Communication platforms deliver the highest level of productivity when they’re integrated with back office and front office systems. So, for example, a customer query to the contact centre could be answered using details from a CRM system without even hitting an agent’s queue. Until recently, many companies were still using Private Branch Exchange (PBX)s for their telephone system, bringing the voice network into their digital transformation was on their to-do list. But the recent change in working practices broke their reliance on traditional phone systems. As companies move most of their architecture and applications to the cloud, including their voice traffic, it’s now a good opportunity to address your legacy voice network. Unified communication platforms are now taking a significant portion of a company’s voice traffic. You now want to integrate these platforms with your traditional communication devices to ensure they are all working harmoniously together and an employee can be securely contactable from wherever they choose to work.

Ivan Provaznik at Commerzbank, says: “We are looking at the possibility of two integrations. You have your IT support ticketing systems such as PSM or ServiceNow. And then you have your collaboration platform, such as Jira, that needs to be integrated. And there needs to be interfaces between these solutions. Tools integration remains a challenge, because of course, these aren’t done overnight. But it is something that the bank is working on.” A unified communications infrastructure is a vital foundation for giving customers an omnichannel experience. Just as staff have changed how they communicate in the pandemic, so have customers. A customer may no longer want to phone the contact centre. They may want to text or use a chat facility. Added to that, contact centre staff are difficult to recruit , so companies are looking at automating as much of that experience as possible in order to attract and retain customers and drive sales.