Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
September 26, 2009
“Customer UC” – Panelists Discuss Impact of CEBP on Business Applications
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
More Panelist Comments on “Customer UC”
In previous posts on what was happening with UC in the Contact Center space at TMC’s Internet Telephony show in L.A., I summarized comments by my panelists on the first three issues we discussed that face business organizations looking to exploit UC for customer contact activities.
I have labeled all customer-facing UC communication activities as “Customer UC,” which was then discussed by a panel of innovative contact center technology developers at a kickoff session, ”UC and the Contact Center,” at TMC’s last Internet Telephony conference in L.A. (9/1-3). My panelists were representatives from leading innovative contact center technology developers Altitude Software, CosmoCom, and Fonality, Here are their comments on another key issue discussed:
Issue #4. How will business process applications be affected by “CEBP” in a Customer UC environment?
With UC, different forms of business communication contact may be activated, depending upon who (or what) is initiating the contact with a person, which may be person-to-person or process-to-person. The type of contact will also depend upon the current real-time accessibility and availability of the contact recipient. As more elements of a business process become automated, e.g., monitoring sensitive status conditions, the role of real-time process-to-person “notifications” will increase, including what is commonly referred to as “Communications Enabled Business Communications” (CEBP).
CEBP commonly stands for “Communications Enabled Business Process,” which means that an automated) business process application can initiate a communications contact to a specific person, instead of it being done manually by another person. Needless to say, this kind of capability is particularly useful for contacting mobile recipients and for what some people call “outbound IVR” to exploit self-service transactions initiated by a business process application. Another term for such a capability is a “Communications enabled application” or CEA, which can apply to non-business applications as well, e.g., entertainment, social contacts, games, etc.
Like everything new that is falling under the umbrella of UC, the definitions for “CEBP” can be confusing. Microsoft’s OCS enables it’s online users to “click-to-call” contextually from information within any online software application. And, of course, there is competition for the term itself from the likes of “all-in-one” enterprise communications provider, Interactive Intelligence, with its communications-based workflow platform it describes as providing “CBPA” (Communications-Based Process Automation). The difference claimed there is that CBPA consolidates work flow activity on a communications-based platform, making contacts with people at any point in the process flow readily accessible, while CEBP doesn’t go beyond enabling individual applications within a work flow process to contact people.
The business application contact target could be any end user, including people within a business organization or external users such as business partners and consumer/customers. The contact initiator can also be any type of end user who may be using a CEBP application, or it could be initiated pro-actively and directly by a CEBP application itself to send personalized information or a notification to a specific person.
Process-to-person forms of contact initiation will require the business application involved to interoperate with various communication applications (telephony, messaging, presence management, routing information, etc.) just as a person would, providing specific contact information (name, “addressing”, etc.). However, an automated application that can make contact with a customer’s phone (mobile or desktop), will obviously not be expected to carry on a voice conversation that people do.
Panelist Comments
· The technology for enabling business process applications to exploit UC capabilities at the recipient end, particularly customers using mobile “smart-phones, is complex and still evolving.
· Today, CEBP is still very much the exception and not the rule, when you consider the fact that 75% of businesses in the US are under 20 employees.
· CEBP needs to complement existing business process applications enabling different forms of contact and interaction between the contact initiator (application process, person) and the recipient (person).
· In a contact center environment, CEBP must support the basic objectives to align a customer need with available types of company support resources -i.e., self-service, live assistance or a combination of both. This can be done on the traditional contact center “on-demand” response basis, or pro-actively by automated business process applications that monitor and respond to dynamic status information.
· UC flexibility improves contact accessibility and thus flexibility when person-to-person contacts are required. Increased accessibility through both mobility and UC flexibility will make CEBP applications more useful and productive.
· Unified Messaging will be a key UC application that enables a business process application to efficiently deliver a time-sensitive notification to an accessible (mobile) customer for information delivery. Coupled with “click-to-interact” with an online or IVR self-service application, or “click-to-talk/chat” for live assistance, the customer can immediately execute time-sensitive transactions that require attention.
· If CEBP is deployed correctly, it will be perceived positively by customers and will also reduce traditional on-demand contact needs.
Example: Proactive flight status notifications that advise a passenger of gate changes and departure time changes can proactively provide timely updates to a mobile customer. Customer will rely on such timely and up-to-date notifications to avoid, minimize and correct their travel problems.
· The impact of such timely access to personalized information will be greater customer satisfaction and loyalty and reduced labor costs for handling unnecessary on-demand contacts.
· CEBP is, by its nature, a highly customized business application development and almost always requires an integration and/or professional services design and development effort. However, off-the-shelf CEBP applications that apply to horizontal industries can be useful in minimizing the costs and effort in developing customized versions.
· The growing adoption of mobile “smart-phones” by consumers and business users will be a major driver for implementing CEBP for both customers and customer-facing staff.
· Such use of mobile devices will also enable CEBP to tie in comfortably with personalized, self-service options on a proactive, rather than just on an “on demand” basis. This will minimize the need for staffing customer assistance and associated costs, in order to maximize customer satisfaction.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
UC Escalations in Customer Contacts
Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
September 23, 2009
Drilling Down Into Contact Center “Escalations” With UC
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
UC is starting to get increasingly focused on customer contacts because that is where both business costs can be reduced and revenues improved. A recent post on the subject at www.UCStrategies.com by Michael Barbagallo drills down into how subject matter experts (SMEs) should be efficiently brought into contact center operations and whether their involvement should be tracked and reported.
Here is my comment to that perspective.
Michael,
I am glad to see you drilling down into call center procedures, as they will apply to customer contact operations and “agent”-“expert” escalations.
While I agree with your views on including "experts" in workflow management reporting for business process performance tracking, we have to include the role of the customer in “escalating to assistance” as well. Accordingly, UC will be disruptive for customers too, since they will be increasingly "escalating" to live assistance from self-service applications (online, IVR), using multi-modal devices (PCs, smartphones). That also means it can be their choice to contextually "click-to-call," "click-to-chat," or, if there is no real rush, "click-to-message" (text, voice) for live assistance from their multi-modal endpoint devices.
Note: “Contextually” means that information about the self-service application they were using will be passed on to the person providing assistance (“screen pop”).
That also means new, UC-based "contact centers" must move away from the metric of just First “Call” Resolution to First “Contact” Resolution and apply it to both "customer" and "agent" escalation procedures. In many cases, the need for assistance and escalation requires further informational research or approval authorization, so there is no point in keeping a caller connected to wait for such resolution. Furthermore, with consumers becoming increasingly accessible and available because of personal Mobile UC, keeping them on a voice connection or transferring them unnecessarily becomes questionable from an “experience” perspective. With mobility and UC, we can always get back to them easily and quickly!
Which brings us to the next point of what I call "Customer UC," pro-active process-to-person contacts using CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes). With UC, we don't need to always have people deliver real-time information to people. Automated business process applications can now do that using Mobile UC tools for media flexibility and faster notification/delivery, coupled with "click-for-assistance" if necessary. That will take labor costs, as well as the "human latency," out of many business processes.
Needless to say, Mobile UC won't happen overnight and won't always be available to all customers, so the old call center "agent”/”expert” game will continue being played but on a “virtual” basis. However, on the enterprise side, “agents” and “experts” will not only NOT be collocated geographically, but will be selected for "escalation" based upon their "availability” and contextual qualifications, not by "agent" choice. This will apply to all involved customer-facing staff, who may belong to different business organizations.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
September 23, 2009
Drilling Down Into Contact Center “Escalations” With UC
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
UC is starting to get increasingly focused on customer contacts because that is where both business costs can be reduced and revenues improved. A recent post on the subject at www.UCStrategies.com by Michael Barbagallo drills down into how subject matter experts (SMEs) should be efficiently brought into contact center operations and whether their involvement should be tracked and reported.
Here is my comment to that perspective.
Michael,
I am glad to see you drilling down into call center procedures, as they will apply to customer contact operations and “agent”-“expert” escalations.
While I agree with your views on including "experts" in workflow management reporting for business process performance tracking, we have to include the role of the customer in “escalating to assistance” as well. Accordingly, UC will be disruptive for customers too, since they will be increasingly "escalating" to live assistance from self-service applications (online, IVR), using multi-modal devices (PCs, smartphones). That also means it can be their choice to contextually "click-to-call," "click-to-chat," or, if there is no real rush, "click-to-message" (text, voice) for live assistance from their multi-modal endpoint devices.
Note: “Contextually” means that information about the self-service application they were using will be passed on to the person providing assistance (“screen pop”).
That also means new, UC-based "contact centers" must move away from the metric of just First “Call” Resolution to First “Contact” Resolution and apply it to both "customer" and "agent" escalation procedures. In many cases, the need for assistance and escalation requires further informational research or approval authorization, so there is no point in keeping a caller connected to wait for such resolution. Furthermore, with consumers becoming increasingly accessible and available because of personal Mobile UC, keeping them on a voice connection or transferring them unnecessarily becomes questionable from an “experience” perspective. With mobility and UC, we can always get back to them easily and quickly!
Which brings us to the next point of what I call "Customer UC," pro-active process-to-person contacts using CEBP (Communications Enabled Business Processes). With UC, we don't need to always have people deliver real-time information to people. Automated business process applications can now do that using Mobile UC tools for media flexibility and faster notification/delivery, coupled with "click-for-assistance" if necessary. That will take labor costs, as well as the "human latency," out of many business processes.
Needless to say, Mobile UC won't happen overnight and won't always be available to all customers, so the old call center "agent”/”expert” game will continue being played but on a “virtual” basis. However, on the enterprise side, “agents” and “experts” will not only NOT be collocated geographically, but will be selected for "escalation" based upon their "availability” and contextual qualifications, not by "agent" choice. This will apply to all involved customer-facing staff, who may belong to different business organizations.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Issue #3 UC and Contact Centers
Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
September 18, 2009
“Customer UC” – Panelists Discuss UC and the Contact Center - Issue # 3
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
More Panelist Comments on Implementing “Customer UC”
In my previous post on what was happening with UC in the Contact Center space at TMC’s Internet Telephony show in L.A., I summarized comments by my panelists on the first two issues we discussed that face business organizations looking to exploit UC for customer contact activities.
From a business results perspective, UC ROI performance must include metrics like customer satisfaction (soft) and revenue generation (hard), not just cost savings and Total Cost of Ownership (hard). Customer contact activities are therefore increasingly being evaluated as high-value applications for overall UC implementation planning.
I have labeled all customer-facing UC communication activities as “Customer UC.” These kinds of challenges were discussed by a panel of innovative contact center technology developers on the subject of ”UC and the Contact Center” at TMC’s Internet Telephony conference in L.A. at the beginning of this month (9/1-3).
My panelists were representatives from leading innovative contact center technology developers Altitude Software, CosmoCom, and Fonality, Here are their comments on another key issue discussed:
Issue #3. What are the key considerations for presence in a Customer UC environment?
· “Agent” availability, once they have been logged on to their desktops and set their status to being ready to take a call assignment (inbound or outbound), has always been a part of ACD technologies in traditional telephone call centers. Being “available” for a phone call means that they are not on another phone call, but can be doing other tasks that are interruptible or can be multi-tasked.
· Agent assignment to non-voice tasks can be made to a “busy” agent, especially, when such tasks are not “real-time” and can be done “as soon as possible,” e.g., outbound calls (“call blending”), messaging responses, etc. Even several customer real-time IM assignments can be multi-tasked by a single agent.
· Real-time access to non-“agents,” i.e., (”Subject Matter Experts” or SMEs) is becoming a key concern for customer contact operations and is dependent on (1) their accessibility and (2) their availability. For the most part, SMEs are not directly accessible to customer callers, but could be assigned to handle appropriate customer messages. However, “first line agents” who need assistance from an SME, must themselves be guided by presence and availability to whichever live assistance resource is available at the moment, like an “ACD for SMEs.”
· Wireless mobility and the use of multi-modal endpoint devices (notebooks, “smart-phones”), will increase accessibility to SMEs, and thus SME availability.
· However, SMEs are very dynamically “available” and “accessible,” and only they know whether they can provide real-time assistance to an “agent,” based on the SME’s current situation and other task priorities. A panel recommendation was NOT to make specific “agent” assignments to SMEs or to let an “agent” select the SME of their choice, but to broadcast a “priority alert” message (Dispatch) to all qualified and accessible SMEs and let the “first responder” SME be connected by IM with the requesting “agent” in queue.
· SMEs can also respond to tasks that are not real-time, e.g., responding to an email or SMS message request sent in directly by a customer, field sales/support personnel, or as a result of an automated business process application that is monitoring a customer-related situation (CEBP). Again, making automatic assignments to individual SMEs may not work as well as broadcasting the request to qualified and available “first responders.”
· In real world worst-case situations, where no real-time live assistance is available to resolve a customer problem, customers need to be able to leave information about their needs (trouble tickets, messaging, online or IVR application input, etc.) and given written (text) confirmation of the request, with a time projection for follow up. In many cases, there is no possibility or even need for an immediate fix of a problem; it’s just the customer reporting and acknowledgment that is “real-time.”
· Performance management issues still remain for tracking “agent” vs. “SME” availability. While “agents” have to “punch in” for call handling accountability for their time on the job, SMEs don’t have the same requirements. On the other hand, from a customer perspective, all contact activities involved with a given customer should be tracked, regardless of format and source.
· “Customer presence” is another facet for the contact center in terms of outbound contacts. This is becoming particularly important as consumers become more accessible and therefore more “available” for real-time notifications and connections with mobile smart-phones. This will make “First Call Resolution” and voice conversations less critical than “First Contact Resolution” and message notification and delivery, coupled with “click-to-call” capabilities.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
September 18, 2009
“Customer UC” – Panelists Discuss UC and the Contact Center - Issue # 3
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
More Panelist Comments on Implementing “Customer UC”
In my previous post on what was happening with UC in the Contact Center space at TMC’s Internet Telephony show in L.A., I summarized comments by my panelists on the first two issues we discussed that face business organizations looking to exploit UC for customer contact activities.
From a business results perspective, UC ROI performance must include metrics like customer satisfaction (soft) and revenue generation (hard), not just cost savings and Total Cost of Ownership (hard). Customer contact activities are therefore increasingly being evaluated as high-value applications for overall UC implementation planning.
I have labeled all customer-facing UC communication activities as “Customer UC.” These kinds of challenges were discussed by a panel of innovative contact center technology developers on the subject of ”UC and the Contact Center” at TMC’s Internet Telephony conference in L.A. at the beginning of this month (9/1-3).
My panelists were representatives from leading innovative contact center technology developers Altitude Software, CosmoCom, and Fonality, Here are their comments on another key issue discussed:
Issue #3. What are the key considerations for presence in a Customer UC environment?
· “Agent” availability, once they have been logged on to their desktops and set their status to being ready to take a call assignment (inbound or outbound), has always been a part of ACD technologies in traditional telephone call centers. Being “available” for a phone call means that they are not on another phone call, but can be doing other tasks that are interruptible or can be multi-tasked.
· Agent assignment to non-voice tasks can be made to a “busy” agent, especially, when such tasks are not “real-time” and can be done “as soon as possible,” e.g., outbound calls (“call blending”), messaging responses, etc. Even several customer real-time IM assignments can be multi-tasked by a single agent.
· Real-time access to non-“agents,” i.e., (”Subject Matter Experts” or SMEs) is becoming a key concern for customer contact operations and is dependent on (1) their accessibility and (2) their availability. For the most part, SMEs are not directly accessible to customer callers, but could be assigned to handle appropriate customer messages. However, “first line agents” who need assistance from an SME, must themselves be guided by presence and availability to whichever live assistance resource is available at the moment, like an “ACD for SMEs.”
· Wireless mobility and the use of multi-modal endpoint devices (notebooks, “smart-phones”), will increase accessibility to SMEs, and thus SME availability.
· However, SMEs are very dynamically “available” and “accessible,” and only they know whether they can provide real-time assistance to an “agent,” based on the SME’s current situation and other task priorities. A panel recommendation was NOT to make specific “agent” assignments to SMEs or to let an “agent” select the SME of their choice, but to broadcast a “priority alert” message (Dispatch) to all qualified and accessible SMEs and let the “first responder” SME be connected by IM with the requesting “agent” in queue.
· SMEs can also respond to tasks that are not real-time, e.g., responding to an email or SMS message request sent in directly by a customer, field sales/support personnel, or as a result of an automated business process application that is monitoring a customer-related situation (CEBP). Again, making automatic assignments to individual SMEs may not work as well as broadcasting the request to qualified and available “first responders.”
· In real world worst-case situations, where no real-time live assistance is available to resolve a customer problem, customers need to be able to leave information about their needs (trouble tickets, messaging, online or IVR application input, etc.) and given written (text) confirmation of the request, with a time projection for follow up. In many cases, there is no possibility or even need for an immediate fix of a problem; it’s just the customer reporting and acknowledgment that is “real-time.”
· Performance management issues still remain for tracking “agent” vs. “SME” availability. While “agents” have to “punch in” for call handling accountability for their time on the job, SMEs don’t have the same requirements. On the other hand, from a customer perspective, all contact activities involved with a given customer should be tracked, regardless of format and source.
· “Customer presence” is another facet for the contact center in terms of outbound contacts. This is becoming particularly important as consumers become more accessible and therefore more “available” for real-time notifications and connections with mobile smart-phones. This will make “First Call Resolution” and voice conversations less critical than “First Contact Resolution” and message notification and delivery, coupled with “click-to-call” capabilities.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
UC and Customer Contacts
Copyright © 2009 Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
September 14, 2009
“Customer UC” –
Voice Assistance Is Only A Part of The “Contextual Contact Center”
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
As I mentioned in my last article, new unified communications technologies (UC) have started to impact customer contact operations to the point that the traditional “call center” now has to be called a customer “contact “center. In addition, the holy grail of call center performance efficiency, “First Call Resolution” (FCR), must now be called “First Contact Resolution.”
From a business results perspective, UC ROI performance must include metrics like customer satisfaction (soft) and revenue generation (hard), not just cost savings and Total Cost of Ownership (hard). Customer contact activities are therefore increasingly being evaluated as key to overall UC implementation planning.
I have labeled such customer-facing UC communication activities as “Customer UC.” This is where the flexibility of UC technologies are applied to traditional customer contacts (inbound and outbound), “Customer UC” must support users both inside and outside of the organization who are not necessarily at a desktop, on premise, or using the same communication technologies, but are involved directly or indirectly with “customers.” These kinds of challenges were discussed by a panel of innovative contact center technology developers on the subject of ”UC and the Contact Center” at TMC’s Internet Telephony conference in L.A. at the beginning of this month (9/1-3).
The Disruptive Impact of UC and Mobility On Traditional Telephone Call Centers
The traditional call center is no longer really a physically located “center,” but has to be “virtual” in terms of where the technology is located and where the “agents” and “experts” are located. (Call center “customers” have always been “virtual!”) Nor is the next generation “contextual contact center” dedicated to handling just conversational voice calls or automated, self-service applications, based on legacy telephones and Interactive Voice Response technologies.
Because of the exploding consumer shift to personalized, multi-modal, mobile “smart-phones,” coupled with evolving SIP networking infrastructure that can support all forms of person-to-person, person-to-process, and process-to-person interactions, organizations of all sizes will need the power of UC to support the dynamic demands of their users and customers. “Customer UC” must be endpoint device and location independent to provide faster, more efficient access to both information and people to end users involved in their business activities, whether they are internal staff “agents,” and “experts” or external customers and business partners.
What’s Happening With “Customer UC” Today?
Feedback from the contact center market today confirms some of the points made above. In various panel discussions at the IT Expo show, the following interesting observations were noted:
- Business organizations are buying more “UC technology” for contact center applications, although not actually using the technology yet. Desktop video (for conferencing) is in second place as a UC application purchases. This indicates the direction and priorities that UC implementation planning is taking.
- Biggest UC implementation mistakes that enterprise IT staffs seem to be making are:
Making a vendor selection first
No preparations, doing requirements “homework”
Trying to implement UC like existing communications (e.g., treating Microsoft OCS like Exchange)
- The cost of planning for UC is about the same for a large and a smaller business organization, while the cost of implementation will obviously be higher for the larger group. Any size organization will have the similar customer care problems and therefore “Customer UC” will pay off for them all.
- “Hosted” and “cloud computing” solutions are increasingly attractive to any size organization, as IP telephony and wireless mobility become software rather than hardware based.
- UC operational needs are based on individual job responsibilities (“roles”). For the SMB organization, the needs analysis and requirements effort can typically be 50% of the total UC implementation cost. For the large organization, UC implementation can be phased in by individual groups, application by application.
However, the SMB market doesn’t have big legacy technology investments to protect nor IT staffs to train and manage, will “low-hanging fruit” for service providers.
- “Communication Enabled Business Processing” (CEBP) is a big target for UC integration with business applications and mobile customer contact exploitation, but is still evolving. It needs standards for open interoperability to make its role in the “Contextual Contact Center” really take off.
- New IP telephony technology can’t be sold separately without UC integration considerations, making UC marketing a partnering team effort. UC also can’t be sold just on a telephony cost savings basis to IT management alone, thus requiring business management and business process analyses first.
My Panel’s First Two Question
My panelists were representatives from contact center technology developers Altitude Software, CosmoCom, and Fonality,
1. What Are The Key Drivers For UC In The Contact Center Market?
- Increase flexibility for customer access to mobile and remote personnel who are best qualified and “available” to satisfy specific customer needs
- Increase flexibility of choice for mobile and desktop customers to get information and contextual access to live assistance in real-time (“click-to-call/chat”) or via timely messaging
- Improve operational business process performance by increasing use of self-service applications (online, voice, mobile, proactive services), which minimize both labor needs and human delays.
- Increase customer satisfaction and retention through improved customer experiences, which helps generate revenues and profits. This includes proactive “notifications” to mobile users about time-sensitive, requested information.
- Increase business application flexibility by shifting to communications-enabled software, rather than hardware, that can be customized for any-size business and for individual end users.
- Reduce operational costs and TCO by centralizing and virtualizing operational management and technology support for competitive business operational needs
Note: Although there are UC benefits for everyone involved in customer interactions, there will be different organizational and business priorities for each of the above considerations that must be analyzed and evaluated prior to planning UC implementations.
2.What traditional call center processes will be probably be changed first by UC? Which won’t?
Will:
- Importance of contact handling time vs. effectiveness of modality of contact vs. increasing shift to self-service and pro-active notifications.
- Consolidating “Agent” desktops to facilitate multi-modal customer interactions for various business applications
- Supporting new multi-modal communication needs for remote, online “agents” and “experts”
- Supporting mobile and online multi-modal customers
- Customizing “unified desktops” to make both “agent’ and “expert” interactions more efficient across different business application processes
- Developing new metrics and reports to track all new forms of customer contacts and interactions
Won’t
- Consolidated reporting of all customer interaction metrics from both the customer perspective and live assistance support involved will be evolving after all specific Customer UC capabilities have been successfully tested and implemented
- Automated proactive notifications by business applications will also come later as more customers become mobile and more practical experience is gained with new mobile devices and specific types of applications. At that point, individual applications will have to be integrated to enable “CEBP” functionality and operational management
- Agent empowerment to dynamically switch interaction modalities, e.g., text messaging, voice calls, online collaboration, video conferencing, etc.
- Changing “First Call resolution” to “First Contact Resolution” in terms of responding to a mobile caller by acknowledging the call notification but deferring it in various ways from an immediate real-time voice response
- Won’t change management responsibilities for line of business and customer contact activities.
Comments to other UC-Contact Center issues will be posted later.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
September 14, 2009
“Customer UC” –
Voice Assistance Is Only A Part of The “Contextual Contact Center”
Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View
As I mentioned in my last article, new unified communications technologies (UC) have started to impact customer contact operations to the point that the traditional “call center” now has to be called a customer “contact “center. In addition, the holy grail of call center performance efficiency, “First Call Resolution” (FCR), must now be called “First Contact Resolution.”
From a business results perspective, UC ROI performance must include metrics like customer satisfaction (soft) and revenue generation (hard), not just cost savings and Total Cost of Ownership (hard). Customer contact activities are therefore increasingly being evaluated as key to overall UC implementation planning.
I have labeled such customer-facing UC communication activities as “Customer UC.” This is where the flexibility of UC technologies are applied to traditional customer contacts (inbound and outbound), “Customer UC” must support users both inside and outside of the organization who are not necessarily at a desktop, on premise, or using the same communication technologies, but are involved directly or indirectly with “customers.” These kinds of challenges were discussed by a panel of innovative contact center technology developers on the subject of ”UC and the Contact Center” at TMC’s Internet Telephony conference in L.A. at the beginning of this month (9/1-3).
The Disruptive Impact of UC and Mobility On Traditional Telephone Call Centers
The traditional call center is no longer really a physically located “center,” but has to be “virtual” in terms of where the technology is located and where the “agents” and “experts” are located. (Call center “customers” have always been “virtual!”) Nor is the next generation “contextual contact center” dedicated to handling just conversational voice calls or automated, self-service applications, based on legacy telephones and Interactive Voice Response technologies.
Because of the exploding consumer shift to personalized, multi-modal, mobile “smart-phones,” coupled with evolving SIP networking infrastructure that can support all forms of person-to-person, person-to-process, and process-to-person interactions, organizations of all sizes will need the power of UC to support the dynamic demands of their users and customers. “Customer UC” must be endpoint device and location independent to provide faster, more efficient access to both information and people to end users involved in their business activities, whether they are internal staff “agents,” and “experts” or external customers and business partners.
What’s Happening With “Customer UC” Today?
Feedback from the contact center market today confirms some of the points made above. In various panel discussions at the IT Expo show, the following interesting observations were noted:
- Business organizations are buying more “UC technology” for contact center applications, although not actually using the technology yet. Desktop video (for conferencing) is in second place as a UC application purchases. This indicates the direction and priorities that UC implementation planning is taking.
- Biggest UC implementation mistakes that enterprise IT staffs seem to be making are:
Making a vendor selection first
No preparations, doing requirements “homework”
Trying to implement UC like existing communications (e.g., treating Microsoft OCS like Exchange)
- The cost of planning for UC is about the same for a large and a smaller business organization, while the cost of implementation will obviously be higher for the larger group. Any size organization will have the similar customer care problems and therefore “Customer UC” will pay off for them all.
- “Hosted” and “cloud computing” solutions are increasingly attractive to any size organization, as IP telephony and wireless mobility become software rather than hardware based.
- UC operational needs are based on individual job responsibilities (“roles”). For the SMB organization, the needs analysis and requirements effort can typically be 50% of the total UC implementation cost. For the large organization, UC implementation can be phased in by individual groups, application by application.
However, the SMB market doesn’t have big legacy technology investments to protect nor IT staffs to train and manage, will “low-hanging fruit” for service providers.
- “Communication Enabled Business Processing” (CEBP) is a big target for UC integration with business applications and mobile customer contact exploitation, but is still evolving. It needs standards for open interoperability to make its role in the “Contextual Contact Center” really take off.
- New IP telephony technology can’t be sold separately without UC integration considerations, making UC marketing a partnering team effort. UC also can’t be sold just on a telephony cost savings basis to IT management alone, thus requiring business management and business process analyses first.
My Panel’s First Two Question
My panelists were representatives from contact center technology developers Altitude Software, CosmoCom, and Fonality,
1. What Are The Key Drivers For UC In The Contact Center Market?
- Increase flexibility for customer access to mobile and remote personnel who are best qualified and “available” to satisfy specific customer needs
- Increase flexibility of choice for mobile and desktop customers to get information and contextual access to live assistance in real-time (“click-to-call/chat”) or via timely messaging
- Improve operational business process performance by increasing use of self-service applications (online, voice, mobile, proactive services), which minimize both labor needs and human delays.
- Increase customer satisfaction and retention through improved customer experiences, which helps generate revenues and profits. This includes proactive “notifications” to mobile users about time-sensitive, requested information.
- Increase business application flexibility by shifting to communications-enabled software, rather than hardware, that can be customized for any-size business and for individual end users.
- Reduce operational costs and TCO by centralizing and virtualizing operational management and technology support for competitive business operational needs
Note: Although there are UC benefits for everyone involved in customer interactions, there will be different organizational and business priorities for each of the above considerations that must be analyzed and evaluated prior to planning UC implementations.
2.What traditional call center processes will be probably be changed first by UC? Which won’t?
Will:
- Importance of contact handling time vs. effectiveness of modality of contact vs. increasing shift to self-service and pro-active notifications.
- Consolidating “Agent” desktops to facilitate multi-modal customer interactions for various business applications
- Supporting new multi-modal communication needs for remote, online “agents” and “experts”
- Supporting mobile and online multi-modal customers
- Customizing “unified desktops” to make both “agent’ and “expert” interactions more efficient across different business application processes
- Developing new metrics and reports to track all new forms of customer contacts and interactions
Won’t
- Consolidated reporting of all customer interaction metrics from both the customer perspective and live assistance support involved will be evolving after all specific Customer UC capabilities have been successfully tested and implemented
- Automated proactive notifications by business applications will also come later as more customers become mobile and more practical experience is gained with new mobile devices and specific types of applications. At that point, individual applications will have to be integrated to enable “CEBP” functionality and operational management
- Agent empowerment to dynamically switch interaction modalities, e.g., text messaging, voice calls, online collaboration, video conferencing, etc.
- Changing “First Call resolution” to “First Contact Resolution” in terms of responding to a mobile caller by acknowledging the call notification but deferring it in various ways from an immediate real-time voice response
- Won’t change management responsibilities for line of business and customer contact activities.
Comments to other UC-Contact Center issues will be posted later.
What Do You Think?
You can contact me at: artr@ix.netcom.com or (310) 395-2360.
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