Can You Hear Me Now? 2017's Top Unified Communication & Collaboration Solutions

At some point your business will need to adopt a "system" that not only improves how its personnel manage communication and collaborate in an effective fashion with its key audiences. 

There is, of course, no shortage of available solutions for this explicit purpose, and some very interesting and innovative offerings have emerged to capture the attention of those within the business community. 

Article on the top UCaaS offerings continues below...

Twilio, for example, is one of the technology providers doing some exciting things in the digital communication space and in many ways is completely reinventing the space. The cloud communications platform, for example, enables developers to build SMS, voice & messaging applications through an API. 

Communication and collaboration offerings aren't the reserve of startups alone however. 

In early 2017, Amazon Web Services (AWS) added Amazon Connect to its suite of offerings, a self-service, cloud-based contact center infrastructure tool geared towards enabling businesses to provide better customer service experiences.

The software provides most of the functionality expected from a contact center infrastructure product including inbound and outbound call routing, and real-time reporting metrics to help management make data-driven decisions.

The unified communication and collaboration as a service (UCaaS) market is becoming increasingly crowded but let's take a look at a few of the top solutions and why they may be right for your company: 

Nextiva: A perennial leader in the UCaaS and VoIP space, Nextiva is known for its functionality and support, as well as its value. Nextiva was awarded "Product of the Year" by Internet Telephony magazine for the last 4 years. The company's client roster includes such notable names as Target, Allstate, and IBM.

8x8: Offers both cloud phone systems and contact center solutions for both small and mid-size enterprises. 8x8 has been designated a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for the past six years, and is recognized for its solutions virtual meetings, mobile applications, and a myriad of other applications. 

Vonage: Likely the most well known of the solutions listed, Vonage is ideal for SMB's looking for a cloud-based unified communication solution that includes business phone systems, contact centers, conferencing, and integrations with other business applications including G Suite, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and others.

Jive: Another well known provider of UCaaS, Jive offers a powerful call routing system, automatic call distribution, broadband internet, call recording, conference calling, internet fax, etc.

Five9: A leading cloud call center software currently used by over 2000 clients for sales and customer service. Five9, for the third year in a row, was recently named a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service. 

Avaya: A cloud-based offering that offers a range of solutions for customer and team engagement (call center and contact center solutions and unified communication and collaboration solution).

Talkdesk: A cloud-based contact center software serving some very well known brands including Shopify, Dropbox, Motley Fool and The Weather Channel.

There are hundreds of solutions designated as unified communication and collaboration solutions and it's nearly impossible to list them all. Some that we hope to add in the future include Mitel (which recently acquired Shoretel) and Ooma. Do you have a recommendation for a top UCaaS?