2020 changed video conferences to mandatory and so UCaaS, Unified Communication as a service, became the hottest technology on the planet. "I'll Zoom you later" became a phrase after every meeting.
Like a perfect arrow being shot from a well-made bow by a seasoned & prepared bow hunter, any and all collaboration problems were no match for the UCaaS blade.
As a UCaaS advisor, I am fortunate enough to have been involved in hundreds of projects last year that covered the entire spectrum. My overall assessment is that the vast majority of people using UCaaS had no idea what the power of the right UCaaS solution could do in their business & personal lives, so I spent a lot of time just showing our clients the 5 or 6 features that I though could positively impact them the most. Then I decided to start showing the world with a video series I named “UCaaS KickASS tip of the week”. Here is a recap of some UCaaS features I saw over and over again as being under-utilized or used incorrectly. (Follow me on LI for more)
1. Get outdoors man. Maximize your time on earth. You have full collaboration abilities with a UCaaS mobile app, so get out and carpe diem. You may recall me editing a power-point deck while walking down the sidewalk on a beautiful autumn day, or being on video calls while deer hunting. Man, UCaaS sure is living!
2. Customize & accessorize your meeting space. There is a plethora of audio devices to use with your UCaaS: blue tooth single ear headsets, double ear headsets with cushy ear pads, #MUTE AIDS, and noise cancellation abilities, USB Jabra speaker pucks, HD cameras, and of course good ole desk phones.
3. Are you busy? UCaaS is for you then my friend. It integrates with our Microsoft stack so I can click to call anyone in my contacts. Just type the 1st few letters of first or last name. Speed, don’t look up phone numbers, just carpe diem.
4. Virtual backgrounds. If you don’t want people to see the nice pictures of your family or that you have the worlds largest gun safe in your office, simply click the virtual background button and select or upload any image that you would like. I see people have a lot of fun with this one. Holiday themes, personality themes, and so on.
5. Another time saver is the calendar integration. See episode 7 from January 15th I demonstrated how we quickly join video meetings with one-button click. No dialing phone numbers, searching through emails for the meeting invitation, entering passwords. No sir. Whammo, 1 click, 1 nano-second, your in.
6. New employee hired? Add them to your UCaaS platform in 60 seconds or less. So easy a 3rd grader can do it. Before UCaaS you would have had to know the MIT inter-workings of your PBX phone system or call for support and wait days or even weeks to add the new guy.
7. Getting robo/spam or generally unwanted calls? Block them forever with a simple click of your mouse. Put that UCaaS in your grass pipe and smoke it, BUILDER!
8. Gone hunting, gone for the Holidays? Customize your status in seconds to let your network know about it. They appreciate this.
9. How do you #mute? Why is mute still such an obstacle? On the tip from January 27th I explain several mute aids that can be used to help with the excruciating task of using a mute button. Of course these features vary per UCaaS provider, so contact your UC guy and discuss how you want to #mute.
10. Virtual tours. My client could not show the buildings that they want to sell in person. What to do. What to do. Wha-Lah! Simply schedule a UCaaS video meeting walking your prospective buyer around the property with the UCaaS mobile application! What this feature & tip from me did was allow them to have like a first draft or first round for potential buyers. This would weed out 90% of the suitors and only then did they arrange for onsite visits with real serious buyers.
Well, I plan on continuing to publish tips online as I see fit and also just take time to show anyone interested in how to get more out of technology. If you have a question about collaboration technologies like UCaaS, or have a particular problem connecting with people effectively inside or outside of your organization, hit me up and lets rap about it. I am the UC guy.
Regards,
The UC Guy