As companies continue their transition into the era of remote and anywhere working, the demand for video meetings won’t be going declining anytime soon. That’s why leading cloud communications company, RingCentral, decided to create an immersive video experience for meetings within the leading RingCentral Office environment for Unified Communications.
According to PwC, 78% of CEOs (link opens pdf) believe the shift to remote and anywhere working is here for the long-term. Video makes it easier for people in distributed environments to stay connected and engaged. RingCentral, one of the leading providers of cloud communications technology, introduced RingCentral Video to support and empower the new workforce.
RingCentral Video is secure, feature-rich, and designed to make the transition to a new era of work as simple as possible for businesses and their employees. I experimented with RingCentral Video, and spoke to Will Moxley, Chief Product Officer and SVP for RingCentral, to learn more.
How Does RingCentral Compete Against Teams and Zoom?
RingCentral Video is just one of the many solutions available for team collaboration right now. Already, this solution has earned plenty of attention simply because it’s delivered by one of the most reliable cloud communications brands. But how exactly does RingCentral differentiate its video and collaboration offering?
Will told me that the Video experience is part of the RingCentral Office suite of products, where you can access video meetings, telephony, and messaging in one unified client. “There’s no need to download anything to join a meeting. The app experience is just as good as the in-browser solution. The unified integrated experience also means that you can instantly switch from voice to video calls in seconds, taking your context with you.”
RingCentral benefits from a strong presence in the communications landscape. The company already offers an excellent messaging experience and telephony with 5 nines reliability all over the world. However, the company isn’t just using its heritage to stand out.
“We’re focusing on the before, during, and after meeting experience. We’re looking at how people prepare for meetings, what they do to follow up on conversations, and so on.”
RingCentral Video Review: Features
Businesses need to have the right tools on-hand to help their employees work from anywhere in this modern, digital working landscape. Video is one of the most valuable solutions available right now, offering better engagement, and more intimate face-to-face experiences in any environment.
RingCentral Video is a solution offered as part of RingCentral Office to provide a secure and open video meeting environment. Features of the solution include:
- HD voice and video
- No download required: Browser hosted meetings
- Any device support
- Switch to video or audio with one tap
- Integrated messaging and business phone system
- Real-time insight tracking and analytics
- System performance graphs at a glance
- In-meeting screen sharing
- Start a meeting from a messaging thread
- Easy set up for users around the world
- Meeting recording functionality
- “Call me” functionality for mobile workers
RingCentral is also rolling out an integration with RingCentral Rooms for RingCentral Video. The Rooms solution, in beta mode, allows companies to set up immersive meeting environments where they can initiate meetings with a single touch. RingCentral’s Rooms experience follows the company’s recent partnership with Poly to implement RingCentral Rooms into all-in-one Studio X video bars from Poly.
Creating a Full Collaboration Solution
According to Will, RingCentral believes that companies need team messaging and video access at the least – but they also need to bring context into their conversations. “This extra context allows employees to be more efficient, and effective. It’s absolutely essential to creating great meetings and improving the collaboration experience.”
Moxley told me that when the meeting conversation is over, the meeting isn’t necessarily over. You need to maintain the context collected as you go from meeting to meeting. It’s also important for companies to have a team collaboration solution that works with all kinds of hardware, according to RingCentral. The RingCentral Video system works with all kinds of hardware and systems.
“We want to support meeting equipment from any vendor, so you can use any hardware you like, and even your existing tools. We think Rooms are going to be more common going forward, and we want to facilitate the best experience for the hybrid workforce. This could include building touchless solutions and smarter meeting rooms in the future”
I asked Will how important context is as a video superpower, and he told me it’s all about making people better prepared. With RingCentral, you can check the agenda of the meeting before you go in and examine the tasks that have been assigned at the end.
“Context also means integrating with all the apps you already use. This should mean that you can click on a contact within your CRM and see the information with RingCentral. If you’re in Microsoft Dynamics or Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), you can bring that element in too. We even work with your custom applications.”
Notably, RingCentral’s flexible solution is extremely easy to set up. There’s an entire developer website where anyone can sign up for a sandbox account for free, with extra training and support. There’s also a full app library where you can access existing integrations.
RingCentral Video Review: Benefits
RingCentral Video is a solution intended to help businesses of all sizes strengthen the connections between team members wherever they may be. Through easy-to-access and secure video meeting services, companies can help their employees to be as productive and efficient as possible wherever they are. This is particularly crucial in the age of remote work.
What’s more, RingCentral Video is available as part of a full unified communications solution, allowing companies to enhance their entire communication stack at once. The genuinely unified platform from RingCentral means that employees can keep documents, links, calls, videos, and messaging all in the same location.
RingCentral Video goes beyond basic video meeting functionality to build in solutions like business phone and team messaging solutions too. Some of the major benefits of the video experience include:
- Easy browser-based access: Users can access RingCentral Video in a browser, rather than using a download or plugin. This means that getting started with meetings is as simple as possible for every employee. Application downloads often lead to complications and delays in meetings, while a browser-based solution only needs a single click. RingCentral Video’s browser-based system also supports all of the features teams need, from HD audio and video to recordings in the cloud, screen-sharing, annotations and more
- One app for everything: Everything that team members need to collaborate and communicate exists in the same space with RingCentral Video. By combining video, audio, messaging, file sharing and more into a single app, companies can enjoy better communication momentum. The key to better conversations is context, and RingCentral Video pulls all of the details of previous conversations into the same place. Users can even create teams from the list of call attendees, then share notes with them or assign tasks
- Easy to customise: Collaboration and communication are critical concerns for any business. However, it’s important for businesses to ensure that all of the right tools are connected to avoid issues with productivity. RingCentral makes it easy to connect your Video experience with the rest of the tools you already use, from Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), to Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, and even Slack. RingCentral has over 200 out-of-the-box integrations to choose from
- Rich analytics opportunities: RingCentral video also comes with a dashboard of analytics that you can use to understand your meetings on a deeper level. The dashboard makes it easier to drill down into user activity, like how employees are using their video systems and microphones, and how valuable it is to share screens. These reports assist with resource planning and driving meeting tool adoption, too
- Security and reliability: RingCentral promises its customers an excellent level of security and privacy to protect their enterprise communications. There’s no need to worry about risky downloads potentially causing employee devices issues because RingCentral’s service is browser-based. Additionally, RingCentral uses Web RTC standards to ensure the highest quality of browser-based meetings without the security problems. RingCentral Video is CCPA and GDPR compliant too
Will told me that security is “mission-critical” to the businesses of today. A lot of people had trouble with people recording things they shouldn’t have been and people jumping into meetings at the beginning of the pandemic. “We offer the ability to password-protect your meeting and keep passwords as always on. You’ll also have full control over every aspect of your meeting, from whether people can show video, to who comes in the chat.”
An Easy Way to Transform Video Collaboration
More than just another way to launch video meetings, RingCentral Video provides today’s companies with the all-in-one environment they need to keep team members engaged, productive, and informed. There aren’t any pesky downloads to worry about, and everyone can get involved in a conversation just by joining a meeting in their browser. Fewer downloads also means fewer chances for things to go wrong.
As companies continue to support employees working from anywhere in today’s digital environment, a simple and accessible tool for collaboration is just what teams need. On top of that, with RingCentral, you get the benefit that comes with knowing you’re accessing tools from a true communications leader. That means better uptimes, greater reliability, and a sensational quality of audio and video for every meeting.
Will told me that RingCentral is far from finished with their plans for the Video experience. In the future, the company will continue to focus on the interactions before, during and after the meeting.
“New capabilities are coming with AI too. We’ll be looking into things like summarising your meetings for you and providing more insights. There’s so much room for growth”
