Copyright © 2012 The
Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide
October 29, 2012
Smartphones and Tablets Need “Multi-Persona” App Controls
By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC
Strategies Expert
It’s
getting very obvious that it is “consumer BYOD” that is driving all kinds of
customer service activities to UC-enabled, mobile, self-service applications
accessible in public or private “clouds.” Whether the mobile application
servers are located on premise or on a cloud service is also becoming a
business option The bottom line is that “mobile apps” are shifting the emphasis
of UC ROI away from just internal “collaboration” benefits to include servicing
all mobile end users (customers, employees) , who can now be more accessible to
automated business applications and to flexible, multi-modal communications
with people (person-to-person).
I
have been using the industry term, “dual persona,” to describe the way that a
single, mobile device can be used to separate personal contact activities from
business/job related contacts and information access. For a very detailed
description of what “dual persona” entails for mobile application management,
check out these two blogs here
and here.
However,
the more I think about the consumer’s need for mobile access to information,
self-service mobile apps, and lastly, access to live assistance, there really
is a need for more than two (dual) mobile personas. Why?
Every User/Consumer Is A Customer Of Many Businesses And
Services
Although
business users must separate their job/role responsibilities from other
personal communication needs, the latter really must be broken down further
into relationships as customers with a variety of different business services
they need to interact with. That brings the cloud-based, “multi-modal
interaction center” into the picture to support customers with UC-enabled, mobile,
self-service applications to minimize the time and costs of handling
traditional telephone calls to legacy call centers.
Since
each customer relationship must be personalized for the individual end user,
the mobile consumer will need to be supported by different UC-enabled
self-service applications provided by their different service providers.
Whether it is from providers of health care, banking, insurance, government,
retail, etc. services, each provider will have to control selective and
contextual (“smart?”) accessibility by their different customers to information
and assistance. Thus, we really have a need for a separate “persona” for each
customer.
The
question is, where will “persona” information reside - on the mobile device or
in “cloud”-based business portals?
Inasmuch
as online application portals have already evolved as practical points of
inbound customer contact from PCs, it would seem logical that they can now be
expanded to support both mobile, multimedia user interfaces, as well as proactive
outbound notifications to end users through CEBP integrations. That combination
of capabilities will provide a logical progression of self-service applications
to integrate with UC-enabled live assistance. Giving mobile customers such
flexibility will certainly enhance customer satisfaction and minimize support
costs.
Making The Change To Cloud-based “Multi-modal Interaction Centers”
Even
while the mobile technology developers are putting all the pieces together for
next- generation contact centers and services for multi-modal, mobile
consumers, the challenge for CIOs is to start getting ready for the impact that
technology will bring to customer service business and operational management.
Although we may start off by making things more efficient and effective for
consumers/customers, we also have to prepare for its impact on customer-facing
staff and remote home agents.
Here
are some basic issues to consider:
·
What kind of
“click-for-assistance” contacts will come from what kind of customers?
·
How will “contextual” screenpops change with UC
enablement?
·
How will a customer
authorize/control automated outbound notifications from CEBP-enabled
applications?
·
How will different
customer assistance modalities be assigned to customer-facing staff and what
happens if a “click-to-talk/video” option is exercised from a chat session?
·
How will “always on”
mobile customers exploit non-real-time assistance and “call return” options?
Note
that these have nothing to do with what kind of mobile device a customer is
using (customer BYOD).
Since
most organizations don’t have enough experience to know all the answers yet,
one of the big benefits of cloud-based services is that it is a practical way
to trial new self-service applications as well as learning what skills live
staff assistance will need in a multi-modal environment. I have addressed this
approach in a recent white
paper.
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