What's hot in unified comms? We ask TAA Connect

Which UC solutions do you deploy?

Mitel, Enghouse/Zeacom, NEC and Alcatel Lucent.

When did your company first get involved in UC?

We started in the business 20 years ago.

Which UC certifications and/or credentials does your company have?

Our credentials are based around certification levels on the brands that we represent. We have a team of highly skilled engineers that have been in the UC voice space for a long time.

Who are your main distributors for UC technologies?

We deal directly with the manufacturers in the Mitel/NEC and Enghouse space and through VExpress for the Alcatel Lucent product range.

What cool or interesting recent UC technology have you heard of lately?

Video conferencing integration. We’re seeing a lot more interest in multimedia, where the end user contacts a call centre through a PC and video conferencing services. We’re not far away from contact centres being video conferencing centres – even in branches – or in guest situations where people engage remotely over videoconferencing. Video conferencing is now seen as a point-to-point product and expensive units in boardrooms but that’s not what it will become, in my mind.

Can you tell us about a recent UC deployment you have done?

We recently put UC in Isaac Council in western central Queensland. Its sites are at least 100km from each other and geographically remote.

It's very hard to get staff out there so sharing smart staff was a priority. They wanted people available to different sites using a 1800 number. We implemented a system on a single IP platform and routed calls intelligently between the sites. The customer is first given the local branch but if the wait is more than 30 seconds it goes to the next agent elsewhere in the council.

What is driving customers’ UC projects?

Improving availability and response times for customer contact ability.

UC is...?

The standard requirement for business today. The key for all business is to be able to ensure that customers, suppliers and the public can interface with our client via multiple formats, voice, internet, live chat and mobile apps, and reach mobile staff and manage all on the one platform.