With the ongoing evolution of hybrid work, mobility has become essential to enable a work from anywhere culture. Employees are making calls and collaborating from the office, from home and everywhere in between. In this new world, companies need to provide employees with technology that fits their workstyle and enables them to work from any location on any device.
At Webex, our team has been hard at work reimagining the calling experience to deliver next generation collaboration capabilities. Since we connect 8 billion phone calls each month, we have a huge opportunity to impact how people work. We want to ensure our customers have access to the latest calling and collaboration features to provide them with the best possible experience. This month, I am super excited to share the following new innovations for enterprise business calling.
A better mobile experience for people on the go
Our most exciting innovation is enabling an even better experience on your mobile device, wherever you are with Webex Go. This new capability can literally transform how you live and work daily in a hybrid world. With Webex Go, you no longer need to carry two mobile devices, one for personal and one for business, instead, you can use Webex Go to extend your Webex Calling business line natively to your personal mobile phone.
This new service enables you to make and receive business calls using your mobile phone’s native dialer, without an app, the way your phone was intended to be used. You instantly connect over the cellular voice network providing higher call quality when you’re on-the-go like driving, or a train. When you call your colleagues, it presents your business number, keeping your personal information private. Finally, your business calls made to local or international numbers won’t cost you any money since it is tied to your company and never charges or leverages your personal account.
Webex Go is also great for administrators as they can easily provision and manage Webex Go in Control Hub. IT can enable compliance standards on personal mobile phones such as call recording when mandated by the business or industry and access analytics for business calls or texts for enterprise phone usage, making all mobile phones a secure and compliant endpoint.
We are targeting availability for Webex Go in the first half of 2022. The initial release will be available only in the U.S., we are planning to expand to additional geographies in the future.
To learn more about Webex Go and to see a demo – register for WebexOne and attend the Webex Calling session: Move to the cloud with the calling platform that powers 8 billion calls a month
More capabilities in the Webex App
While we are excited about the launch of Webex Go, we have also enhanced the calling experience in the Webex App. Here are some of the latest new features:
Nomadic E911 service with dynamic location support– When you are using the Webex App and need to make an emergency call, it will provide accurate location information to emergency services for easier and timely dispatch. Webex app and devices, when at campus, provide the location information based on the network topology administrator configures. When at locations that are outside of the enterprise campus, Webex app will prompt user for the address to be used as part of emergency call, providing a way to comply with RAY BAUM’s Act – dispatchable location.
Re-imagined shared line experience – Our new quick calling window makes it easier for users to multi-task, answer calls faster and be more productive. This multiline call flow feature was made for calling power users like an Executive Admin or Support person where they share lines and responsibilities with other team members. This capability enables all supported phone lines to always be visible with latest status and per line notifications allowing for supporting employees to optimize real-time call routing.
Better together with Cisco Devices
With more and more people using the Webex App as their business phone, I love seeing our customers gain value with multiple workflows like calling, meetings, messaging and more while also getting the seamless integration across our Cisco Devices. For example, you can be in a deep conversation on your Cisco desk phone and then you can move it to your mobile phone – and your conversation seamlessly transfers without any interruptions.
Another exciting innovation that we released this month is Cloud Calling from a personal room device. This means you can call your colleagues by name or extension or make and receive PSTN calls directly with your Webex Desk Pro device. Our Cisco devices also bring the latest innovation with AI powered background noise removal, and the ability to configure and manage devices easily from Control Hub. In fact, Control Hub provides analytics for all workloads and devices across calling, meetings, and messaging. The key differentiator here is that you can have insight to your hardware and software data analytics – all in one place.
While we have a passion for innovation – we also like to create product features with purpose. Many of our customers have safety top of mind and we support them on this journey. That’s why we have partnered with Singlewire Software, a leading mass notification service provider, to create an integration between Webex Calling and its InformaCast software. This new capability empowers organizations to send mass communications to achieve safety and/or to keep people connected. This provides the ability to send live broadcasts or recorded audio pages to Cisco phones and speakers, and text alerts to digital signage, desktop computers and mobile devices. For example, an office administrator could send an intruder alert at the touch of a button to be immediately broadcast to overhead systems and delivered to all phones in a school setting. Overall, Webex Calling plus Cisco Devices just keeps getting better…
Cloud innovation without disruption
What I’ve shared with you so far is all part of the Webex Calling cloud experience delivered via our multi-tenant service. While most customers see the value of the cloud – some need more flexibility and a phased approach for migration.
The good news is that we now offer Dedicated Instance in the cloud, which is based on the Cisco Unified Communications manager call control stack and it is integrated into Webex Calling. This brings cloud innovation and an enhanced experience to customers who need to support older Cisco phones, local survivability in remote sites & support existing Unified Communications manager integrations. Now customers have flexibility to mix Multi-Tenant and Dedicated Instance to enable hybrid deployments for all employees, not just knowledge workers, but also employees in frontline and regulated functions.
More Calling plan coverage
With Cisco Calling Plans, you get a bundled solution to simplify your cloud calling experience. As a Webex Calling customer, you can order new PSTN numbers, or port existing numbers to Cisco easily and with the full support of Cisco and our partners.
We are aggressively improving our global footprint with our Cisco Calling plans with U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom already available today. This month we launched Cisco Calling Plan trials in 10 countries across the European Union covering Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Sweden. We plan to make this generally available by end of the year.
Are you ready for a next-gen calling experience?
As you can see, our team has been busy bringing many new innovations to market to support our customers. If you’re looking for a next generation calling experience that is built for hybrid work – I encourage you to explore Webex.
Make sure to register for WebexOne to see these latest innovations and a demonstration of Webex Go.
Learn more
Calling: From Everyday Imperatives to New Opportunities
Cisco Cloud Calling: Empowering Customers to Thrive with Hybrid Work
Our Best Kept Secret: Calling in Webex for the New Era of Work
Webex by Cisco eliminates the need to carry multiple mobile devices for business and personal use [press release]
Sourced from: Webex Blog. View the original article here.
