4 Questions To Answer Before Choosing A UCaaS Provider & Platform
Cloud Services | UCaaS | Unified Communications
Most businesses have learned the value of implementing a UCaaS solution due to how rapidly remote work has accelerated within every industry.
UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) can help maintain a well-connected company culture and streamline communications amongst employees. In addition, UCaaS solutions ensure that every employee can collaborate, communicate, and work efficiently in a remote, hybrid, and in-office work environment.
Even though UCaaS is an excellent tool for business, how can you know what to look for in a provider and platform? How can you be sure that this solution will meet the needs and goals of your business long-term?
At LDI Connect, our cloud services division has worked with several clients over the years who have never implemented a UCaaS solution before. That’s why we’re here to provide both the questions and the answers that can help your business feel at ease when choosing a solution.
This article will cover four questions to ask and answer before choosing a UCaaS Provider and solution for your business. By the end of the article, you will understand why these questions are essential to ask, and you will feel confident about having a productive conversation with a provider.
What Is UCaaS & What Is A UCaaS Provider?
Before we take the next step in ironing out a few essential questions to ask, let’s make sure that you understand what UCaaS is and what a provider of this solution is.
Why?
Well, instead of assuming you want UCaaS for your business and a UCaaS provider, fully understanding both terms can help your business ensure that UCaaS is the right solution for your business.
Let’s break each down individually.
UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service)
UCaaS, also known as Unified Communications as a Service, is a cloud-controlled and delivered unified communications model.
It supports six modes of communication. These modes of communication include enterprise telephony (call hold, three-way calling, call transfer, and call forwarding), meetings (video, audio, and web conferencing), unified messaging, instant messaging, communications-enables business processes, and mobility.
A UCaaS infrastructure is typically owned, managed, maintained, and delivered by a provider.
Some examples of UCaaS solutions are Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Cisco WebEx, to name a few.
UCaaS Provider
A UCaaS provider can be a cloud services provider that offers a variety of UCaaS solutions or a provider that solely offers UCaaS solutions.
The characteristics of the provider may include multitenancy and self-service web portals for provisioning, management, and performance/usage reporting.
The provider will be in charge of delivering and implementing the UCaaS application for your business from a common platform. Then the provider will license the service for a monthly recurring subscription fee.
Now that we have outlined what UCaaS and a UCaaS Provider are, let’s look at the four questions to ask and answer before choosing a UCaaS Provider and platform for your company.
What Are 4 UCaaS Questions To Ask & Answer?
By now, you’ve likely been told your business needs a UCaaS solution if you don’t have one already. A platform that your employees can use to connect, collaborate and communicate with one another.
To ensure that your business will make an educated decision when looking for the best UCaaS solution, we’ve put together a few questions to ask your next unified communications provider.
Here are four questions to consider asking.
1. What Solutions Do You Provide?
You may have heard this before, but not every provider offers the exact solutions.
With that said, before you choose a provider and platform for your business, it’s best to understand what options are available to you.
An ideal UCaaS provider will provide the following UCaaS solutions:
- Seamless, multi-device usage
- File sharing, screen sharing, and messaging
- Audio, video, and web conferencing
Suppose your business is thinking of acquiring the help of a UCaaS provider. In that case, you should be given all the collaboration tools necessary to communicate and work efficiently.
For example, Microsoft Teams and Zoom are both UCaaS solutions. However, both have slightly different focuses and features.
Microsoft Teams focuses mainly on collaboration through messaging, conferencing, and file sharing. Zoom includes all those features, but video conferencing is the main feature that their solution is built around.
While businesses can use both Teams and Zoom for their collaboration needs, learning the features of each solution can help.
Suppose a UCaaS provider isn’t upfront about all the solutions they offer and the features included within each solution. In that case, they may not be the right fit for you.
Additionally, receiving an in-person demonstration of a solution is critical to understanding if the UCaaS application is right for your business. Try requesting an in-person demonstration of the UCaaS solution if the provider doesn’t suggest it.
2. Which Features Can Address My Business Needs & Goals?
Before recommending any solution, a discovery call and assessment of your cloud infrastructure are advised.
Conversing with a UCaaS provider about your needs and goals will help you understand if they’re suitable for your business.
By expressing your needs and goals to the UCaaS provider, your business can tell if they’re:
- Knowledgeable about UCaaS
- Listening to your company’s wants, needs, and goals
- Offering UCaaS solutions with features your business requires
Now, suppose you’ve never used a UCaaS platform before. In that case, it may be tricky to know what features you need before the conversation with a provider, so doing a bit of research beforehand can help.
The more specific you are about your company’s communication and collaboration struggles, the better.
Your company may need to add specialized integrations to a platform to meet your business needs.
By specialized integrations, we mean additional tools that can improve the platform such as a tool that helps generate phone surveys for marketing and sales initiatives.
3. Do You Provide Support Through The Cloud Migration Support Process?
We understand why your business may be nervous about implementing a new UCaaS solution if you’ve never done it before. That’s why we’re here to inform you of why it’s essential to ask this question to your UCaaS provider in question.
Ensuring that a provider can support you through a new transition is essential.
Switching your company to a new UCaaS application and phone system will need ample training and support. A provider should provide you with a step-by-step cloud migration strategy to make the transition as seamless as possible.
Once all the data is gathered to input into the UCaaS solution of your choice, next comes understanding the solution and how to operate it.
For example, suppose your business chooses Microsoft Teams for its UCaaS solution. In that case, your UCaaS provider should take the time to explain the different options available to your authorized users and what they’ll need to do to enable them.
Ensure that before you select a UCaaS solution, your company understands whether the UCaaS provider in question will assist your company during this migration to a new platform.
While your team of employees may be comfortable transitioning on their own, it’s helpful to understand what strategy the UCaaS provider has in place before acquiring their services.
4. How Do You Handle Cloud Security?
When considering working with a UCaaS provider, your business should consider how protected your data will be moving forward.
Some questions to consider asking the UCaaS provider about cloud security are:
- What cloud security measures do you recommend to secure our data from a cyber attacker?
- Do you have access to my organization’s confidential information?
- Are voice calls, video conferences, and messages all encrypted to ensure security?
- Are the encryptions compliant with important legislation?
Most likely, the answers to the questions above will help your business decide if the UCaaS provider can keep you in compliance and your data secure.
There is never a reason for a UCaaS provider to monitor or watch the content of a business’s team communications.
A UCaaS provider must ensure that the UCaaS platform you’re implementing is fully encrypted between endpoints and only accessible by authorized users.
Ready For A UCaaS Provider & Platform?
As your business continues to grow and change, considering new ways of improving employee communication can be beneficial. Our UCaaS solutions can help companies to stay collaborative and connected.
LDI Connect’s cloud services division helps clients migrate to the cloud and implement UCaaS solutions to meet their collaboration needs and goals to enhance business operations.
Get in touch with an LDI Connect representative today to discover what options we have available for you.
