel Partner Success Story page to hear what NEC’s Channel Partners are saying about UNIVERGE BLUE.

Contact Us Today

Please let us know if you have any questions about the program or to meet with a UNIVERGE BLUE Partner Program Representative. Fill out the form, and we will get back with you.