Constellation ShortList™ Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

About This Constellation ShortList™

UCaaS represents a consolidation of core communications infrastructure and point solutions to provide a more sophisticated cloud-delivered platform that centralizes modern digital communications. All UCaaS solutions center on the core functions of communications, including voice and telephony; meeting and conferencing; messaging; chat and mobile communications; and customer-facing communication applications such as integrated contact centers, service, support, and help desk workstreams and collaboration.

UCaaS emphasizes the channels and systems of communications internal to an enterprise, connecting those channels to systems and solutions that power external, often more-customer-directed engagements such as call centers. These systems came under heavy pressure at the start of the global pandemic in 2020 as remote work pushed teams, including traditionally in-house call center and support teams, to continue to connect, call, and engage remotely just as effectively as they had under one physical telephony infrastructure.

One key element of a UCaaS solution is the capacity to integrate communications and data across communications channels, specifically to improve performance and to enhance the quality and effectiveness of a customer’s experience. As greater emphasis is placed on effective and productive internal communications serving as a linchpin for more profitable and consistent delivery of positive customer experiences, expect to see a shift away from UCaaS as being thought of as solely an internal tool but also as one that unifies the entirety of the engagement ecosystem.

Threshold Criteria

Constellation considers the following criteria for these solutions:

• Comprehensive communications offering across phone, chat, social messaging, and video
• Web, desktop, mobile, smart TV, and embedded hardware clients
• Call routing, forwarding, conferencing, and voicemail functions
• Collaboration tools such as scheduling, messaging, automated workflows, and project management
• Cloud deployed across public, private, and hybrid options for organizations with complex internal systems
• Enabling of work-from-anywhere, especially for telephony-reliant functions such as service and support
• 24/7 support and training for technical and business users in all major geographies
• Key voice-to-text services, including global transcription in common languages of business
• Ready access to uptime detail across a network
• Flexible, scalable pricing
• Robust security protocols and measures, including adherence to key global regulations such as PCI and GDPR
• Integrations with business tools such as CRM and core customer service and support platforms and tools
• Reporting and metrics on performance, application utilization, traffic, incident logs, and uptime metrics
• AI and ML applications, such as smart routing and analysis of transcribed calls and engagements, to improve performance and experiences