The top 5 communications challenges that impact customers and employees

Communications disruptions can stop work in its tracks. By now, most everyone has experienced lagging audio or a dropped video call that has derailed a meeting. These challenges have become exacerbated particularly over the last year due to the large increase in remote work and the need for more collaborative tools to perform critical daily business operations.

Many organizations are quick to admit that they’ve experienced technology challenges that directly impacted their employees, customers and business operations. A survey conducted by Forrester found these top 5 challenges impact customers and employees most:

1. Dreaded network downtime: With the explosion of remote work, more employees are relying on virtual meetings to communicate with clients and customers. Yet 62% of IT leaders admit to experiencing network downtime that has negatively impacted customer experiences (CX) in the past year.
2. Here, there, remote work everywhere: 65% of respondents in Forrester’s survey say that the sheer number of physical locations on their firm’s network creates a strain on its operation. The proliferation of remote workplaces of individual employees accelerated so dramatically last year that connectivity has been a constant struggle, and the lack of communications technology tools inhibits work from getting done efficiently.
3. Security is in question: The rise in a dispersed workforce has exposed a gap in endpoint security. Four out of five IT decision makers agree that they are more concerned about security for WFH employees than they were pre-pandemic, and this vulnerability is not an issue that will likely ever go away.
4. Do not disturb: While IT decision makers are most concerned about security, they are struggling to implement security updates that don’t disrupt the employee workflow. A security patch update that hijacks a device renders it unusable, causing a detrimental impact to the employee experience.
5. The missing piece: A lack of resources, such as user training and the right tools, is a major roadblock to performance and prevents organizations from getting the most out of their investments.

Investments for the future of work

IT teams recognize the growing importance of modern, cloud-based technology like Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) to properly support effective employee and customer communications. Amongst other trends topping IT’s agenda in 2021, it has become a main focus for organizations to adopt a unified approach that integrates their cloud-based workplaces to address challenges that help employees to get their jobs done, while keeping costs low.

Adopting UCaaS with SD-WAN and network security can remove obstacles in communication, support better work and give a competitive edge. These solutions can increase user adoption of tools and vastly improve customer engagement. Together they provide a more flexible approach to delivering a collaborate-from-anywhere solution, with greater security, productivity and reliability.

To learn more about how UCaaS can combat communications challenges, check out Forrester’s research findings. See how Windstream Enterprise can support your UC and voice needs by visiting our website.