ShoreTel Joins Mobile UC At The Desktop

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

Whether you like it or not, all your employees are consumers too, and they are all going to be carrying around their own personal smartphones at work. They may also be carrying tablets in place of bulky laptops to access “cloud”- based applications when on the go. The issue now is, - how can that fact of life be accepted to improve multi-modal business communications while also minimizing communication costs.

The need for flexibility in business communications has always been driven primarily by end user mobility. Legacy desktop communications handled such flexibility needs with separate and expensive voice and visual endpoints, connections, and software applications. Multi-modal wireless smartphones and tablets have made UC enablement both necessary and practical. Now that such ubiquitous mobile devices can do almost everything that the desktop endpoints do and more, the BYOD question arises about the need for having different endpoints for an end user who may need both wired and wireless connections.

Following in the footsteps of the many consumers who have already abandoned their residence wired phones and home PCs in favor of more flexible mobile smartphones, we can now expect a similar trend to take place for business users, whether working in an office or from home. However, the problem with using those just mobile devices in place of wired desktop phones and PCs is that:

1.      Battery life won’t support prolonged usage for either long phone calls or extended online application access.

2.      Voice quality is not always good

3.      Handset control of “hard phones” is ergonomically better than screen-based control

4.      BYOD considerations require “dual persona” controls over call/message management

ShoreTel’s New Desktop Hard Phone For Mobile, Post-PC Employees

Recognizing this need for business end users, ShoreTel has just announced it’s new desktop offering, the ShoreTel Dock, coupled with ShoreTel Mobility, to allow BYOD employees to use their mobile smartphones and tablets as “portable PCs” that can also work with “smart” hard desk phones in an office or at home. Because they are multi-modal devices, the smartphones and tablets take over the roles of the desktop PC in terms of access to “cloud” based applications, “softphone” screen-based telephony options, and multi-modal messaging functions.

Those mobile devices can now also benefit from using a very low-cost desktop hard phone add-on that takes care of the inherent limitations of the mobile devices mentioned above. It also retains the familiar and simple options for initiating and receiving phone calls that legacy  “hard” desk phones have long offered.

While the multi-modal mobile devices handle all forms of communications, ranging from text messaging to Instant Messaging to voice and video connections, ShoreTel’s Dock and ShoreTel Mobility enable easy visual access to those new communication functions. The Dock still has the familiar Message Waiting Indicator light, which is controlled by their voicemail application, but therefore doesn’t reflect any other forms of messaging activity. Given that the multimodal smartphones and tablets are really handling all kinds of incoming calls and messages, it would be nice to see that MWI light tie in with a more comprehensive display of all the different kinds of messages that are “waiting,” not just  “Visual Voicemail.”  Voicemail messages are no longer necessarily more important than other modes of messages and notifications!

They Didn't Forget "Dual Persona" Call Management!

ShoreTel has also incorporated “dual persona” capabilities in its call management functions for both incoming and outbound calls. This allows job-related calls to be managed separately and differently from personal calls on the same device. Although traditional phone calling by keying in a phone number will not disappear overnight, it is also obvious that “contextual” contacts from a directory display, a text or voice message, or from a document that is linked to a particular individual or group of individuals, is the way of the presence-based UC future.

ShoreTel seems to be moving quickly to a UC-enabled desktop with its integration with Microsoft Lync, while also preserving familiar telephony procedures and user interfaces for desktop business users.

Copyright © 2013 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

UC Opportunities For VARs, SIs, Consultants at UC Summit

April 11 2013

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

As I highlighted in my recent post, UC is becoming a key factor in next generation contact centers that must now support mobile consumers. This direction was reinforced at the very successful Enterprise Connect show, where Voxeo, an innovative provider of self-service application development technology, was judged “Best of Show.”  While person-to-person business communications are still important, there are huge benefits to be realized from the fact that consumers are rapidly becoming both mobile and multi-modal, and will want well-designed mobile self-service applications rather than always trying to get or enter information through a person.

Of course, what makes self-service applications work better, is the flexibility in mobile user interfaces that are is supported by smartphones and tablets, as well as practical options for seamless access to live assistance when needed. The technology tools for implementing such capabilities are still evolving. Business organizations will require assistance in planning and integrating the new communication technologies that are complex and require experience that is not readily available within most IT organizations. This is, of course, particularly true for smaller SMB organizations that never had large IT staffs in the first place. However, ALL organizations, large and small, have to support the new demands of their mobile consumers/customers, using multi-modal smartphones and tablets.

Finally, the “clouds” are rapidly becoming the universal framework for all communications and business process applications. For my perspective of customer interactions in the “clouds,” see my recent white paper for Echopass, a leading provider of managed contact center services.

Big Opportunities For VARs, Consultants, SIs as Channel Partners

While communication vendors are rapidly moving into the “cloud”-based services space, they are also frantically looking for channel partners who can support user organizations on an ongoing service basis. This opportunity will be highlighted at the upcoming annual “UC Summit” taking place on an invitation basis for VARs, Consultants, and SIs in La Jolla April 28^th – May 1^st.

This will be a unique opportunity for channel partners to extend their relationships with both vendors and other channel partners in order to benefit from the changes that UC and mobile communications are bringing to business communications. In particular, I will be presenting the case for helping business organizations implement mobile, self-service applications that will be dominating the next generation of contact center activities.

For more information and an application to be invited as a guest to this unique conference, please check out this link. 

http://www.ucstrategies.com/ucsummit/2013/

Copyright © 2013 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

“Unified Customer Services” For Digital And Mobile Consumers

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

We are finally seeing unified communications (UC) finally taking over customer interactions. This means that every size organization, in every type of market segment, must be prepared to support consumers/customers with the flexibility of UC for all types of interactions. What is bringing new impetus to this shift in business communications are three key factors:

·        Mobile consumer devices - Multi-modal mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, have expanded convenient and fast direct consumer access to online, self-services, including various modes of person-to-person contacts, online information access and transactions, and pro-active notifications by automated business processes.

·        Interoperability and integration between various forms of person-to-person communications and business process applications – Because there is increased flexibility required for contacts with mobile people, the various forms of communication must now dynamically be controlled by the end users, depending upon their individual needs and circumstances as contact initiators or recipients/respondents.    

·        “Cloud” – based applications – As both communication and business process software applications become location independent, developing and integrating them in “cloud” environments becomes critical to faster and lower-cost implementations and ongoing change management.

Customer services are rapidly moving from legacy call and contact centers to “Unified Interaction Centers,” where online self-service applications are not only minimizing the need for live assistance to consumers to get information or perform simple transactions, but also facilitating more flexible access to specialized assistance whenever needed. The result of such changes to customer assistance is greater personalization, experience customization, and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.

This year’s Enterprise Connect brought increased focus on the important role of the contact center in business communications, in this report from the show. Customer services are now becoming recognized as high-value applications and “use cases,” that are benefiting from integration with “consumer BYOD,” UC-enablement, and “cloud” services.  

Customer services used to be locked in together in different technology platforms that were difficult to integrate. As a result, only big organizations could afford to invest and support implementing all the pieces involved with legacy telephony call centers. One of the leading innovators in contact center technologies was Interactive Intelligence (ININ), decided to build their software infrastructure fully integrated from the ground up, calling it an “all-in-one” software product. However, because, of contact center application complexity and costs, many SMB organizations could not afford to implement such contact center technologies by themselves.

The challenge of supporting customer services has been greatly increased by the advent of “Mobile UC” and multi-modal live assistance and self-service applications, not just phone calls. So, while UC-enabled business communications focused initially on internal organizations and collaborative contacts, the big Customer Service markets were pretty much stuck on old CPE-based call center telephony. Now, however, with increased consumer mobile flexibility, “cloud” based applications are making big waves in all kinds of customer service applications.

The Really Big SMB Market For Unified Customer Services

I have always felt that customer services will really be the same for small or large organizations. The main differences showed up in things like:

·       How big your market is

·       How much live assistance and expertise will be needed by different customers

·       Software tools for running operations smoothly, training customer-facing staff,

·       Management tools and metrics to insure customer responsiveness satisfaction (“Experience!”)

·       Customization of self-service applications for different types of applications, especially “mobile apps.”

Interactive Intelligence (ININ), among other leading customer service software technology vendors, emphasized it’s strategic move of going after the SMB market, since small businesses really need to use most of the same technologies as larger organizations. There have always been more SMBs out there than larger enterprise organizations, so with the advent of “consumer BYOD,” there is suddenly a huge need for third-party expertise of Channel Partners and Consultants to help develop, support, and manage the complex technology of multi-modal customer services in “public,” private,” and hybrid cloud environments.

The “cloud’ environment will be particularly useful for implementing and managing integrations and self-service customizations. That always used to an expensive and time-consuming effort. Now, with all application technologies moving into interoperable “clouds,” it should no longer be any big problem for any size organization to move forward selectively with individual customer groups, customer-facing staffs, and specific customized online applications, associated with different forms of live assistance.        

Bringing The Right Experiences To The Customer Service Table

As confirmed in many recent market studies, mobile customers are now expecting:

·        More access to mobile online self-services

·        Pro-active mobile notifications and alerts, rather than calling in or checking online

·        Greater flexibility in choice of user interfaces (voice, visual)

·        Options for multiple forms of “smart” access to live assistance when needed

Watch for the growth of cloud-based “Unified Interaction Centers!”

Copyright © 2013 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Moving To Mobile Customer Service

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

Customer service is changing dramatically as consumers become more mobile and have greater direct access to online information and services. Organizations, both large enterprises and small businesses, will all be affected by the impact of multi-modal smartphones and tablets on traditional telephone-based interactions.

As confirmed in many recent market studies, mobile customers are now expecting:

·        More access to mobile online self-services

·        Pro-active mobile notifications and alerts, rather than calling in or checking online

·        Greater flexibility in choice of user interfaces (voice, visual)

·        Options for multiple forms of “smart” access to live assistance when needed

The contact center of yesterday must start planning now to accommodate the new technologies that support such interactions for both mobile customers and customer assistance staff, wherever they may be located. Migrating contact center applications for mobile customers will be most cost-efficiently facilitated by moving to “cloud” based hosted and managed services, but “Customer BYOD” needs will also require self-service applications to be designed for device-independence and offer more flexible choices for user interaction interfaces.

Telephone calls are not going to disappear, but voice conversations are being subsumed by other forms of inbound and outbound contacts, including social network postings, text chat, and video calls. As reflected in a recent market study, customers prefer interacting with online applications first, before requiring access to live assistance.

Providing good customer experiences will be key to customer satisfaction and operational support efficiencies, so providing a unified analytics view of all customer contact activities will be critical in designing both personalized self- service applications and live assistance on demand.

Stay tuned as your call center of yesterday evolves into a “Mobile Interaction Center.”

Copyright © 2013 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Telework Dumped By New Yahoo CEO

Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.

I admit I was very surprised to read about Yahoo's new CEO, Marisssa Mayer, stopping employee's from working away from the office because it doesn't support good "collaboration." Like around the water cooler or at lunch, etc.?

Read comments about this at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/richard-branson-yahoo-marissa-mayer_n_2759243.html

This story reminds me of a similar experience that I had in the early days of developing online time-sharing services for the ARPAnet, a precursor of the Internet and the World Wide Web. One of the application developer's (Clark Weisman) wife was experiencing a difficult pregnancy, which required her to be completely bedridden for the remaining weeks of her pregnancy. That meant that he had to be at home to take care of her, and therefore might not finish his project as scheduled.

Since the basic SDC Time-sharing System (TSS) was already working for remote access by teletype phone lines, I suggested to the project management that it would be practical to simply put in a new phone line at his home and he could then complete his project online, while taking care of his wife. Management's first reaction was that this was a project that required time sheets to be filled out, attesting to the employee's doing the required work in the office. They were concerned that there would be no way to insure that the employee would be working for the time required.

I pointed out that not only would the normal work hours be put in, but, because the work was being from home, there would probably be more hours expended. Further, there would also be evidence of actual activity recorded by the time-sharing system while online work was being done. Grudgingly, management acceded to my recommendation, and, as I predicted, online work started very early each day and ended late at night. The wife had a successful delivery of a daughter and the online project was also successfully completed.

Of course, there will be "different strokes for different folks" when it comes to what kind of work needs to be done in an "office" environment, so it will be a mixed bag for individual workers as to when they can and cannot work while physically away from a group. So, it's not so much whether it is in an office, but what kind of work is involved and with whom. 

The means of accessing information, interacting with people and online applications has become more flexible with mobile UC, and it is therefore very surprising that Yahoo has taken such a Draconian step. I just heard a news program that suggested that this action was taken as a way to get some employees to quit their jobs and thus reduce the payroll without actually firing anyone directly. Oh, well! 
 
   
 

Mobile Consumers Want UC-Based Customer Services, Not “Collaboration!”

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View – UC Strategies Expert

Organizations interested in unified communications (UC) have focused on how their employees communicated, because such communications could be easily controlled. That is, until multi-modal mobile devices provided greater communication flexibility to end users and brought “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) considerations into the picture. However, “Consumer BYOD” is also changing how businesses interact with their mobile customers, but in different ways.

While major communication providers have expanded their “UC” role to include “collaboration” (“UC&C”), that label should not apply to customer interactions and services. For more perspectives on this subject, please check out my post on the UC Strategies website.  

Two Views of Mobile Customer Services

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/UC Strategies Expert

If you have been reading technology reports lately, what you will notice is that many UC industry experts are now focusing more on UC for customer services as better source of business ROI rather than just the productivity benefits of employee  “collaboration.”

All business communications have been impacted by user mobility, with organizations trying to adjust to the realities of employee BYOD who want to use a single smartphone (or tablet)  for all their multi-modal communication contacts. The same view is starting to be recognized by the contact center industry about what I have been calling “Customer BYOD.” UC enablement there is an even bigger challenge for supporting customer services, because it affects not only mobile customers, but also customer-facing support staff.

Call centers used to be pretty simple because both callers and agents used a single common form of interaction with voice, the telephone. It got a little more complex for the agents when customers initiated contacts with email and chat. However, contact centers “siloed” these activities, so that while agents had only one modality to deal with, they still shared the same customer information to handle the interactions. With mobile, multi-modal smartphones and tablets, customers can now interact in a variety of communication modes and even easily change modes dynamically, as their mobile circumstances dictate. The question is, can the customer support agent be able to keep up with what a customer can do with a mobile smartphone or tablet?

Start With What The Customer Can Do With a Mobile Smartphone

In any business operation, the customer typically comes first!

So, it is necessary to look at the impact of Mobile UC from a customer’s perspective as the starting point for what the customer-facing organization will face to meet new mobile customer needs. Those needs range from online self-service applications to mobile notifications and alerts that are personalized and authorized by customer recipients to selective contacts with live assistance.

One reason to list the different things a mobile consumer/customer can do when interacting with a business organizations, is to identify the primary means of contact interfaces and options for dynamically switching seamlessly to other connections on demand. That is essentially the key benefit for UC enablement that can be applied to business process applications.

1.  Contact initiation – Unlike traditional telephone calling, where the caller needs to know a specific telephone number, mobile users can benefit from starting with access to an online website, using browser search facilities. Depending upon the user’s current situation, e.g., driving a car, sitting in a meeting, etc., the user can dynamically choose the medium of input and output most appropriate at the moment, i.e., speech or other input and output.

2.  More self-service applications – Once online to a desired website, the mobile user can explore appropriate options to access various types of information and to perform various self-service transactions. 


3.      More selective live assistance – Most customers will only need live assistance on an exception basis, so whenever they reach such a point, that is when they can initiate a contact for live assistance. Most importantly, such assistance can be much more selective and contextual; that is, the customer can choose the mode of contact that is needed, and the context of whatever has been done with self-services, will better determine the skill level required for such live assistance. 

     The fact that a mobile customer is now more accessible and flexible with a smartphone means that the response can include a choice of different options for any real-time connections with live assistance.

4.      More proactive notifications – With more automated business process applications in play, there is now an opportunity to increase operational efficiencies and improve customer satisfaction, by proactively notifying customers of personalized situations that are important and time-sensitive. This will not only reduce problems caused by awareness delays, but can also increase operational efficiencies and people productivity. (Health care, financial, legal, government, and travel vertical markets are good examples.)

The bottom line is that customer services will not necessarily start off with a traditional phone call, but can involve a voice or video conversation when deemed necessary. Needless to say, the real-time connection may be made through new WebRTC protocols, rather than legacy PSTN connections.

How Will Customer-facing Agents Be Affected?

There will also be several things that will change the way that live customer assistance for multimodal, mobile customers will occur because of Mobile UC. These will affect both inbound and outbound contacts with mobile consumers.

1.      Inbound contact mode – First line agents or experts will have to be prepared to interact with a customer in the customer’s mode of contact, voice, IM, text/voice message, chat, video, social network post, etc. Their desktop must provide multi-modal communication capabilities, just like a customer’s smartphone.

2.       Agents won’t have to respond in the same mode – Unless it is a real-time conversation with voice or chat, agents will be able to use different forms of response to a customer contact. Incoming video calls can be responded to with just voice, voice messages can be retrieved and responded to with text, chat can be escalated to voice or video, social network postings can be responded to personally, etc.

3.      Real-time outbound contacts to mobile customers will contextually exploit recipient availability (presence) – Traditional phone call notifications will increasingly be replaced by automated notifications, as noted earlier. Live contacts will be enabled once an automated contact is made and the recipient then wishes to interact with a live person in their choice of mode (Voice, Video, Chat). Therefore, agents must be prepared to communicate dynamically with what the recipient wants, including change modes from chat to voice to video.

4.      When video is involved, agents won’t necessarily have to be “on camera” – Traditional call center agents and “home agents” benefit by not having to be seen, just heard. So, even though video can be exploited, it can be optionally and selectively used in conjunction with a voice conversation. In particular, it will be most frequently used to exchange information, e.g., demonstrate how to do something, show the status of something, etc.

5.      Any real-time connection with a customer can be escalated to an “expert” or authorizing manager – UC enablement will facilitate escalating the customer connection (inbound or outbound) from the agent to an  “expert” or a manager to satisfy the customer needs. As with any access to live assistance by a mobile consumer that can mean responding when such resources are available in a choice of response modes.     

What I described is the future of next-generation interaction centers that will support live assistance, as it will impact customers and the agents that must provide assistance in a mobile, multi-modal world. I haven’t discussed the role of “cloud” based customer services and self-service applications, which will also facilitate management of mobile customers and home agents.

    

Copyright © 2013 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide