Collaboration is becoming a more deeply ingrained part of the UC environment today. Whether it’s video conferencing vendors building PBX and UCaaS solutions into their environment like Zoom, or fully-featured Teams applications, communication and collaboration go hand-in-hand.
Finding the right UC solution for your workforce in today’s agile environment means choosing something that can help you to support everything from business growth to customer experience. However, with so many options available on the market, it’s hard to know where to focus your attention.
Today, we’re going to look at two of the most exciting options on the market: Zoom and Amazon Chime. Here’s what you need to know about these smart meeting and UC solutions.
Zoom vs. Amazon Chime: User Experience
Let’s start by looking at the thing that will decide whether your new tool achieves business-wide adoption or ends up at the top of a pile of unused investments. User experience will dictate how much value you can get out of your new UC opportunity.
Zoom is one of the easiest tools to access on the collaborative market. For years, it’s been the one-stop solution for people who want quick and seamless video conferencing. All you need to do to invite someone to a meeting is send them a custom URL, and they can connect over the web in seconds. Zoom works on both computers and smartphone devices, and with the recently added UCaaS offering, you can even integrate Zoom with your phone system.
Zoom Phone offers global click-to-call functionality for businesses of all shapes and sizes, taking the complicated hardware out of the UC environment, and placing conversations in the cloud. There are toll-free numbers available across 55 countries, and dedicated dial-in numbers available. Features include:
- Integrated UCaaS with Zoom Phone
- Click-to-join cloud-hosted meetings
- No hardware or downloads necessary
- Toll-free VoIP in over 55 countries
- Smartphone or web-browser access
Amazon Chime is the UC solution offered by Amazon Web Services. Intended to give companies a way that their users can chat, meet, and collaborate in a single application, Chime offers companies the flexibility to build out their own productivity suite. You can add video conferencing, business calling, and more, and only pay for what you use.
With Amazon Chime Voice Connector, you can even link your new cloud-based meeting and conferencing solution to your existing PSTN lines and PBX system. That means that there’s no rip-and-replace necessary. Scheduling meetings is a breeze with in-built calendaring functions, and you can even use Alexa to set up your meetings too.
Amazon Chime even works with most SIP solutions and H.323 video conferencing systems, so you shouldn’t have trouble embedding it into your existing processes. Features include:
- Smartphone or web-browser access
- Voice assistant support with Alexa
- Amazon Chime Voice Connector to connect to your PSTN
- Easy meeting scheduling
- 323 and SIP video conferencing
Zoom vs. Amazon Chime: Team Experience
Both Amazon Chime and Zoom started as meeting or collaboration tools that evolved to offer UCaaS and calling services. This means that both solutions are excellent for giving you your teams the crucial collaborative experiences they need to boost productivity.
Zoom has always had a strong reputation for offering simple and immersive meeting experiences. With a click-to-join functionality that means anyone can get involved in a conversation in seconds, it has never been easier to collaborate. HD video meetings with Zoom support up to 49 webcams at once, and you can host audio conferencing sessions through Zoom Phone too.
To build more immersive meeting room experiences in your conference or huddle rooms, Zoom also collaborates with leading hardware providers around the world to provide Zoom Room packages. With everything from virtual whiteboards to state-of-the-art camera kits, you can build the perfect meeting space for your teams. There’s also the Zoom Room Connector for companies that need features like interactive touchscreens and scheduling displays built-in. Capabilities include:
- Click-to-join meetings
- Calendar and scheduling integration
- Easy HD video conferencing
- Displays and whiteboarding
- File and screen sharing
- Instant messaging
- Full Zoom Room kits
Amazon Chime is another fantastic tool for collaboration. Today’s businesses can use the service to chat with employees directly or through group rooms. Chat rooms include @mentions for specific participants, and access to 1:1 or group video calls. Additionally, there are “Smart Presence” features built-in to Amazon Chime to help employees manage their work/life balance.
With Amazon Chime, users can choose exactly how they want to communicate, whether it’s via simple video meetings or voice calls. File sharing is available, and chatbots can be built into the chat rooms so that employees have an easier time accessing corporate information and applications without searching through endless tools. Additionally, everything integrates with Amazon Alexa for voice-based virtual assistant support. Features include:
- Calendar and scheduling integration
- File sharing
- Easy HD video and audio conferencing
- Instant messaging
- Amazon Alexa integration
- Custom chatbots
Zoom vs. Amazon Chime: Customer Experience
For a UC solution to be comprehensive, it needs to combine the frontend and backend of your communication strategy. This means that you need more than just tools for great collaboration; you also need solutions for state-of-the-art customer experience too.
Zoom recently upgraded its customer experience offering with the integration of its UCaaS service, Zoom Phone. With Zoom Phone, companies can manage their business calls from a phone solution inside of their familiar Zoom hub. With Zoom Phone, you can access auto-attendant features, inbound calling solutions, voicemail, intelligent IVR, and more.
All the while, when your employees are connecting with customers through Zoom Phone, they’ll still have access to the instant-messaging and collaboration tools that allow them to collaborate with their team members. Features include:
- One-click recording
- Easy integration with your favourite tools
- Interoperability with standards-based endpoints
- Intelligent IVR and call routing
- Auto attendant features
- Call management via Zoom Phone
Amazon Chime ensures that today’s brands can place and receive calls from the same simple application. You can make calls to more than 100 countries across the world and deliver omni-channel customer support via text messaging too. Switch on call recording and voicemail for compliance purposes, and make sure that you always have access to the customer data that you need.
Amazon Chime supports both inbound and outbound calling. Outbound customer contact is available through the Voice Connector, which means that teams can use their preferred PBX solutions on-premise. Additionally, there’s access to features like IP whitelisting and SIP authentication. With Amazon Chime Voice Connector, it’s easy to link your on-premise phone system and PSTN to your cloud-based CC strategy. Features include:
- Amazon Chime voice connector
- Voicemail
- Omni-channel customer support
- Outbound or inbound calling
- IP whitelisting and SIP authentication
Zoom vs. Amazon Chime: Business Experience
Before you can decide if Zoom or Amazon Chime is the right choice for your company, it’s essential to ensure that you’re accessing a service that’s reliable, secure and dependable.
Zoom provides today’s enterprises with all the resiliency they need through a state-of-the-art video conferencing and UC service that’s supported by distributed data centres. Zoom conference calls are encrypted from one end over the customer journey to the other, and role-based security features are available throughout the service too.
Zoom users can record audio conversations and save them with searchable transcripts into the cloud for GDPR compliance. What’s more, Zoom is HIPAA compliant and approved according to regulations like SOC 2, Privacy Shield, and more. With pay-as-you-go transparent pricing, you’ll never have to worry about paying for more services than you use either.
- Transparent and affordable pricing
- HIPAA compliance
- Full customer guidance and support
- SOC 2, TRUSTe, EU-US Privacy Shield, FedRAMP compliance
- Single sign-on, role-based security, and password protection
- End-to-end encryption
Built on top of the reliable AWS cloud, Amazon Chime also comes with exceptional reliability built-in. Users benefit from a fantastic network architecture that was designed to meet with the needs of the most privacy-sensitive organisations.
Messages, video, and voice sent through Amazon Chime are fully encrypted using AES 256-bit standards, and AWS allows you to continuously monitor and record account activity in your Amazon Chime console too. You can also integrate AWS directory services with things like Microsoft Active Directory for Single Sign-On.
Amazon provides company with complete administrator-level control, a reporting dashboard with exceptional feedback and usage data, and extensive call detail records. Additionally, the whole experience is pay-as-you-go, with no long-term contracts or commitments to worry about. Features include:
- AWS reliable infrastructure
- EAS 256-bit encryption
- Single-sign-on
- Advanced management and reporting dashboard
- Chime CloudTrail integration
- Pay-as-you-go pricing
Will you be using Zoom or Amazon Chime for your UC strategy this year? Let us know in the comments section below.
