Enterprise communications have become a cornerstone of customer experience (CX). In fact, 30% of customers attribute poor CX to issues with enterprise communications, highlighting a significant disconnect between customer expectations and current communication practices. Despite acknowledging the importance of strong customer communications, many enterprises are struggling to meet the challenge. A Forrester study revealed that 88% of enterprises are dissatisfied with how they manage customer communications.

Technology evolution is another important influencer of how enterprises communicate with their customers and employees. For instance, business communication, like the rest of the modern enterprise, now continues to trend toward cloud platforms like CPaaS. Many of these changes have accelerated in the post-pandemic world as the adoption of digital channels has surged among customers and enterprises alike.

For telecom service providers, these are clear signals of how enterprise communications are shaping up in 2024 and beyond. In this blog, let’s examine some of the technology-driven trends and challenges impacting enterprise communications and the lessons they hold for telcos.

5 Trends in Enterprise Communications in 2024

Here are the technology trends in enterprise communications that can elevate CX this year and beyond:

Cloud Communication

As digital adoption and transformation surge, customers interact with businesses through various channels, including emails, phone calls, instant messages, and chatbots. To bridge the "communication gap" between these channels, cloud platforms are increasingly seen as the optimal solution. In the era of the hybrid workforce, cloud communication has evolved from being a disruptive technology to a fundamental business necessity.

Cloud-powered communication tools not only enhance customer communication and experience (CX) but also integrate effortlessly with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This integration enables personalized customer interactions and context-driven actions, which are crucial for effective customer service.

Telecommunications companies are spearheading this cloud innovation. By using scalable, collaborative, and integrated platforms like Communication Platforms as a Service (CPaaS), they help businesses unify their communication channels and lower operational costs. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 90% of enterprises will utilize CPaaS platforms, underscoring the critical role of cloud-based communication solutions in modern business operations.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In 2024, AI technologies, including Generative AI, will continue to transform business communications. A 2024 Forbes survey found that 56% of business enterprises are using (or plan to use) AI technology to improve customer service. Additionally, 73% of enterprises use (or plan to use) AI-powered chatbots for instant messaging, and 61% use AI to optimize content in customer emails.

The business potential of AI technology goes much beyond chatbots and customer interactions. For telecom providers, AI technology has immense potential to transform their customer experience (CX). For instance, AI-powered telecom solutions can enable enterprises to onboard their customers faster and anticipate their needs. This will also mean an increase in the number of digital channels that customers use to interface with enterprises, further driving up the focus on platforms like CPaaS.

Omnichannel Customer Interaction

Customers interact with business brands through multiple communication mediums. This includes instant messaging, voice calls, video calls, and social media platforms. We have also seen how channels like bots and virtual agents are getting added to that list.

The customer journey is becoming a complex effort spread across multiple channels. For instance, a customer could easily research a product on the company website, seek information from the chatbot, compare features on a popular super-app, check the price on the brand’s mobile app, and then complete the purchase online or in-store. Typically, customers have around seven brand interactions across multiple channels before making their first purchase. This presents a challenge for enterprises: how to maintain consistency of messaging, information delivery, and insights across this complex multi-channel ecosystem? That’s why enterprises are looking to integrate these channels into an omnichannel strategy.

An effective omnichannel strategy is now key to successful CX in 2024. As more customers switch between devices daily, 80% prefer omnichannel offerings from brands. This means a unified experience across all touchpoints, including mobile phones and websites.

As part of an effective omnichannel communication strategy, omnichannel analytics can help brands understand the shift in customer expectations. Data-driven insights can align their business strategies with customer needs.

By offering enterprise customers a CPaaS-enabled omnichannel communication platform, telecom service providers can enable them to engage more meaningfully with customers on the channel of their choice.

Hybrid Work

By integrating remote work with onsite work, the hybrid work model is now standard across many organizations. Over this year, nearly 60% of workers (capable of remote working) can expect to work through the hybrid model. However, hybrid working comes with the risk of communication breakdowns, as co-workers are distributed between the office and remote locations.

The key to a successful hybrid working model is for enterprises to empower their employees through effective communication and collaboration in the hybrid work environment. This includes “fine-tuning” communication tools to build a stronger community of hybrid workers.

How can telecom companies tap into this opportunity? With a centralized Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) platform, they can help enterprises streamline their internal and external communications. Similarly, CPaaS technology can streamline cloud-powered communications for hybrid work without changing their backend infrastructure.

Real-Time Communication

Modern-day customers want to have proactive communication with enterprises. This translates to enterprises being able to preempt their customers’ concerns even before they have a problem. In this competitive market, organizations with proactive (or real-time) communication can win more loyal customers.

Seventy-three percent of customers are comfortable using live chat to interact with brands rather than using email (61%). With real-time communication (RTC), companies can instantly communicate with customers (or other entities) without any delay.

As part of this communication trend, conversational messages play a key role in enhancing the customer experience. For instance, whenever customers send a message to their brand, customer service executives can retrieve customer details quickly and ensure a more informed response.

For telecom service providers, RTC is shifting their transition from one-way communication to two-way conversations. Using CPaaS, they can now build RTC functionalities into any mobile app without having to create those functionalities from scratch.

Challenges that Telecom Operators Face with Enterprise Communications

As more customers connect to enterprises over global telecom networks using their mobile phones, they must stay connected anywhere and at any time. Additionally, the employees of enterprises are accessing essential cloud-powered applications on their mobile phones. Without seamless telecom connectivity, workers can experience a significant drop in their overall efficiency and productivity.

To enhance connectivity, enterprises are adopting multiple modes of communication, including mail, instant messaging, and video conferencing. However, the challenge lies in unifying the various mediums to avoid inconsistent or fragmented communication. The solution is to switch to a unified communication (UC) platform - with a single unified interface to streamline enterprise communication.

Data security is another challenge facing telecom operators, as data breaches can seriously damage their reputation and financial standing. Companies require stringent security measures such as data encryption, access control, and frequent security audits. Furthermore, office and remote employees need training on the best cybersecurity practices and how to safeguard their personal information.

In the age of hybrid working, companies can struggle with cross-functional collaboration among various departments, leading to organizational “silos” and a lack of cohesion. With their collaboration tools, telecom operators can facilitate communication between departments.

Conclusion

In the ever-changing telecom sector, we are witnessing the digitization of enterprises on the foundation of telecom services driven by technologies like CPaaS. It comes as no surprise that in the post-pandemic era, more companies are depending on technology-driven communication tools and solutions.

At Prudent Technologies, we have developed expertise in telecommunication solutions to benefit mobile network operators (MNOs) across the globe. Our CPaaS platform is designed to make telecom operators more competitive and cost-effective.

Are you looking for solutions to acquire new enterprise customers? Contact us now.