COVID-19 has been transformative in many ways. But in others it has simply accelerated existing trends. Case in point: digital communication.
While most of us are now familiar with the user-facing tech – the conferencing over Zoom or collaborating within Microsoft Teams – the foundation of organisational communication is where the starker transformation has occurred. And at Soprano we have enjoyed a front row seat to this revolution.
How COVID-19 turned communication digital
Many companies were on the path to digitising their communication systems well before the pandemic struck. Others – mainly SMEs – had to manage a more sudden switch. This has necessitated real effort and resources, as it represents a major switch. Many companies fell back on more temporary emergency solutions which, once the initial crisis had passed, had to be reviewed and improved – it goes without saying that reverting to the analogue past was not an option.
Indeed, a number of such digital transformations are occurring across organisations. It’s just in communications that they’re perhaps most keenly felt.
COVID-19 has served to demonstrate the importance of instant and effective communication. Previously this was perhaps taken for granted in-office, but our new digital reality has shown that an organisation can no longer rely on traditional setups.
A new world demands new communication methods: the human sitting next to the landline phone needs to be replaced by a series of automations, escalation rules, flows and channels to ensure all messages are delivered quickly, clearly and reliably to the person it needs to be. This rings true for both a company’s internal and external communications.
The question, then, is what will this new world of communication actually look like?
The key technologies of digital communication
Right now we are experiencing a true explosion of communication technologies. 5G, offering close to zero latency and greatly increased bandwidth, will serve as the foundation for what’s to come.
In terms of interactions, AI engines and serverless cloud computing platforms are playing key roles in enhancing and enriching communications through existing channels, making possible things that we couldn’t have imagined only a few years ago.
These technologies are driving a new age of customer engagement. AI-enabled chatbots provide human-like customer experiences, maintaining sophisticated conversations that allow companies to secure valuable user information and even sell products.
On the back end, cloud computing platforms have allowed companies to build all the necessary apps that support these complex flows, without needing to spend big on hardware and software.
When all these technologies and strategies are combined, unavailability, bottlenecks and the other constraints of traditional communication are all but eliminated. Communication is made simple, automated, and possible anytime and anywhere.
Which brings us neatly to the next question: how exactly do you go about combining them?
How Soprano’s CPaaS is driving the digital communication revolution
The answer is with a communications platform as a service, or CPaaS.
CPaaS tools create and maintain an organisation’s internal and external communications. Their job is to ensure that there is always a ‘path’ for any interaction, even when the human element is missing.
This automation and flow control ensures a company never misses an opportunity, even if a customer is knocking on their digital door at 2am, or an internal process needs to be actioned over a long weekend, perhaps in response to an emergency situation.
Soprano is a key player in this communication revolution. On one side we are working at broadening the channel portfolio to ensure messages are delivered through the recipient’s preferred channel, and on the other we are constantly developing new cloud computing features, integrating them with the top tools in that world.
All this is helping to fast expand the possibilities of our customer’s interactions. And it’s placed us at the forefront of communication innovation, ready to help our clients through the next earth-shaking event, and perhaps, like COVID-19, thrive off the back of it.