Unified Communications (UC) is supposed to save time. But when meetings freeze, audio goes robotic, or calling fails – these painful moments harm productivity.
That is why buyers are paying closer attention to service management, connectivity, and UC performance as one linked story.
The money side is real, too. Research has shown that a single hour of downtime costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for many enterprises.
This is also why digital employee experience optimization has become an IT priority. If you want to find out how to unlock connectivity benefits or measure an ITSM’s impact on work – then you’re in the right place.
Looking for a reading list before your next buying committee meeting? Here are some useful articles to upgrade your service management & connectivity strategy:
- The 90 Day Playbook for ITSM & Connectivity Adoption Success
- The Service Management & Connectivity Market Map: 12 Vendors You Should Know
- The Top Service Management & Connectivity Events to Attend in 2026
UC Performance Monitoring: Fewer Guesses, Faster Fixes
This is the impact of UC performance monitoring in one line: when you can see the problems, you no longer need meetings to debate their existence.
UC performance monitoring and Quality of Experience (QoE) tools track signals that directly affect voice and video, like latency (delay), packet loss (missing data), and jitter (uneven delivery). Microsoft notes that device/software processing latency plus network latency has a big impact on end-to-end experience. In turn, this can act as a pillar in your enterprise employee experience optimization strategy.
For Microsoft Teams specifically, Microsoft recommends using Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) to build a process for monitoring and maintaining call and meeting quality, so issues can be investigated systematically.
Connectivity Tools: Better Routes for Calls and Meetings
When it comes to connectivity tools and their benefits, UC buyers care about smoother calls and fewer “Can you hear me ok?” complaints.
A big part of this is SD-WAN (software-defined wide area networking). In plain terms, SD-WAN helps your business choose better network paths for important apps. This provides two key benefits:
- Your Tier 1 customer call will be hosted on an infallible network channel. No more lagging and call issues during crucial moments.
- Having this flexible connectivity system means more adaptability in high-traffic moments. Businesses can protect their reputation for high-quality customer service by ensuring this continued service delivery around the clock.
ITSM: turning disruption into a repeatable process
ITSM (IT Service Management) is the system that helps IT teams handle incidents (something broke), changes (something is being updated), and service requests (someone needs access or help) consistently.
With a strong system in place, the ITSM impact on work will mean fewer tickets stuck in limbo, clearer updates, and less time spent trying to find “the right person.”
This means that a common issue like “our Teams call is frozen” becomes a properly routed incident with the right context, owner, and next steps.
Can you safely say that your enterprise is ready to adopt one of these tools? If your answer is anything other than “Absolutely”, then check out this adoption readiness checklist.
AI-enabled ITSM: less admin, more time fixing
AI‑enabled ITSM goes one step further.
Gartner defines AI applications in ITSM as tools that augment and extend ITSM workflows, analyzing service data to provide intelligent advice and actions for service desk and support activities.
In practice, that can mean better ticket summaries, smarter routing, and faster recommendations for known issues. Less time writing. More time restoring service. In the long run, this will become a core element of your enterprise’s employee experience optimization.
What this looks like in a well-run UC environment
When these layers work together, you get clear targets that are easy to explain to a buying committee:
- Monitoring tools can flag a call-quality dip early (before the CEO complains).
- SD‑WAN prioritizes UC traffic so quality stays stable under load.
- ITSM workflows route, escalate, and communicate clearly.
- AI assists the service desk so fixes happen faster.
FAQs
How do ITSM tools actually make employees more productive?
They reduce wasted time. ITSM makes issues easier to report, route, and resolve with clear ownership, while AI-enabled ITSM can speed up triage and shorten time-to-fix.
Do better connectivity and network tools really improve day-to-day work?
Yes, because UC is sensitive to delay and instability. SD‑WAN helps choose better paths and prioritize real-time traffic, which reduces choppy audio, dropped calls, and meeting disruption.
Next Steps
Check out our Ultimate Guide on Service Management & Connectivity to discover more productivity-boosting advice and insight on upgrading your UC infrastructure.
