UC Enabled Mobility Changing Contact Centers

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

 By Art Rosenberg 

I didn't have to say it, but Time did in a recent post entitled "Stop Calling Your Smartphone A Phone!" 

Whatever consumers want to call their personalized mobile device they are using instead of legacy wired phones, the bottom line is that the device is going to be used less and less for voice conversations and more and more for text messaging and access to information. Given that major shift by consumers, traditional call/contact center operations will have to change accordingly, as recently discussed by UC Strategies experts as the "UC Contact Center."


Consumer mobility is turning out to be the biggest validation for UC enablement of contact center applications, particularly for self-service business applications or customer "mobile apps."  While there have been major efforts by the major telephony vendors to justify UC for "collaboration" and internal user productivity through simplified conferencing, the fact that consumers/customers are moving quickly to multi-modal smartphones means that their interactions with an organization will exploit more informational interactions rather than person-to-person contacts, and the latter to more text-based than voice connections.


The wireless carriers have recognized this in new business models as reflected by Verizon Wireless's just announced "Shared Data Plan," which emphasizes data usage pricing (particularly entertainment music and video) and "throws in" unlimited phone calls and messaging. They encourage using the wireless service by many users and for many different endpoint devices.  The pricing is not cheap and is still being debated, but the approach is definitely going to have ripple effects with mobile consumers and their interactions with "UC Contact Centers."


For openers, will contact centers eventually get rid of toll-free access numbers? Not just because there will be no charges for incoming subscriber calls, but also because customer contacts will become IP-based through enterprise web portals. 

More important to contact center operations will be the impact of UC-enabled self-service applications, both inbound and outbound, and their ability to access live assistance on-demand with a customer's choice of modality (voice, video, messaging, etc.).  Enterprise self-service "mobile apps" have to be supported by the wireless carriers without penalizing the customers who use them, and it's not clear how these will be offered.


At a recent consultant's meeting hosted by IP Telephony provider ShoreTel, the impact of mobility and "cloud"-based UC applications left some of the consultants with questions about their clients' contact center needs. So, expect to see more contact center developments in the near future.

 
   

UC-enabled "Multimodal Customer Experiences"

Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
June 7, 2012

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

A recent analysis of contact center applications moving into the "cloud" showed that IVR (self-service) applications was the application that was most frequently shifted off premise to a "cloud" based service. This highlights how customers will be accommodated with more flexible self-service options as they start using multimodal smart phones and tablets, rather than traditional voice-only telephones. 

As I suggested in a previous post, mobile customers will now require an integration of various customer service experiences. It will be a combination of how self-service interfaces are designed for smartphones and tablets, as well as how live assistance is accessed and supported when needed. It also includes proactive, outbound “notifications” and alerts to mobile customers from automated business process applications, and what response options can be given to the mobile recipient.
 
Old call center options for live assistance will remain for customers who continue to call from voice only telephones. However, even, there, if the customers has ever interacted online, there will be more contextual “intelligence” for efficient call handling. However, as more and more consumers adopt multimodal smartphones and tablets for personalized mobile contacts, “cloud”-based, UC-enabled contact centers will play an increasing role in seamlessly integrating all customer interactions. This trend will impact how organizations must support new “customer experience” needs as discussed in this video interview.

“Multimodal” customer experiences will include the following:

1.      Getting access to information and transactions online
2.      Getting access to live assistance in the customer’s choice of communication (messaging, voice, video, hybrids)
3.      Being proactively notified of important, personalized time–sensitive situations
4.      Getting suggestions and comments from user communities
5.      Timely responsiveness to the mode of interaction

So, when you talk about insuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, it will be a combination of their experience with any or all of the above. The challenge for business organizations of any size, will be to optimize those different customer experiences, so that all of them will be positive for the customer.

What Customers Really Need

Live customer assistance is needed when customers can’t get what they want on their own, whether it is information, authorization, help with a problem, or to perform some kind of transaction. The main point is that if they can do it easily themselves, they won’t need live assistance. On the other hand, if a self-service application is not user friendly or too time consuming, the customer will jump to live customer assistance.

If, for whatever reason, the customer does need such live assistance, they will typically want such access immediately. That is not to say such access is necessarily a real time connection (chat, voice, video), because often there is no need to have the answer immediately. This will be particularly true when there is a known need for research into the problem or authorizations must be done before the results can be given. In such situations, the customer, as the contact initiator, may well choose to send a message, voice or text, and get confirmation that the message has been received. It might also be useful to let the customer know when a response may be forthcoming.

When it comes to real-time live assistance, customers won’t appreciate any of the following:

• Being put into a waiting queue with no indication of how long that might take
• Being connected to someone who doesn’t who you are and what you have already done online and requires a repeat identification procedures
• Being connected to someone who can’t answer their needs
• Being transferred from one person to another; conferencing is a more “seamless” mode of involving other expertise
•  Speaking with an agent that doesn’t speak their language very well

So, to avoid any of the above problems that can arise because of staffing issues, it will make sense to allow customers to exploit well-designed self-service applications that can now be offered to mobile devices. Fortunately, multimodal mobile devices will facilitate this approach to customer services by starting with customer access to information and notifications and then allowing “contextual” contacts with live assistance.

Customer Assistance Is A Two-way Street

Live assistance can also exploit access to self-services. That is, even though the mobile or online customer may be talking to a live customer service person, it will be simple for the agent to transfer the customer to an appropriate self-service application, along with any contextual data needed by the application. This can include access to “mobile apps” that will be highly focused on specific customer-related applications.

Many years ago when I spoke at a conference about IVR self-services, I suggested that when a customer transfers to live assistance, the agent should similarly transfer the customer to an appropriate IVR application when the rest of the customer’s needs can be done by themselves. Someone in the audience asked me who provides that capability, and I had to say “No one yet!”

Today, with multimodal smartphones and cloud-based applications, there is no limit to how self-services integrated with live assistance can optimize customer support needs. The trick to cost efficient customer service will be to maximize all forms of self-services, but retain customer options for live assistance.

 This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network

UC-Enabling End-user Notifications

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 While there has been much attention paid to simplifying business communications between people, the emphasis has primarily been on integrating the various forms of contact initiation. That would include all forms of messaging, real-time voice/video calls and conferencing, as well as various social networking postings. That covers a lot of new communication activities, especially when you add in automated alerts from business processes and applications.

What is now becoming more important, particularly for UC-enabled mobile end users with smartphones and tablets, is to manage their accessibility and time priorities as contact "recipients" by screening all forms of communication contacts as part of a "unified," contextual notification service. I am sure some aspects of this capability are already being implemented by various service providers, but probably buried under the Mobile UC umbrella. 

To read more of my thoughts about bringing "unified notifications management" to end user contact recipients, see my recent post at:

http://blog.ucstrategies.com/index.php/2012/06/03/unified-contextual-contact-notifications/  

Customer BYOD and UC Enablement

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

 June 1, 2012

Mobile Multimodal Customers Need UC-Enabled Notifications and Self Services

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

End users are transitioning from desktop PCs and telephones to mobile, multimodal smartphones and tablets of their choice, under the label of “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) Initially, BYOD strategies have been primarily focused on supporting mobile users within an organization who need access to people and business applications whenever they were not at their desks. However, BYOD is also being exercised by consumers who are business customers, and will need to be accommodated by traditional contact center operations. 

IT management has been mainly concerned about the security of business information accessed by employee mobile devices and is trying to come up with policies for supporting personal mobile devices that employees might increasingly use for business applications. That challenge is still being dealt with in various ways, including “dual persona” software clients that separate business-related activities on the mobile devices from personal usage, and Mobile Device Management (MDM) tools for controlling authorized mobile device access and usage. BYOD mobility policies have been primarily focused on end users within an organization as a means for increasing business process performance efficiency, individual end user productivity, and minimizing communication costs.

However, BYOD mobility is just starting to be recognized as a key factor in communicating with consumers/customers who are rapidly adopting smartphones and tablets as their primary means of multimodal communications. Clearly, organizational “BYOD policies” can’t be applied to customers who do whatever they want to, but traditional contact center operations will now have to accommodate mobile customers and the devices of their choice. 

Customer Mobility and “Total Customer Experiences”

There has also been widespread recognition that customer satisfaction will depend on their “experiences” in interacting with an organization. Until now, this meant dealing with customers via telephone calls, messaging, and online self-service applications, each area usually being supported in separate technology silos. With UC-enabled smartphones and tablets, mobile users will be dynamically exploiting all modes of business interaction with a single mobile device that will let them switch modalities “on demand.” With video conferencing and social networking options, business communications with customers will certainly become more complex.

What that means is that every form of contact between a customer and an organization must be “unified” in various ways, so that each interface experience will be individually efficient and effective for the customer’s needs. The “total” customer contact experience will reflect the individual user interfaces for communications and self-service applications that will be exploited by a customer depending on their needs and communication environments. When live assistance is involved, the “experience” will obviously be also dependent on the skills of the agent or expert that is providing assistance, as well as the modality of contact involved.

Given that most organizations are working with legacy contact center technologies, the challenge for including support for mobile customer needs is great and needs to be strategically planned. This is exactly where UC-enablement technologies and “cloud-based” integrations will play leading roles in achieving what I describe as the next generation “UC Contact Center” or, better yet, the “UC Interaction Center.” The latter is more inclusive of automated self-services that mobile smartphones and tablets will help to increase over the need for live assistance.

Interface Challenges For Mobile End Users

The fact that there different types of smartphones and tablets being acquired by consumers, means there are differences in form factors, as well as different operating systems that will impact user interface designs, as well as different integration (API) needs. Because some wireless carriers won’t support “open” accessibility to all devices and applications they don’t control, is not going to help matters in dealing with the needs of “BYOD” mobile consumers.

A logical place for any organization to start their mobility journey to is to redesign and integrate current online self-service applications to access and accommodate the smaller screens that mobile consumers will be using instead of traditional PC desktops. This would include “mobile apps” available directly from the enterprise network or through “app stores,” and could include new outbound notifications from business process applications as well. By also including integrations with communication applications, i.e., “click-to-contact” live assistance, the basic framework for mobile customers to access information, the customer will still have options for contacts with a live person. Such “contextual contacts” will provide greater efficiencies in handling a customer’s needs, but will not necessarily change anything for customers who simply want to immediately “talk” to someone who is available and qualified.

Most organizations are still perplexed about migrating to an “UC-enabled” communications environment, when their legacy telephony investments are still functional. My suggestion is to first fill in the “holes” that are not properly covered by legacy technology; customer mobility, coupled with BYOD, is one the biggest revenue impacting “holes” that currently exists.  

 

 This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network

Video Conferencing Moves Out With UC

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

April 28, 2012

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

Meetings and real-time conferencing have always been very demanding because it requires all participants to be available at the same time and/or the same place. Starting back in the old days of face-to-face meetings in the same room to exploiting voice and video conferencing for distributed participants, there is still a need to synchronize access to information and personal availability to join a live conference.

The primary benefit of conferencing is that it allows the participants to question and discuss issues with others in real-time, thus shortening the time to get issues understood and resolved. In effect, conferencing is the “heart of collaboration,” even though asynchronous forms of communication are also very important ways to collaborate and exchange information. “Unified communications” (UC) has been evolving to allow end users to selectively use any form of contact with others in order to collaborate easily and cost efficiently.

While voice conferencing has always dominated the real-time conferencing world, video conferencing technology has improved sufficiently to enable it to be a new UC-enabled option for organizations to exploit instead of face-to-face meetings that require expensive travel for remotely located participants. Not only has video conferencing become practical for traditional room-based groups, but has now also moved into the domain of individual end-user participation from their desktops or from their personalized, mobile tablets and smartphones. In effect, video conferencing has joined voice conferencing, or, like “unified messaging,” I would describe as “unified conferencing.” 

 “Different Strokes For Different Folks!”

The basic value of UC integrations is that it can flexibly accommodate individual end user needs for multi-modal communication applications on a device-independent basis. UC flexibility provided limited benefits to users at the desktop, where a PC and telephone were separately accessible, but the dynamic demands of mobile environments made such flexibility more critical. Now, with the rapid adoption by consumers of multi-modal smartphones and tablets, the vision of UC enabled business processes can be realized. When end users have to communicate in real-time, whether person-to-person or in groups, they have easier and dynamic access to their choices of interaction and participation.

Such flexibility is of particular value when conferencing requirements are “ad hoc” and time sensitive. The faster and easier for individual end users to participate in any real-time discussion, the greater the operational benefits to business process performance. As I pointed out recently, conferencing modalities no longer have to be confined to separate desktop silos for all participants, but can now be exploited selectively by individual users as their roles require.  

Adding Video Conferencing to the Business Collaboration Menu

Although video has become well accepted for both information and personal communications through You Tube and other web-based applications, a recent survey shows a number of challenges still facing business user adoption of video conferencing. Inasmuch as voice conferencing is well accepted, easily managed, and cost effective, it already provides basic real-time conferencing capabilities for participants.

Aside from implementation complexities, higher costs, and questionable benefits of video conferencing, the biggest resistance from end users is the lack of a real need for it in doing their jobs. Voice conferencing has been readily available for both desktop and mobile users, and has apparently been adequate for most real-time conferencing needs. While video conferencing was limited to room-based set-ups, it did not provide the convenience that voice conferencing allowed. Although desktop video conferencing was an improvement, it did not allow maximum participation from mobile users. With Mobile UC–enabled video conferencing, it is now time to exploit video in a variety of ways, including ad hoc conferencing.

Like everything else, new business communications have to satisfy individual end user needs and their job roles. In many cases, the end users are in an audience watching a speaker presentation; in other cases, the end user may be being interviewed while others watch. For group interactions, participating in a real-time videoconference should be a matter of choice to be “on camera” or not, depending on the individual end user’s role.

With such UC-enabled flexibility, it will become easier to maximize the real-time involvement all key personnel, especially when they are mobile and outside of the organization (e.g., business partners, customers, consultants).  This, in turn, will speed up any business process that requires group discussion and interactions.      

 

 This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network

 

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AT&T Pushing Mobile Users To Their Public, Unified Messaging “Cloud”

 

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

 Business organizations and their technology providers are figuring out how best to migrate mobility and UC-enabled, cloud-based capabilities into legacy telephony and email environments. Meanwhile, service provider AT&T is now offering cloud-based, multi-modal unified text and voice messaging services to mobile consumers. This is being done through communication application developers, who can use AT&T's Encore platform, to exploit the ATT cloud for faster access to integrated communications. This service move will add new impetus for organizations to provide similar capabilities for device-independent messaging capabilities, as well as reinforce new BYOD policies to accommodate “dual persona” mobile clients.

AT&T Messages, a free mobile app for Android smartphones and tablets, is an initial example that centralizes all subscriber person-to-person text and voice messages in AT&T’s “cloud,” allowing easier message management and “threading” across a variety of endpoint devices, including phones, tablets, and desktop PCs. Voice messages can be transcribed into text for either voice or text retrieval, and all messages can be responded to immediately in text or using new “voice texts.” “Voice texts” let the user record a voice message, which is then transcribed for delivery as a text message.

New message notifications are also provided across different endpoint devices, so that recipients are immediately aware of such messages, regardless of the device they happen to be using. However, AT&T has indicated that end users are currently limited to a maximum of 500 contacts in their address books, which is expected to be remedied in the near future.

While AT&T’s Messages can be used by subscribers for both business and personal contacts, the service is tied to the subscriber’s mobile device identity. That is, all messages sent through Messages will show that mobile device address. That won’t work for those business users who typically want their “office” contact used for responses to their mobile messages, e.g., doctors who don’t want to give out their mobile numbers (“Extension to Cellular”). However, the simple solution of “dual persona” mobile clients will enable Messages to be covered by the personal persona, while the business persona can provide other alternative rules.

Although AT&T’s Messages includes text, voice, pictures, and video messages, they did not (yet) mention social networking messages. Inasmuch as a recent international survey showed that 49% of consumer smartphone users use them on a daily basis for social networking, “social business” will come into play for business users. The bottom line for all mobile smartphone and tablet end users is that the “cloud” will facilitate UC-enabled flexibility for all forms of asynchronous messaging, as well as escalation to real-time contacts including IM, “click-to-call,” voice/video conferencing, and social networking.

Telephony and messaging integrators can learn more about UC-enabled mobile business by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications and Collaboration industry. 

Business Collaboration Really Means UC Enablement

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

April 20, 2012

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

Even though the term “collaboration” describes how people work together to solve business issues, the bottom line is that “collaboration” needs all forms of communication and information exchange between people. For that reason, the flexibility of “unified communications” (UC) is an implied capability for person-to-person business contacts. Business collaboration, through UC enablement, can now be done more easily and quickly from anywhere and any time that doesn’t require sitting in the same room together or using identical communication endpoint devices. However, such collaborative activity will still be dependent on every individual end user’s involvement and choice of communication interaction.

“Collaboration” means working together and communicating with others, but such communications are not always in real time, e.g., face-to face meetings, conferencing, and chat. Asynchronous messaging is increasingly becoming more practical for quickly exchanging information and views, without necessarily having a real-time interaction. Whenever a discussion in real-time is required, voice and/or video conferencing can now be quickly initiated or scheduled, depending on the availability of the participants. This is where UC enabled applications allows dynamic shifting between modalities of communications to satisfy the collaborative needs of the active participants.

 “Collaboration,” like the traditional face-to-face meeting, doesn’t start automatically; someone has to do something to get the interactions with other people going. That “something” is a communication action, like a message or a phone call to the people who are to “collaborate.” In addition to being a simple notification, information pertinent to the discussion may need to be referenced to provide the context for review and discussion. So, people who “collaborate” will be using a variety of ways to communicate and exchange information in real time or asynchronously, and that’s where the flexibility of UC enablement comes into play.       

Do People Who Collaborate Need Identical Devices?

Clearly, business communications are not confined to people within a single organization, but will involve people outside an organization as well. In addition, with the rapid increase in mobile communications and BYOD policies, individual end users will be collaborating (communicating) under different circumstances and with different endpoint devices. Some will be sitting in front of desktops (PCs, laptops, tablets), while others may be involved while using mobile smartphones.

 For messaging exchanges, mobile end users will have few problems in communicating when on the go. If the required information exchange involves a lot of data or video, a larger screen from a tablet may be better than a smartphone. However, when a real time conference is required, mobile participants can handle a voice conference easily, but not a videoconference well. So, the recent advent of UC enabled video conferencing will provide the flexibility for individual end users to choose various flavors of video and voice participation that fit their needs and preferences.

The Implementation Bottom Line for IT management, Solution Integrators, and Channels

Individual end users will not be thinking along the lines of “collaboration,” but rather about how they want to access and interact with people and automated (self-service) business applications. This will be particularly important as end users all become more mobile and dependent upon smartphone and tablet devices for everything they do with others. That is the level that UC enablement provides for the flexibility of end user choice to fit their personal needs and preferences.

Obviously, providing end users with such communication flexibility will allow them to more easily and efficiently collaborate with others. So, for business management, collaboration benefits will be foremost, but for individual end users, personalized UC benefits will be most visible and realistically exploited.

The bottom line for implementation of UC enabled applications is for IT management, with the support of VARs and Channels, to integrate them for private or public cloud-based use in order to support both desktop and mobile device usage. This is how “collaboration” technologies will actually get done in the new world of UC enablement.

Learn more by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications and Collaboration industry.

For more insights on UC-enabled Collaboration go to CIO Collaboration Network

   

 

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Avoiding "Angry" Business Messaging In A UC World

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

March 31,2012

By Art Rosenberg

It is not just nice to communicate with people in any business activity, but it is even more important to communicate effectively and avoid damaging relationships because of careless communications. I was intrigued by a recent announcement of a book by Dona Young, a teacher and writing coach, entitled “Angry E-Mail; How To Put A Lid On It” because it was focused on business communications. I offered to review it because I wanted to see how the recommendations fit into a UC enabled environment.

Young’s practical approach to business email begins with making sure to immediately detail the purpose of the message at the start. Recipients of business email don’t have time for socializing small talk. After composing the message, Young recommends spending a few minutes editing it, to make the purpose very clear to the recipient(s) at a glance. Then cut out all the unnecessary information because “We’re living in a world that’s moving at warp speed. One of the things that irritates people is getting an email and then having to work really hard to figure out how to respond.”

Young’s book focuses heavily on message content, tone, and style that will not offend the recipient and will elicit a positive response. However she does stress the importance of “micromessages,” i.e., things that are unsaid in the message and any excessive delays in the response. All of these factors can impact the business relationship between the sender and the recipient of the message.

Although the book covers best practices for using email to communicate person-to-person, there is no mention of other forms of messaging technologies, including business social networking, or automated CEBP contacts. However, it does suggest that a phone call for a voice conversation may be more appropriate than an email message when delivering sensitive information. The role of email in a unified communications enabled environment is something that was not addressed, e.g., “click-to-call/chat” in response to an email message. In fact, Young recommends delaying sending an email response in order to insure that the response is well thought out.

So, perhaps Dona Young’s next book should be “Angry Unified Communications!”

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2012/03/27/2132693/rex-huppke-first-rule-of-work.html#storylink=cpy

UC Enabled Apps Need "TCU"

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

March 26, 2012

Will Cloud Services and Analytics Shift UC “TCO” To “TCU” and “TCS?”

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

Voice and video communications are joining automated business applications in becoming software rather than hardware dependent. This will facilitate the interoperability and integration of these two groups of computer applications, particularly in a virtual, “cloud” based network environment that will support both desktop and mobile apps.

The transition to hosted services and BYOD mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) will shift the emphasis of technology implementation planning factors from TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), most applicable to acquisition and maintenance of premise-based hardware and software applications, to hosted and managed application service offerings.

While ROI (Return On Investment) is still an overall practical measure of benefits from any technology investment cost, those costs really should be correlated with different types of benefits that have have to expensed. Going to separate levels of benefits and related costs will make it easier to determine how applications can be used most cost effectively and how usage needs should be supported cost efficiently.

New analytics are becoming key tools for tracking application activity that will enable better understanding about who uses what applications, when, and with what results. Analytics can also provide immediate feedback on how well the application is designed from a user interface perspective, as well as indications of workforce performance in using applications by internal staff for their different job responsibilities (“roles”). While the contact center is an ideal target for analytics, it can be applied to everyone in an informational workforce environment.

Total Cost of Usage (TCU)

Probably the most logical metric that should be applied to any application or combination of applications is what I would call “Total Cost of Usage.” The amount of actual usage for any communication of business application is a measure of value for a particular application. Usage analytics will also provide feedback about who (type of user) may be getting the most value from that application; that information provides further insight into the value that application generates for a particular business process.

Putting those factors together will be particularly useful as online, self-service applications become more mobile and highly focused on particular information needs of individual end users. The number of such “public” applications is already humungous, but they are just starting to make their way into enterprise controlled “app stores.” This is where TCU will become important as such “mobile apps” will require constant updating to meet enterprise BYOD needs, as well as operational business demands.

Another perspective on application TCU will be its UC enablement in terms of immediate access to live assistance, e.g., “click-to-call/chat.” This factor will be a major source of additive labor costs, as well as a measure of end user satisfaction (internal staff, external customers). Mobile apps will become a major activity gateway to the UC Contact Center of the future, as increased access to information will precede the need to access assistance. So, the cost of application usage should include costs of optional related assistance.

Total Cost of Application and User Support

Although there may appear to be overlap with the above described usage costs, I am suggesting that support costs here will fall into the more traditional roles of IT for application software maintenance, associated hardware and infrastructure maintenance, new integrations, end user training, and “Help Desk” functions. Again, by applying analytics to application support activities, the value of individual application usage can be matched to support costs.

With the advent of managed, hosted cloud-based services, applications will be increasingly provided to end users through a variety of endpoint devices, many of which will be covered by mobile BYOD policies as far as costs and support are concerned. Further, hosted business services will be provided selectively on a subscription basis, which will facilitate usage management at the application level. However, the value and effectiveness of application use will still have to be carefully evaluated individually by business management.

The new world of UC enabled applications is going to be very flexible, but complex, and will require organizational management especially at the CIO level, to change their perspectives on planning, implementing, and evaluating the use the new technologies.

This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

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All Applications Can be "UC Enabled!"

Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
March 18, 2012

UC Is Not An Application!
By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View

Everywhere you read, you see the label "Unified Communications" (UC) associated with person-to-person telephony, all forms of text messaging, and lately, video conferencing. UC itself is not a product or a service. It is an interoperable capability for improving the efficiency and flexibility of making contact and communicating with people by integrating the various communication and business process "applications" that people use. It doesn't matter what endpoint device is used, desktop, portable laptops, tablets, or smartphones, the applications that can enable people to flexibly communicate in their modality of choice, will be part of "UC."

I see a simple solution to that source of confusion. Rather than use "UC" as a vague noun, we will be better off using it as a standard adjective, i.e., "UC-enabled," for any communication application that is used for person-to-person contacts, as well as any automated business process application that initiates contacts with a human recipient. It is analogous to the term "open" used for standardized software, that can inter-operate/integrate with other system elements.

Different communication products and services can now be described as being 'UC-enabled" to show that they inter-operate with other communication applications at the user's choice of interface (voice, screen). Alternatively, I have simply put the "Unified" label into the name of the basic service or product, e.g., the "UC Contact Center," and "Unified Conferencing." By doing so, I differentiate it from legacy telephony call centers and indicate that different forms of contact and different user interfaces can be accommodated for different groups of end users and business applications.

Telephony, messaging (email, voice mail), chat, automated business applications, conferencing, social networking, can all be labeled as "UC-enabled" when they can seamlessly inter-operate from any user endpoint device in any modality. So, for example, email will be UC-enabled if it can be delivered by text-to-speech, voicemail retrieved as email, and all messaging applications (including IM chat) if they can be escalated to a real-time voice or video connection. Even that old buzzword, "Collaboration" can better be described as "UC-enabled" when it can contextually exploit various forms of communication within the context of the information being shared, not the other way around.

So, let's all start using "UC" as an adjective/modifier rather than as a vague noun for a communication product or service. This should not conflict with the basic business objective for being UC-enabled, i.e., "Communications integrated to optimize business processes." However, each specific communications application will have to be identified and authenticated as being "UC-enabled," and the different user interface options for each business application as well.

Avaya and RADVISION UC Enable Video Conferencing

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

March 15, 2012

UC Enabled Video Conferencing Won't Require “Two-to-Tango”

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

The big news today was Avaya’s public announcement that it acquired RADVISION, Ltd., a leading provider of video conferencing and telepresence technologies over IP and wireless networks. While we have also seen video conferencing as a growing form of business communication, it has been always viewed as an expensive technology silo. By UC enabling video conferencing, it can now become a more flexible option for individual end users.

Avaya’s announcement today highlighted such UC flexibility in the form of “mixed-mode” conferencing, where individual participants have a choice of dynamic options including:

· “On camera” connection (conversational voice and video)

· Video viewing and voice connection

· Voice-only connection

· Sidebar communications (text messaging)

Such flexibility will be particularly useful for individual mobile users with smartphones and tablets, who may have to participate in a restricted mode because of their environment. This also means that people who want to communicate don’t all have to have identical endpoint devices or communicate in identical modalities.

According to Avaya’s announcement, “RADVISION's SCOPIA Video product line and expertise integrated with the open architecture of Avaya Aura® will bridge existing H.323 communications networks and SIP-based environments, delivering scalability and a user experience designed to be intuitive and easy to operate.”

In addition to supporting mobile devices for UC enabled conferencing, Avaya indicated that the technology was “cloud” ready, i.e., that the technology can be available as a service without investment in premise-based equipment. This combination, coupled with standards-based applications, open infrastructure and endpoints for ad-hoc and scheduled videoconferencing with room-based systems, desktop, and mobile consumer devices, will facilitate the establishment of practical organizational BYOD policy for mobile employees.

During today’s announcement call, I questioned Avaya about the target markets for their UC enabled video conferencing, and these were high on their list:

· Health care and medical devices

· Education markets for distance learning

· Contact center applications

· Financial services

· SMB ad hoc video conferencing

The multimodal, UC battle is on and Avaya is stepping up to the plate.

UC Summit For UC Channels and Consultants

Reseller channels can learn more about where multimodal business communications are going within the expanded context of UC by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications industry.

This unique, invitation-only UC Summit in May, hosted by UC Strategies, is the place for experienced communication technology channels to get objective, expert advice on new business opportunities. This includes learning where UC-enabled applications are going, what leading vendors and service providers are offering in the way of software applications and tools, and opportunities for partnering with other, complementary specialist channels to satisfy the complex UC needs of a user organization.

Invitations are limited, so apply now to qualify for acceptance.

UC Contact Centers Need Solution Integrators

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Mobile Apps, Cloud Services, and “Solution Integrators” Make Telephone Contact Centers "Grow Up"

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

The old telephone call center for both inbound and outbound customer contacts is fast transitioning to “UC Contact Centers” in the wake of both new communication technologies, as well as changing consumer needs for more flexible forms of contact. Unified communications is complex because it covers all forms of contact with a person, whether the person is initiating the contact or is the recipient/respondent to a contact.

Inasmuch as organizational call/contact centers deal with communication technologies from both perspectives, as well as with automated and self-service applications, they can benefit the most from UC-enabled flexibilities. So, it is time for legacy call center technology silos to “grow up” and become multimodal through UC-enabled applications. The question is how?

The Why: Mobile Devices Demand “Different Strokes For Different Folks For Different Needs” from Contact Centers

Because consumers (customers, employees, business partners) are rapidly adopting multimodal, mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) for both business and personal contacts and online applications, the role of the traditional enterprise “call center” should no longer be focused just on inbound/outbound telephone calls with customers, internal employee telephone “Help Desks,” or even voice-only, IVR self-service applications. It is time that business contact technologies become interoperable and multimodal for all forms of communication activities, especially for the various types of messaging between people and automated applications (Communications Enabled Business Processes or CEBP).

Even when real-time live assistance is needed, UC-enabled “mobile apps” will facilitate such on-demand access more efficiently and intelligently through simple contextual “click-to-contact” (chat, call, conference) options. In addition, UC and CEBP integrations will be able to exploit mobility’s increased accessibility to people for proactive (outbound) time-sensitive notifications that will make mission-critical business processes more efficient for all end users involved. This will be true whether those end users are internal or external to an organization (business partners, customers). So, the role of the traditional telephone-based contact center operation can be efficiently expanded by being UC-enabled to what I have labeled as the “UC Contact Center.”

The How: What About The “Cloud?”

“Cloud-based” virtualization of software applications and servers is also facilitating implementation of UC because it enables both public and “private” “clouds” to coexist and interoperate across hybrid wired/wireless networks. This network flexibility is what individual end users really need to control and manage all their “dual persona” (personal, business) contacts with a single mobile endpoint device of their choice (BYOD). This interoperability will enable an individual end user to receive a notification alert from anyone, in any form, anywhere, anytime and, most importantly, from any authorized automated business process application, not just from people.

Needless to say, the complexities of UC, combined with the challenge of managing external cloud-based services, has raised concerns with traditional IT management in terms of implementation planning, integration challenges, cost implications, and specific application requirements. Service providers now offer different software components as “cloud” services, including data center infrastructure, operating system platforms, software applications accessible through Web browsers, and, lastly, communications as a service (CaaS or UCaaS), which includes all elements of Internet-based contact connectivity and UC-enabled applications.

Interactive Intelligence recently announced the availability of a free trial of their simplified CaaS contact center applications including analytic performance tools, which can simplify and speed up an organization’s migration to cloud-based technology. This strategy will be particularly useful for trialing new self-service applications, particularly with the help of knowledgeable consultants and Solution Integrators (formerly known as telephony VARs).

The New Role For Old Telephony VARs

The rise of the “cloud,” along with mobile device “BYOD” policies, has also made the migration of premise-based hardware telephony to Mobile UC difficult for traditional Value Added Resellers of telephony equipment. It is changing their old business models, i.e., revenue based on one-time equipment sales and maintenance support, as well as their relationships with communication vendors, other VARs, network services, and cloud service providers. They must now look for new directions and the new opportunities they can find with the combination of UC, mobility, and cloud-based services.

The contact center has always been important for satisfying customer needs for information as well as for live assistance. However the limitations of the telephone for information delivery restricted its value for information access. With smartphones and tablets, those limitations are disappearing and it is time to upgrade the role and value of the contact center accordingly.

Because we see UC adoption in organizations as being driven by the need to optimize business process performance through UC-enabled applications, we expect that there will be new opportunities for traditional telephony VARs to participate in planning, prioritizing, integrating, and trialing UC enabled applications. In addition, they may also help in training end users and managing the performance of those business processes. This will be most applicable to VARs who specialize in those particular vertical markets that can best exploit Mobile UC and “mobile apps”, e.g., health care, financial services, education, field service, emergency response, etc.

This will also require greater skills on the part of VARs, akin to consulting services, which may lead to more partnerships between consultant groups and UC Solution Integrators.

Bottom Line For UC Planning

For these reasons, all business communications must become UC-enabled and interoperable under a common technology framework that will support both mobile and premise-based end users and their different business applications. This will put all legacy call centers on the top of the list for UC migration planning. Customer interactions will likewise be affected by changing CRM issues because of dynamic mobile contacts, both inbound and outbound, as well as the growing role of social networking.

Now is also the time for the enterprise to start trialing mission critical UC-enabled, mobile self-service applications (“mobile apps”) for both customers and for internal users to insure that the user experience will be flexible, efficient, and effective. This will be particularly important for business organizations in order to define new BYOD policies for their mobile operational staff. Such trials can be done more quickly and less expensively by exploiting standards-based, open CaaS/UCaaS offerings, before finalizing procurement and implementation decisions.

UC Summit For UC Channels and Consultants

Reseller channels can learn more about where business communications are going within the expanded context of UC by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications industry.

The unique, invitation-only UC Summit in May, hosted by UC Strategies, is the place for experienced channels to get objective, expert advice. This includes learning where UC-enabled applications are going, what leading vendors and service providers are offering in the way of software applications and tools, and opportunities for partnering with complementary specialist channels to satisfy the complex UC needs of a user organization.

Invitations are limited, so apply now to qualify for acceptance.

UC Supports "Contextual" Contacts

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

February 24, 2012

The Heart of Business UC: “Contextual Contacts”

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

During a recent discussion with my UC Strategies colleagues, we talked about where and when legacy business telephony will be going as mobility and UC-enabled applications move into the business world. In particular, the discussion revolved around legacy telephony systems based on PBXs and desktop hardphones. It is clear that traditional phone calls won’t disappear, but will be subsumed by desktop softphone interfaces and Mobile UC as an option for communicating more efficiently with people who are often away from a desk.

The vagueness of the term “unified communications” (UC) has caused much confusion in the industry, as business technology vendors try to position their products and services as key to enabling UC interoperability. From the technology perspective, communication application integrations, endpoint device independence, and network connectivity independence play the leading roles for UC implementation planning by IT management. However, with multi-modal UC and personalized BYOD mobility considerations, it is time to use terminology that individual end users and consumers will understand and minimize the need for end user “UC training.”

Bringing Communication Contact Flexibility Down To Individual End User Roles

If you look at the role of the individual end user in any kind of communications, they are either initiating a contact or are the recipient of a contact. Each of those roles exists for every type of end user and the functional flexibility of UC can be applied separately to those two roles. That is really the level that UC functionality has to address, not the particular communication application that is being used.

So, the “contact initiator” needs to be able to communicate with people multi-modally, i.e., real-time or asynchronous connections, text, voice, or video, include information references (voice/text message threads, document attachments, URL links, etc.), single, multiple addressees or whoever is currently associated with the subject matter and is “available” to receive the contact appropriately. This may all sound very intuitively obvious, but without “contact” intelligence and UC flexibility, end users are stuck with blindly initiating contacts that are not efficient or successful. Such communications inefficiencies must be avoided in order to “optimize business processes” that involve people.

Looking at the other side of communications activities, the “recipient” of a contact also has functional needs and responsibilities that need to be managed and supported. First and foremost, recipients have to be made aware of a communication contact of any kind; “notifications” are the common denominator for all types of communications, particularly if they are time-critical. However, notifications are also a form of communication and need flexibility in how they are delivered.

Not only do notifications have to be dynamically delivered in the medium that is most appropriate for a recipient’s restrictive situation, e.g., driving a car, sitting in a meeting, in a noisy or public environment, but also any “urgency” priorities have to be recognized. The latter can include the fact that a response has not been made within a critical time frame/deadline required or expected by the contact initiator.

Personalizing Notification Control

As mobility and the use of automated notifications increase, it will most important for the end user/customer recipients to dynamically control the “what” and “when” of such notifications. So, for example, I would want my bank or credit card company to let me know when certain account thresholds have been reached, as well as when specified account events take place. Collaborative groups will want to be notified that a conference call needs to be set up and scheduled.

Back in the old manual telephone answering service days (before Caller ID and email), subscribers were able to specify “If Message” instructions, that when an expected caller identified them self to an agent, those special instructions for handling that particular caller could be applied, including delivering a specific, personal message to that caller. So, rather than waiting for an “inbound” online contact, a personalized, proactive outbound interaction by a business process application can now be initiated for time-critical situations. This will be facilitated by the recipient’s use of multi-modal mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) that can dynamically accommodate various modes of notification. Health care applications will be a prime target for such capabilities.

From a user experience perspective, of course, all of this has to be extremely simple, “idiot-proof,” and controllable.

Mobility and “Contextual Contacts” To The Rescue

Needless to say, what I am describing would be very difficult or impossible to do with legacy business communications technologies. UC came into the picture as a means of integrating siloed communication applications, but that couldn’t help the lack of flexibility or contact accessibility that Mobile UC needs. It really wasn’t until Apple announced the first multi-modal iPhone back in 2007 that UC could really take off.

However, having more flexible and mobile devices was not enough. Maximizing the benefits of UC involves tapping into personalized “intelligence” that minimizes the efforts of both contact initiators and recipients in performing their respective roles in business communications. That is being accomplished by what I described as “contextual” in a futuristic white paper I wrote for Microsoft back in 2007. Although I discussed “contextual contact initiation,” context will be equally important to contact recipients in order to efficiently manage their increased accessibility via mobile endpoints (smartphones, tablets).

Contextual contacts will be exploited by all types of end users (consumers, business users) as mobility and BYOD policies enable use of personalized multi-modal mobile devices. In addition, desktop users will also be able to simplify “click-to-contact” UC capabilities with contextual intelligence and screen incoming calls and messages based on their own priorities as well as those of the contact initiators. Finally, contextual information can be exploited for traditional messaging exchanges between people and from automated business applications, enabling message status to generate notifications to insure timely responses or alternative contacts (“Contextual Messaging”). This capability will fall under the category of Communications Enabled Business Processing (CEBP).

“Dual Persona” separation of personal communications from job-related contacts will add additional flexibility of end user controls over their contact availability. This is vitally needed to support BYOD mobility policies. Expect to see contextual contact intelligence to be “virtualized” and separated, but also being able to dynamically support new “notification” needs of individual end users, either as initiators or recipients.

Big Question For CIOs

What role should the CIO play in planning for innovative change in business communications, especially in redesigning business applications to exploit CEBP and Mobile UC apps?

This post sponsored by Avaya and the CIO Collaboration Network

Mobile UC Coming Together With "Dual Persona" Smartphones

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

“Dual Persona” Mobile Clients Will Simplify UC BYOD Issues

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

There is so much change going on in business communications that it is difficult to keep up. Since I like to focus on the end user perspectives of business communications, I have always seen mobility as a big driver for unified communications (UC). However, until the advent of multi-modal smartphones, there wasn’t too much that UC could do for legacy cell phones.

A big challenge that business organizations face is the fact that employees don’t want to carry two mobile devices, each with different form factors, operating systems, and user interfaces. On the other hand, using the same device for their specific job responsibilities and need for access to secure information is a responsibility for their organization to be able to control. This is especially important in the case where the device itself can be easily lost or stolen, or where the employee leaves the company.

Mobility Needs UC Flexibility

We all know that mobile users have dynamic user interface needs depending on their circumstances, i.e., driving a car, sitting in a meeting, in a public or noisy environment, etc., I have been writing about that need for mobile flexibility for years. In fact, I have often suggested that desktop users don’t really need UC that much because they can choose any form of information access and communication contact sitting in front of them.

Rather than try to make the case for UC from a desktop perspective, it is more practical to make the case for Mobile UC, because most end users are now using personalized mobile devices for all forms of contact and communication. I think everyone now knows that such mobile communication is not dependent on just voice conversations and that screen-based text messaging of various kinds (email, SMS, automated notifications/alerts) are dominating the mobile communications space for a variety of practical reasons.

Even voice mail message retrieval has been made more efficient for recipients with the improved speech recognition for voice-to-text automated transcription and options to respond more easily with voice input for messaging. So, technology has facilitated greater flexibility for UC-enabled communications, but there was more to be done to let organizations fully exploit and manage personalized mobility.

BYOD Needs “Dual Persona” Smartphones

Enterprise organizations were challenged by several factors in allowing employees to use their own choice of mobile phones for job-related contacts and access to information. First and foremost, was the security of such information that would be in the devices. That led to Mobile Device Management (MDM) software that could control device usage and erase all information on the device whenever necessary (lost, stolen, no longer employed). However, such control was designed for a single relationship, e.g., employer management.

The real world is that individual end users have multiple relationships, but primarily their job/work relationship and their personal relationships. So, the concept of having two separate sets of usage controls within a single mobile device, better known as “dual persona,” was born. That vision for mobility really became both more practical and more necessary with the availability of smartphone capabilities that employees want to use for personal and work related purposes.

A second consideration for BYOD is who will pay for what. That includes support of the mobile device itself, the network connectivity services required for mobile access, and, last but not least, the various mobile applications that an individual end user will utilize. Those issues are evolving in different ways as hosted, cloud-based services take over such responsibilities from organizational, location-based legacy systems. The shift of telephony technology from hardware to software has made it practical to outsource UC-enabled telephony to service providers who can support both desktop and mobile usage needs.

Social Networking Needs Mobile UC and “Dual Persona” Smartphones

With the big jump in Social Networking as a new way to communicate with communities of people, the opportunity to exploit the flexibility of Mobile UC in switching modalities of contact is great. Since social networking combines various aspects of messaging (notifications, replies, etc.) mobile accessibility will be key to its effective use. The ability to switch mobile modalities will expand the power of social networking to be more person-to-person (e.g., click-to-contact) and private when appropriate.

However, this flexibility must be managed for business use. In fact, IBM, which has been promoting its vision of “Social Business”, has been using UC within its product framework. More importantly, in a 2011 study they did with 2,700 participants in their “Social Business Jam,” they identified the need for a “dual persona” approach to social networking contacts. Fortunately, this has become feasible for mobile “dual persona” devices becoming available from the wireless service providers (e.g., AT&T), who are offering hosted UCaaS to business organizations.

So, the hosted, mobile, UC, social communication race is on, and business organizations, both large and small, have to plan accordingly!

UCaaS and Outsourced Agents For Really Virtual "UC Contact Center?"

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

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View

I recently attended a local presentation and roundtable discussion of a Frost & Sullivan study of “Total Cost of Ownership” and best practices for premise-based contact center solutions compared to those in the cloud. The roundtable was hosted by InContact, a global provider of hosted contact center technology, who also sponsored the TCO study. (http://www.incontact.com/)

The conclusions of the study, not surprisingly, showed significantly lower TCO for the hosted, contact centers than comparable premise-based systems. Furthermore, TCO analysis showed that the cost savings from a hosted model increases with both the size of a contact center organization, as well as the number of contact center applications delivered as a hosted service.

A few days after the conference, I met with one of the attendees, who talked about his business, which he described as (outsourced) “telephone answering” services. He offers highly educated and well trained staff, speaking several languages, to answer real-time phone calls, for professional clients such as doctors, lawyers, consultants, SMBs, etc. Because his service personnel are located in Armenia, the costs are very low and highly competitive world-wide. He attended the conference because was very interested in basing his services on hosted contact center technology, rather than owning it on his premises. However, he said that leading contact center technology vendors seem to be still very focused on dedicated business operations and ownership.

Having gotten started in the early days of call centers and voice messaging with Delphi Communications that offered “telephone answering” services to small and large businesses, I was very familiar and sympathetic to his interests. There is indeed great potential for UCaaS to merge with staff outsourcing in the “cloud” to maximize operational benefits and minimize costs for any type of business operation. In addition to considering InContact offerings, Interactive Intelligence was another candidate he was talking to.

As more business technology moves into the “cloud,” IT responsibilities (and costs) will be shifting to on-demand service providers. This is already being reflected in recent announcements by leading carriers who are also supporting Mobile UC and access to “mobile apps” So, it seems obvious that the next step for cloud-based UCaaS will be to inter-operate with outsourced contact center agents for call answering assistance on demand. That combination will still be able to exploit interactions with other enterprise resources, e.g., subject matter experts, field service personnel, business partners, etc., while also providing real-time management visibility and control over business process activities.

So, I look forward to seeing “cloud” services enabling “UC Contact Centers” to evolve more quickly, piece by piece, for both small and large organizations.