We're thrilled to announce that Fortay Connect has achieved a groundbreaking milestone: we are a Zoom Platinum Partner! Fortay Connect became only the second partner in the UK to achieve this highly regarded status, and are the most accredited being the only partner with Phone and Customer Experience Deployment competencies to provide expert consultancy and services to our customers. Why is this important for you, our valued customers and prospects? Let's dive in. Setting The Gold (Or Should We Say Platinum?) Standard In the world of Zoom partners, Platinum status is the pinnacle of excellence. It's not just about selling the products; it's about demonstrating unparalleled expertise across the platform's entire portfolio, and we've gone a step further by adding specialised competencies in Zoom Phone and CX (Customer Experience) solutions. Why This Matters To You 1. Comprehensive Expertise Our team has proven their skills in implementing: - Zoom Meetings and collaboration tools - Zoom Phone for global cloud-based telephony - Zoom Contact Centre for customer experience - Zoom Revenue Accelerator to improve and drive sales This means we can offer you integrated solutions that cover all your communication needs under one roof. 2. Cutting-Edge Solutions As a Platinum partner, we get early access to the latest features and products as well as extensive training to develop services to save you time, money and effort. This means you'll be at the forefront of communication technology, often accessing innovations before your competition. 3. Tailored Implementations Our deep understanding of the platform's ecosystem allows us to craft solutions that fit your unique business needs like a glove. No more one-size-fits-all approaches – we're talking custom-fit solutions that drive real business value. 4. Unmatched Support With direct lines to Zoom's support and development teams, we can resolve issues faster and more effectively. Your communication infrastructure is in safe hands. 5. Future-Proofing Your Investment Our close relationship means we have a say in their product roadmap. We're not just implementing today's solutions; we're helping shape the future of business communication. Why Choose Fortay Connect? Proven Expertise: Our Platinum status with Phone and CX competencies is proof of our unmatched skills in the UK market. Holistic Approach: We don't just implement tools; we transform your entire communication strategy. Innovation Leaders: Partner with us, and you're always ahead of the curve. Customer-Centric Focus: Our success is measured by your success. CX Services: Strategic services to take your business goals and turn them into communication excellence. The Fortay Connect Advantage By choosing Fortay Connect, you're not just getting an implementation partner. You're gaining a trusted advisor with unparalleled expertise in Unified Communications and CX. Whether you're looking to upgrade your phone systems, revolutionise your customer experience, or transform your entire communication infrastructure, Fortay Connect has the expertise, the tools, and the certified credentials to make it happen. Ready to take your business communications to the next level? Let's talk. With Fortay Connect, you're not just keeping up with the future of business communication – you're leading it. Contact us today to learn how we can transform your business communication with the power of Zoom.
Unlocking New Productivity Features Welcome to the future of virtual collaboration! If you've ever found yourself lost in the whirlwind of a Zoom meeting, scrambling through notes, or struggling to recall key points, the AI Zoom Companion transforms your experience. Imagine having a digital assistant that captures main ideas, highlights essential tasks, and keeps everyone on track. This AI companion is more than just a fancy addition—it’s a groundbreaking tool designed to transform how meetings are conducted by enhancing productivity and ensuring you make the most of every minute. Let’s dive into the wonders of what the AI Companion can do on Zoom! Understanding Zoom AI Companion Zoom AI Companion is an advanced digital assistant designed to streamline virtual meetings, boost productivity and improve collaboration. By leveraging Zoom AI Companion features, users can focus on the discussion rather than mundane admin tasks like note-taking or scheduling. This tool integrates into your CRM platform, providing a more interactive and efficient virtual meeting environment. Key Features Of AI Companion On Zoom The AI Zoom Companion is packed with features that make it indispensable for today’s virtual meetings. Here are some of its standout functionalities: Meeting Summaries: Automatically generate concise summaries of each meeting, ensuring everyone stays informed, even if they missed the live session. Text Translation: Break down language barriers by providing real-time translation during meetings, fostering seamless communication among diverse teams. Sentiment Analysis: Analyse the tone of conversations in real time to provide insights into team dynamics and engagement levels. Task Recommendations: Suggest actionable tasks based on meeting discussions, prompting follow-up actions to keep momentum going after the meeting. Enhancing Meetings With AI Zoom Companion Real-Time Transcriptions One of the best features of AI Zoom Companion is its ability to transcribe meetings in real-time. Imagine attending a meeting without the stress of missing important points. The companion listens attentively, captures every spoken word and generates a transcript so you can always revisit discussions. It’s like having a dedicated note-taker who never misses a thing! Automated Note-Taking Taking meeting notes can often be overwhelming, but with the Zoom AI Companion, that task becomes effortless. It highlights key points and extracts essential information, creating a comprehensive set of notes. You’ll never have to worry about missing critical details again, and it becomes easier to share insights with your team post-meeting. Smart Scheduling Scheduling meetings has never been easier, thanks to AI Zoom Companion. This smart assistant analyses participants' calendars and suggests the best meeting times based on availability. It even sends invitations and handles rescheduling conflicts automatically, making sure everyone is available and engaged at the right time. Collaboration Tools Powered By Zoom AI Zoom is continually expanding its AI features to make collaboration smoother. Here are a few innovative tools: Zoom Docs: A recent addition, Zoom Docs is an AI-first collaborative document that transforms meeting content into actionable documents. It includes full meeting summaries and helps boost agents' productivity by turning insights into organised steps. Mind Maps: Using Zoom Whiteboards, the AI Zoom Companion can create mind maps based on user prompts. This feature allows teams to organise ideas and stay on track, perfect for brainstorming sessions. Smart Recordings: Missed a meeting? No worries. Zoom’s AI Companion will automatically divide meeting recordings into chapters, organised by topics. Why AI Zoom Companion Is Essential For Meetings With AI Zoom Companion, meetings become more productive, accessible, and organised. Here’s how: Increased Productivity: AI tools can generate summaries, highlight action items, and even suggest the next steps. Improved Communication: Real-time transcriptions, text translations, and automatic note generation make it easier to ensure everyone is on the same page. Better Meeting Accessibility: Zoom AI Companion enhances inclusivity by providing features like closed captions for the hearing-impaired and real-time summaries for latecomers. Future Features With Zoom AI The future looks bright with Zoom AI Companion as it continues to evolve. You will soon be able to use AI to prepare for meetings by researching information, analysing phone calls, and even generating images. With these features, Zoom AI will not only make your work easier and faster, but it will also help you improve over time. If you would like more information about AI Zoom Companion, please get in touch. Image Source: Canva
Register for our 30 min TEAMS webinar Microsoft Teams offers integration capabilities with various Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) providers to enhance its communication and collaboration features. These integrations enable organizations to leverage the power of Teams for both internal and external communication, as well as customer support and engagement. Here are some key aspects of Microsoft Teams integrations with UCaaS and CCaaS providers: Get your free whitepaper about TEAMS here. 1. UCaaS Integrations Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) providers typically offer a range of communication and collaboration tools, including voice, video, messaging, and conferencing. Microsoft Teams can integrate with UCaaS platforms to enhance its telephony and voice capabilities. Here's how this integration works: - Calling Plans: Microsoft Teams can be used as a full-fledged phone system by integrating with UCaaS providers' calling plans. This allows users to make and receive calls, manage voicemail, and set up call routing within Teams. - Direct Routing: Organizations can use Direct Routing to connect Microsoft Teams to their preferred telephony providers. This integration allows for seamless PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) connectivity within Teams. - Voice Features: UCaaS integration enhances Teams with features like call recording, interactive voice response (IVR), call analytics, and call center functionality. - Single Interface: Users can access both UCaaS and Teams features within a single interface, streamlining communication and collaboration. 2. CCaaS Integrations Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) providers offer solutions for managing customer interactions and support. Integrating CCaaS with Teams can help organizations improve customer service and engagement. Here's how this integration works: - Omnichannel Communication: CCaaS integration allows customer support agents to handle customer inquiries via various channels, including voice, chat, email, and social media, all within the Teams interface. - Routing and Queues: Teams can be integrated with CCaaS routing and queuing systems to efficiently manage incoming customer requests and distribute them to available agents. - Access to Customer Data:Agents can access relevant customer data and information from CRM systems and databases directly within Teams, providing a more personalized customer experience. - Reporting and Analytics: CCaaS integrations provide insights and analytics on customer interactions, allowing organizations to make data-driven decisions. - Workflow Automation: Automate processes and workflows by integrating CCaaS and Teams, improving efficiency and reducing response times. - Scalability: Organizations can scale their customer support operations seamlessly by adding or removing agents as needed. Register for our 30 min TEAMS webinar UCaaS and CCaaS Providers Integrated with Teams - UCaaS Providers: Cisco Webex Calling, Zoom Phone, RingCentral, and 8x8. - CCaaS Providers: Five9, Genesys Cloud, and Twilio Flex. When integrating UCaaS and CCaaS services with Microsoft Teams, organizations should consider factors such as compatibility, scalability, and the specific communication and collaboration needs of their teams and customers. Additionally, they should consult with their chosen UCaaS and CCaaS providers for detailed integration instructions and support. Want to know more? Register here for our 30 min TEAMS lunch & learn.
3rd Feb, 2023: Fortay Connect is pleased to announce that they are recognised as a RingCentral Reach Gold Partner. As a Gold Partner, Fortay represents the Top 1% of RingCentral's Global channel partners and are best equipped to help European organisations use RingCentral to create an enterprise-grade communication platform. As a RingCentral ReachTM Gold Partner, Fortay Connect is recognised as one of the partners most familiar with RingCentral’s industry-leading UCaaS and CCaaS products.That means when it comes to helping move your communications to the cloud, our consultants and engineers have the expertise, experience, and relationships to ensure a seamless transition. With our long track record of success with RingCentral, we know how to design the perfect cloud solution for your needs. RingCentral Gold Partner Requirements Gold Partner status recognises the top 1% of RingCentral Partners globally, owed to the significance of their knowledge, expertise and impact on customers who want to move their communications to the cloud. Gold Partners have the experience to design the perfect solution for customer needs. Benefits of Selecting RingCentral RingCentral MVP is a full-featured cloud communications solution offering all of the integrated capabilities of team messaging, meetings, and contact center to address the challenges of today’s business environment. Some of the many benefits include; Unifies communications across your company Simplifies multi-location management Flexes when your business flexes Connects mobile and remote workers Instant access to the latest features Greater control RingCentral MVP offers the perfect way to move all of your communications and collaboration systems into the modern world. It unifies voice, fax, text, video conferencing, and audio conferencing into a single network. Our team is available immediately to help your organisation with any RingCentral queries or migrations.
6th Jan, 2023: Fortay Connect is pleased to announce that they are the first UK Zoom partner to receive certification the Zoom Phone Competency. Fortay's consultants are now equipped to help our clients use Zoom to create an enterprise-grade voice, video, and collaboration platform. With many enterprises today operating in a remote or hybrid work model, ensuring a seamless user collaboration experience is critical to user productivity and satisfaction. Fortay’s new Zoom credentials come in addition to the team’s expert-level certifications in RingCentral, Avaya, Mitel and Teams platforms. “Many enterprises are grappling with creating a collaboration architecture that meets the needs of a geographically-dispersed workforce,” says Mark Taylor, Co-founder and Director of Fortay Connect. “When you hire an outside consultant to help, you need an expert who can look across the leading platforms and help you build the best for your users and use cases. That’s what Fortay does. We are experts in mapping client requirements to platform architecture decisions.” Zoom Phone Competency Requirements Zoom Phone Competency enables trusted voice professionals to become certified in delivering Zoom Phone for a seamless customer experience, ensuring successful adoption and deployment of the platform. To gain entrance to this certification program, firms must have a minimum two years as a voice consultant and five customer testimonials on record. Benefits of Selecting Zoom Phone Zoom Phone is a “modern cloud phone system.” Together with their meetings platform, it provides an enterprise-grade collaboration hub for video, voice, chat, and meetings. The three biggest advantages of Zoom Phone are: The enterprise features: Zoom Phone includes traditional PBX features that enable employees to talk and interact in new ways to keep businesses moving. Centralised management: You can provision and manage users and intelligently monitor business interactions with an easy-to-use centralized administration portal. Security and reliability: The globally distributed Zoom cloud platform delivers secure HD audio with enterprise-class reliability and quality of service. For businesses interested in a cloud-first phone system to better accommodate a remote or hybrid employee geographic footprint, Zoom Phone is a leading option in the market. If you’re already using Zoom’s meeting, webinar, or room capabilities, there is even more reason to consider extending your platform to include Zoom Phone. Fortay's Professional Services Zoom Phone Competency Partner's are encouraged to develop value-added services to enhance the client platform experience. As a voice and collaboration consultant for nearly 25 years, Fortay has a deep understanding of the evolution of collaboration infrastructure in the enterprise. Today, our collaboration expertise includes architecting cloud-first unified communications platforms. Fortay's value-added services for the Zoom platform include: Platform selection and design Deployment, including integration with other platforms and systems End user training and adoption to ensure maximum system value Our team is available immediately to help your organisation with Zoom Phone or general platform integration help.
We are delighted to share that we are an accredited Living Wage Employer. This means that every member of staff working for Fortay Connect will earn above a real Living Wage. This commitment applies to not only directly employed staff but also to our third party contracted staff. The real Living Wage is higher than the government’s minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living. It is calculated each year and is announced by the Living Wage Foundation as part of Living Wage Week. It is currently£9.90 in the UK, with a higher rate of £11.05 for London, reflecting the higher costs of living in the capital. Katherine Chapman, Director, Living Wage Foundation said: “We’re delighted that Fortay Connect has joined the movement of almost 9,000 responsible employers across the UK who voluntarily commit to go further than the government minimum to make sure all their staff earn enough to live on. The real Living Wage provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum. Since 2011 the Living Wage movement has delivered a pay rise to over 300,000 people and put over £1.6 billion extra into the pockets of low paid workers.
Fortay Connect is delighted to announce a new partnership with One Tree Planted, an environmental charity with a focus on global reforestation. As of the 1st May 2022 Fortay Connect have committed to plant One Tree for every Unified Communications seat sold. Currently,1.6 billion people rely on forests for their livelihoods and 80,000 acres of forest disappear each day. Additionally, forests provide homes to 80% of the world’s terrestrial species, help clean the air we breathe and filter the water we drink. “We are thrilled to be partnering with One Tree Planted, at Fortay Connect we are fully committed to doing our part to better the environment and our communities. For every tree planted, we remove 1 tonne of CO2 from the planet over its lifetime. This reforestation initiative is just the beginning for us as an organisation. This exciting partnership enables our passionate team and customers to give back to the planet and showcase's that as an organisation we are more than just a technology company. This initiative will see us plant tens of thousands of trees said Harriet Forrest, Director of Fortay Connect. Trees are essential to the health of our planet, biodiversity, and reducing the harmful effects of climate change. Reforestation is consistently identified by scientists as one of the top solutions to the climate crisis and the trees planted as part of this initiative will support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. About One Tree Planted: One Tree Planted's projects span the globe and are done in partnership with local communities and knowledgeable experts to create an impact for nature, people, and wildlife. Reforestation helps to rebuild forests after fires and floods, provide jobs for social impact, and restore biodiversity. Many projects have overlapping objectives, creating a combination of benefits that contribute to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
We’re proud to announce that we have been awarded Avaya Cloud Office’s Certified Delivery Partner accreditation. This accreditation in addition to our RingCentral accreditation and enables us to extend our Professional Services offering for our customers across both platforms. The program was created to provide customers with a top-tier class of care that includes; Technical design Implementation Network configuration Integrations Monitoring services Training Fortay Connect's professional services currently covers the UK and EMEA in delivering technology solutions. As the consumption of UcaaS continues to excellerate, Fortay Connect can help our customers in moving to the cloud with our expert professional services team. We have become an extension of the Avaya Professional Services team and work diligently to ensure customers are fully leveraging their business communications solutions. The Professional Services team is a specially crafted team of engineers with technical knowledge and deep-dive expertise that rivals our competitors. Contact Fortay Connect for your projects or simply for some advice, our professional services team is here to help our customers succeed.
Teams revenues have grown from $0.01 billion in 2017 to $6.8 billion in 2020, making it Microsofts fastest-growing business application of all time. With over 250 million users worldwide, Teams has successfully rivalled Slack for its messaging capabilities but is much less advanced when considering its telephony capabilities. Are you getting everything you need from your investment in Office 365? While Teams includes collaboration essentials in messaging and video many businesses still require a secure, reliable, and scalable telephony solution. Calling is still one of the most valuable communication tools used by businesses globally and an SLA of 99.9% which allows up to 9 hours of downtime a year isn't enterprise ready. The solution? Integrate your Microsoft Teams environment with RingCentrals industry leading enterprise PBX; and benefit from a 99.999% SLA, enterprise-grade quality of service and global availability. RingCentral’s Direct Routing integration enables users to get more done. The PBX integrates into Teams, keeping Teams at the centre of the collaboration experience. A single application reduces downtime and application overload for users, as well as simplifying training and management for tech teams. It also allows users to combine Teams collaboration tools with an enterprise PBX, delivering a native, feature-rich PBX experience, elevating workplace collaboration for everyone. With RingCentral's Cloud PBX for Microsoft Teams, all communication and collaboration essentials live in the Teams platform. This boosts businesses productivity by simplifying the user experience but enabling an industry-leading enterprise PBX with innovative features, including call controls, IVR and call handling, automatic call recording, reports and analytics. If security is a concern - RingCentral has leading security certifications, such as SOC 3 and HITRUST, and compliance with industry requirements, such as HIPAA and FINRA, ensuring that users always operate securely and in accordance with industry standards. Contact the team for more information; hello@fortayconnect.com
Fortay Connect are certified as Disability Confident Committed. As a Disability Confident Committed Employer we have committed to: ensure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible communicating and promoting vacancies offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job anticipating and providing reasonable adjustments as required supporting any existing employee who acquires a disability or long term health condition, enabling them to stay in work at least one activity that will make a difference for disabled people This is an important step in our dedication to provide disabled people with an opportunity to work. Please contact us with your CV if you are interested in applying for a job - careers@fortayconnect.com
