The Definitive Guide to Communications-Enabled Business Processes

Improving processes is critical to any organization. With the addition of modern technology, you can automate a variety of communication tactics. When you do, you have communications-enabled business processes.

In this post, we’ll review what these processes are, how they work, and the value they provide to your company.

What Are Communications-Enabled Business Processes?

Communications-enabled business processes describe any method of embedding automated communications into an existing business process. The services it enables work via APIs (application programming interfaces), facilitating exchanges between two systems.

The most common services this provides include:

• Outbound calls and SMS messaging
• IVR (interactive voice response)
• Integration between systems for greater access to data and reduction of reliance on legacy systems
• Automated routing of customer service inquiries based on customer inputs

In most cases, these new capabilities are part of a unified communications (UC) platform. Not all of these have automation abilities, requiring multiple systems. The best way to implement this is to have everything in one application.

This technology eliminates latency in workflows and redefines processes for greater performance. So, what advantages does this kind of solution bring?

The Benefits of Communications-Enabled Business Processes

Implementing this solution into your communications technology delivers mean valuable benefits. It can quickly drive strong ROI. Here’s what you can expect.

Increased efficiency in business processes

You can bypass legacy systems that may slow down a workflow with integration. As a result, your employees will be able to work more efficiently. Another efficiency gain is that when using a cloud-based communications platform, your users have access from any device. Additionally, if an incident occurs where power goes out, the system can still run on mobile devices, and critical systems are quickly repairable.

Enhanced customer experiences

Interaction with customers is critical to your company’s success. You want their experiences to be positive because 81 percent of consumers say positive experiences increase the chance of return business. Additionally, 61 percent of people would switch to a competitor after just one poor service experience.

Communications-enabled business processes can support this with IVR, dynamic notifications, and CRM integrations.

The use of IVR can improve experiences in two ways. First, it gathers information about why the person is contacting customer service. Based on the information received, the system automates the transfer to the most appropriate queue based on an agent’s skill set and knowledge.

The second way it helps is by providing common information to customers, such as mailing address, directions, balance checks, and issuing payments. They can self-serve and don’t require any human intervention.

Outbound notifications can also improve the customer experience. You can send messages via SMS, voice, or email. These can act as reminders or deliver vital information, including appointment confirmations, delivery en route, outage notifications, promotional offers, and more. The automation means your agents don’t have to spend manual time completing these.

Finally, CRM integration is critical in communications-enabled business processes. When integrated with contact center software, customer information is immediately available. Agents can then get up to speed quickly and be better prepared to solve the concern.

Improved contact center performance

Your contact center agents are on the front lines of supporting your customers. As such, they play a critical role in the relationship. When they have automation tools available, it makes their job less stressful and their ability to help customers increases.

First, it’s about having applicable data on the customer, which can occur through CRM integration or ticket tags of information gathered by IVR. Second, it’s about the ability to measure interactions and have visibility for metrics. A solution that automates data collection and delivers reports ready to go will significantly benefit supervisors. Through these analytics, leaders can easily identify areas of success and those needing improvement.

Smart routing creates seamless workflows

Processes for routing customer inquiries, whether they be by voice, email, chat, or social media, should be automatic. This ensures that a customer moves to the appropriate queue for support based on the reason for their communication and the skillset of the agent. This is smart routing. With this technology, no matter how the customer contacts you, they’ll find the right agent. As a result, transfers are fewer, and first-time call resolution rates are higher.

Learnings from customers can propel innovation

Another communications-enabled business process that can improve your organization is interaction analytics. Customers provide lots of compelling information in interacting with your company. Manually mining this would be too time-consuming. The solution is an AI (artificial intelligence) tool that finds important conversations automatically. It collects the information, transcribes it, and analyzes it to deliver insights.

The value of these can be useful for your company in product road maps (e.g., new features), understanding buyers better, and improving your knowledge bases or instructions for clarity.

With all these automation features, your contact center can run more smoothly, and you’ll offer your agents the tools they need. Plus, you’ll have lots of data to measure all initiatives and glean insights.

UC Platforms with Communications-Enabled Business Processes: Intermedia Has Solutions

Our UC platform, Intermedia Unite, paired with Intermedia Contact Center, is a turnkey solution in communications-enabled business processes. With this integrated solution, you’ll have an easy-to-use communications vehicle for every business need. Learn more about Unite and Contact Center today!