The Great British Switch Off: The state of play in business communications

Not many years ago, business communication was straightforward. Most customer communications took place over traditional telephone lines. Email was an alternative means of staying in touch, but the modern and diverse communications methods we see today had yet to acquire any significant amount of traction.

But times have changed, and businesses seem increasingly prepared for the future of communications that will be ushered in by the Great British Switch Off.

Our survey

We recently conducted a survey of 1,000 CEOs and IT decision makers across large and SME businesses to assess their readiness for the impending PSTN and ISDN switch off, and what we discovered paints a picture of the changing role of various communication technologies and ways of working.

Shifting away from traditional communications

The two years from 2020 to 2022 saw a dramatic shift away from the use of traditional telephony systems for customer communications. Likely driven in large part by the pandemic, the use of traditional telephony has been supplanted by other means of communication, with almost a third (30%) of businesses now using email as their main method of staying in touch with customers.

Likewise, businesses have increased their reliance on Zoom and Microsoft Teams for communicating with customers as more diverse options take precedent over traditional forms of communication.

Taking advantage of new technologies

Our previous research had indicated that video conferencing tools – such as Zoom and Teams – were frequently used for communicating with colleagues, but these methods are now used for most types of communication, including with customers and clients.

This is reflective of changing workplace patterns in the light of remote and hybrid working.

Ready for change

The findings of our survey suggest that businesses are more prepared for the seismic change that the PSTN and ISDN switch off will bring.

Two years ago, industries more heavily reliant on traditional telephony would have been less ready to adapt, but today businesses have already begun to diversify their communications, indicating that a move to all-IP communications might be a little smoother than anticipated.

However, that optimism should be tempered by the realisation that a sizeable portion of businesses do not yet have a solution in place to prepare for the Great British Switch Off.

For our full findings download our report, The Great British Switch Off: Business Communications for a New Era.

There you will find not only more information on the preparedness of businesses for the switch off but also more on how to make the switch, the rise of the modern workforce, the changing face of customer communications, and the financial hurdles holding businesses back.

To find out more about how the switch off will affect businesses across the UK, visit our page here.