Unified Communications Partner Helps Telecom Partner to Expand Revenue Streams

With more than 17 years designing innovative real-time and non–real-time communications solutions, Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner The VIA Group is well equipped to help IT and telephony teams navigate the complexities of developing unified communications solutions. Within six months of engaging The VIA Group, Artilium—also a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a European telecoms software developer—had developed a proof of concept for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Artilium credits its engagement with The VIA Group with shortening its time-to-market and helping it discover new revenue sources. These capabilities have also helped support more productive connectivity and collaboration and more efficient customer support.

Streamlined Collaboration

The VIA Group gains significant collaboration benefits from the capabilities in Office Communications Server 2007. For example, the firm uses the conferencing capabilities in Office Communications Server 2007 to have much more productive internal meetings with remote users. ―We hold a lot of impromptu meetings, and with Office Communications Server 2007 we're able to bring voice and video to some rather remote end users so that they can see the entire conference and interact more easily than with just a voice phone call,‖ says Goodwin. The VIA Group also uses Microsoft Office Live Meeting to collaborate on documents in real time. ―In the past, we'd send e-mail messages back and forth with updates and revisions, but with Office Live Meeting we can interact in real time,‖ Goodwin adds.

Improved Customer Service

The VIA Group also employs Office Communications Server 2007 to enhance its customer service. By federating its support representatives with customers through Office Communications Server 2007, The VIA Group is able to provide much more immediate customer support. ―Customers can just look to see whether a representative is available and then send an IM or call to get the issue resolved in real time, which significantly enhances the customer service experience,‖ says Goodwin.

Click here to read more on this article...