There are many communications tools available to us today. We all have preferences but they may change depending on the situation. It might depend on your location, time of day or what device you have available. What if you could choose different communication methods and not have it be dictated exclusively on the limits of your current communications platform?

That’s what a modern Unified Communications platform delivers.

Unified Communications allows you to use any communications medium – voice, email, chat, SMS and more and still remain simply connected with your colleagues.

It also provides ‘presence’, a capability that allows you determine how colleagues can see your current status. This simplifies the ability to find you and may even indicate the preferred way to reach out. For example, your presence shows you are on a conference call, so your colleague sends you a text for a quick update.

More and more businesses are service oriented today. Whether it is providing professional services such as legal, engineering, consulting or marketing, the business will rely  on team work and collaboration more than ever before.

Even traditional businesses such as manufacturing or mining see more value in the wrap around services they provide for their product.

There are even entirely new business service models such as home health care that are totally reliant on remote workers.

Ultimately how well your staff can inter-communicate and collaborate will make or break how well those services are offered to your clients.

There are few of us today that could say they have spare time at work. Meetings, rightly or wrongly, can consume a large portion of people’s time. With conference calls increasing, this means people cannot take a call but they may still be able to help.

Tools that include application clients that indicate a colleague’s availability and even how they may be available (known as ‘presence’) can make it so much easier to connect.

Just by knowing someone is on a call and will be available in 10 minutes can be a relief when you have a priority. Simply let them know. Taking the guesswork and anxiety out of finding who is available and can help is a large part of solving problems and getting things done.

Younger employees have grown up using communication applications like text or SMS and may prefer to connect that way. Older employees may still prefer a telephone call. Someone else, email.

It might be context driven: I’m on the road and can’t use my hands, in an airport lounge and the paging is constantly going, on a conference call but can still type an email.

Whatever the reason – personal choice or context or both – having the option to use a communications medium that fits best your current need, is a huge work boost.