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 28th – May 1st.
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/
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