The shift to hybrid and remote workplace models is forcing businesses to rethink what work looks like—including where, when, and how employees work together and what tools and processes are needed to optimally support productivity and employee satisfaction. New research from RingCentral demonstrates that deploying a unified communications solution can confer significant advantages for hybrid business models and help them to overcome the challenges they face as they transition to more flexible work arrangements.
Real-life gains and improvements
We recently surveyed more than 500 RingCentral customers to better understand the real-life gains and improvements businesses realize from deploying an all-in-one communications platform. The results show that remote employees can be more productive and work together more effectively—so long as they have the right tools.
Top benefits cited by RingCentral customers
Overall, our Customer Success Metrics Survey found that businesses that use RingCentral experience an average 32% increase in productivity, with some gains that specifically benefit teams and organizations who don’t always share the same physical space:
70% increase in employee mobility
The first imperative for successful remote and hybrid work is straightforward: give employees tools that allow them to work together seamlessly from anywhere, whenever they want. RingCentral’s messaging, video, and phone (MVP) solution is available on any device with a full suite of features that can be accessed via desktop or mobile app or browser. Whether workers are in the office, working from home, or on the road, they can easily message colleagues, jump on a call with a client, or join a video meeting. This access translates into a huge boost in the percentage of a workforce who are able to perform their jobs from anywhere.
39% increase in meeting effectiveness
Meetings are a significant part of work life—and remote and hybrid work can make them more challenging. RingCentral customers report a 39% increase in meeting effectiveness, with improvements that come before, during, and after group sessions. The ease of joining a meeting and ability to discuss and share information via tools such as screen sharing and annotations helps customers to reduce the number of in-person meetings by 53%, while our RingCentral Team Connect feature drives better end-to-end effectiveness by seamlessly layering on tools that improve groups’ ability to schedule meetings, share information, and keep the momentum going after the meeting concludes.
31% decrease in app toggling
Hybrid and remote work can slow people down if they have to use multiple tools to enable the level of instant, seamless communication that exists in physical offices. But RingCentral’s combined messaging, video, and phone functionalities—which enable workers to seamlessly shift between modes of communication in a single app—significantly reduce the amount of time lost to app toggling. Integrations with other apps offer further boosts to productivity, reducing the amount of time for employees to access resources and information by 27% and 23%, respectively.
Enabling the workforce of the future—now
As we move beyond the health crisis, the role of the office is changing, and almost everybody agrees that:
- Employees expect more flexibility, and communications solutions need to work even harder to bridge gaps and eliminate barriers that physical offices used to resolve inherently.
- Fewer than one in five executives say their companies will stage a full return to the office.
- The majority of workers (83%) prefer a hybrid work model. Companies that let their workers decide where and when to do their jobs—whether in another city or in the middle of the night—increase employee productivity, reduce turnover, and lower organizational costs, new research suggests.
- And, 63% of high-growth companies have already adopted a “productivity from anywhere” workforce model.
This means the vast majority of businesses will need to seek out new ways to support their workforce and remain competitive. The walls and barriers that have traditionally hindered employee collaboration have come down—this is the new standard, and it can be a source of competitive advantage.
According to Jocelyn Vallieres, RingCentral’s Senior Director of Customer Value Acceleration, “Our customers were able to seamlessly move to a work-from-anywhere environment during the healthcare crisis of 2020 using RingCentral’s unified messaging, video, and phone (MVP) app and are now capable of offering a hybrid work environment to their employees, which is a great employee satisfaction booster.”
RingCentral empowered employees to work from anywhere long before the health crisis. We have a full range of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solutions—from software to hardware and professional services. RingCentral Rooms, for example, enables any company to turn any room into a professional-grade video-enabled meeting room. We work with device partners like Logitech and Poly to make sure anyone can work from home, office, or on the road.
RingCentral: Proven to be a gamechanger
To that extent, RingCentral has proven to be a gamechanger. Consider Pacific Dental Services (PDS), which has earned recognition on the Inc. 5000, Inc. Magazine’s ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. a remarkable 14 times.
With more than 800 dental practices in 22 states, the company needed scalable, repeatable operating procedures across its network. This involved integrating its communications into one centralized environment that could also support a surge in demand for teledentistry during the health crisis. RingCentral’s mobile capabilities not only helped to enable remote patient care during lockdowns—but also will prepare them for a future in which some care will continue on a virtual basis.
Michael Brown, PDS’s IT Enterprise Operations Manager, said:
Our supported dentists are well positioned, using RingCentral Video, to do face-to-face follow-ups with their patients. I think that’s key to helping us improve that personal relationship between the dentists we support and their patients, which is really what the whole PDS model is all about.
A closer look at the RingCentral advantage
With results that encompass 18 key business metrics, there’s much more to unpack from our customer success survey. In this #CustomerSuccess blog series, we take a closer look at the results and explore some of the specific improvements seen across key business segments and within industry vertical markets.
To explore all of the results of our Customer Success Metrics Survey—and uncover more ways RingCentral helps to enable remote and hybrid work—download our datasheet now.
Originally published Jun 30, 2021, updated Dec 30, 2022
