How Will IT Support "Cloud" Applications?

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

November 19, 2012

Changing IT Responsibilities For The “Clouds”

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

In the early days of business computers, premise-based mainframes, supported with only basic OS software and application development tools (Cobol, Fortran, Assembly Language), every using organization had to have large IT staffs or third-party help, to develop and maintain all their customized software applications. That task became somewhat easier in 1960, when Informatics, Inc, developed and sold the first successful software product, the Mark IV system, to IBM computer users for developing batch-mode, premise-based database retrieval and reporting applications.

Around 1964, Interactive “time-sharing” allowed remote individual users with “dumb” terminals (teletypes) to dial in to a mainframe computer and use it “interactively” in real time, rather than in batch mode. This was the beginning of online applications, but the advent of PCs killed the “”time-sharing” service concept and shifted the role of online applications to premise-based servers for remote users.

Now, with Internet data access, we are seeing hosted/managed “cloud”–based software applications for both information access and person-to-person communications rapidly displacing premise-based application server hardware systems, along with the need for internal IT staffs to develop and maintain such application software. The timing of this transition is opportune because of the rapid consumer adoption of multi-modal mobile smartphones and tablets, and the consequential need for integrating (UC-enabling) business process applications with flexible and personalized mobile interactions for BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) usage.

The question now is what role should IT groups play in making the transition from premise-based, desktop application software to “cloud”-based, multi-modal, mobile apps?  It’s not a question of “if,” but of “how” and “when.”

Is The “Cloud” And Business Innovation A Threat Or An Opportunity For IT?

As innovative communication and application services replace both premise-based legacy hardware and software for business process activities, the diminishing control and responsibilities for IT staff appear to be threatening, according to Saugatuck Technology. At their recent 2^nd annual Cloud Business Summit in New York City, the changes to IT’s role in any size organization was discussed with invited enterprise CIOs and CTOs.

While there may be a shift in who develops and maintains application software, as well as where that software will be physically located, there will still be a need for technology and infrastructure expertise to support and manage the selection and usage of all applications to insure proper and effective results. Whether that expertise resides internally or is provided through third-party management services, is a question that must be answered on an individual application and organizational basis.

Basic “cloud” services, whether private, public, or hybrid, offer a platform that is location- independent of the actual software applications and the data they use, and can be accessed and integrated from anywhere. Such applications can be for multi-modal person-to-person contacts, online business applications of all kinds, and, of course, process-to-person CEBP contacts for outbound alerts and notifications. That makes the “cloud” applications not only useful for virtualizing desktop usage, but more importantly, ideal for any individual mobile user with a smartphone or tablet. It really will be the specific business process and the individual end users who will be authorized to selectively use those applications that will be the challenge for managing an organization’s various “cloud”-based activities.

The suggested transitional changes in IT roles are laid out in Figure 1 of Saugatuck’s report. It is a starting point to consider in planning for IT organizational change to what Saugatuck calls the “Boundary-Free Enterprise”Ô. Those transitions involve moving computer applications from location-based hardware to “virtualized” software, and making all forms of contact with people more flexible and interoperable through UC-enablement.

A key insight from the Summit discussions for the future responsibilities of IT management was:

“Users first. The widespread scale and scope of easily-adopted, Cloud-enabled, individual productivity capabilities shifts power and influence more toward Business users, not Business organizations. Specific Business processes and functions are the initial means of Cloud incursion into the enterprise.”

Of course, mobile BYOD and its impact on communicating with people, is also part of the game change involved in “cloud” services. So, by definition, moving to a “cloud” environment will also mean UC–enablement and CEBP integrations for all business applications involved with any mobile end users, whether they be employees, business partners, or consumer customers. This will be particularly important for customer interactions because of widespread mobile “consumer BYOD.”    

For some additional Cloud Business Summit perspectives on “cloud” applications and it’s impact on IT organizations, you can find more commentary from this Saugatuck web site.

"BYOC" For UC Driver Communication

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

November 10, 2012

“Bring Your Own Car” Hits Mobile UC

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

It is time to recognize the need for UC-enabled “dual persona” applications for all types of mobile device interfaces, including built-in car dashboards. Aside from personal and entertainment applications, business applications fall into two basic categories, person-to-person communications and automated, Communications Enabled Business Process  (CEBP) applications, all of which can be or will be “mobile apps” available through public and enterprise “app stores.”

All types of organizations are being challenged by this shift to application mobility for several reasons:

·      UC-enabled multi-modal communications and CEBP are more complex than the siloed, premise-based communications of the past.

·      BYOD, by both employees, business partners, and consumers, is adding to the complexities of different user interfaces, as well the loss of control over the end user mobile devices.

·      “Bring Your Own Car” (BYOC) for mobile apps to be used while driving, is becoming another contender for mobile apps, where “hands/eyes-free” user interfaces have to be easily accommodated automatically when needed.  

·      Legacy online desktop applications for workers must be converted to support wireless tablets, smartphones, and car dashboards, while online customer/consumer self-service applications must also do the same.

·      With application mobility, there is also a need for UC-enablement, which means that both input and output must be multi-media to support an end user’s current situation or status.

·      Since all applications are primarily software based, they will constantly be changing to dynamically support a variety of end user needs.

·      The above considerations are driving the shift of mobile applications to exploiting the wireless Web and hosted/managed application services.

Car Manufacturers View UC-enabled Dashboards As Competitive Feature

A recent announcement from the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) at it’s second annual summit, reported that it’s new industry standard, MirrorLink, which will transfer a user’s current mobile device user interface to a car’s dashboard entertainment control and display screen, is now being offered to third-party application developers. Although 80 percent of world automakers and 70 percent of global smartphone manufacturers are members of the CCC, “adoption of the standard has been slow.”

The CCC hopes to have mobile application developers certify their apps for “drive mode functionality” as a key benefit to mobile users who will be using their mobile apps while in their cars. This will be particularly important for all forms of text messaging to exploit speech recognition and text-to-speech while driving, as well as for voice interfacing with on-line applications.

The CCC standard should simplify how voice-to-text and text-to-voice multi-media interfaces will work for various driver applications. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that functional mobile applications provided by auto manufacturers as options for different car models have to be identical. Just as smartphones can exploit personalized, mobile applications, so too, that personalization can be applied to car models.  

Business Communications Means Both Work and Commerce

The convergence of all forms of “business” communications, including both work and customer interactions with people and business process applications, will require that mobile endpoint devices support all of the above. The difference is “who” controls “what.” When it comes to mobility, the car has become a new endpoint for the drivers, and will probably become subject to enforcing driver safety rules, such as “hands-free/eyes-free” contacts while driving. That’s what they did with testing drivers who were inebriated.

UC has become important for both flexible person-to-person contacts, as well as for application user interfaces. However, both categories have to broken down further in terms of control and responsibilities over contact accessibility and application access to a shared mobile device. Making mobile devices both flexible and secure, means restricting the device to being used just for access through “thin“ clients, not for storage of sensitive information. This is often described as “dual persona” controls over endpoint device usage; adding your car’s capability to access a variety of personal and business mobile applications means that your car must also be “dual persona!”   

All Mobile Users Need Multi-Persona Devices

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.

Cisco Focuses On Mobile User Experiences

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

October 24, 2012

Cisco Going After “Multi-modal” User Experiences In "Cloud" Communications

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

Cisco is moving aggressively to emphasize end-user benefits, rather than just IT cost-savings, as organizations are shifting their business and communications applications to public, private, and hybrid “clouds.” At their recent big conference of analysts, channel partners, and consultants in L.A., the marketing emphasis was focused on “end user experiences.”  Although Cisco highlights “collaboration” as the operational epitome of their networking technology benefits, they really are going after all types of business interactions that UC flexibility supports. That includes both people contacts as well as automated business applications

As noted by my colleague, Blair Pleasant, in her report on the Cisco show, since 95% of Cisco sales are done by channel partners, presentations by several partners at the conference stressed the fact that business management, not IT, is setting the priorities for implementing new forms of business communications and application automation. With growing interest in hosted, “cloud”-based applications, this trend will only increase even further in the future.

Separation of Church and State

What was not discussed very much was the impact of mobility and UC-enablement on individual end users, both inside an organization, as well as external customers and business partners. While desktop activities, including laptops, can benefit from UC integrations, the real demand for UC flexibility will come from those individual mobile users whose needs will constantly change dynamically. As “BYOD” policies, coupled with mobile access to “cloud” applications, replace or supplement traditional desktop activities, the role and responsibilities of the organization vs. that of the individual end user for controlling device usage activities will also change significantly.

When we talk about individual “end user,” we now have to include consumers/customers, who are all now able to access online applications from their personalized smartphones and tablets, and therefore can do things directly by themselves without necessarily going through a call center agent. To me, that will prove to be the biggest driver for flexible UC-enablement and self-service applications to any organization, large or small.

However, we need to separate what the “church” (organization) controls from what the “state” (end users) controls. Obviously, there will be “different strokes for different folks” when it comes to the options for different end users. Across the board, access to information and applications can now be selectively controlled by the organization to authorized end users, but communication access with people must be controlled by the individual end users, either as contact initiators or as contact recipients. The exception to the latter is a customer contact center environment, where customer-facing agents must make themselves available on a scheduled basis.

“BYOD” Will Need “BYON” Connectivity To “Cloud” Applications (“BYOA”)

Just as end users get to choose their own mobile devices for both business and personal contacts and applications, they will also have to have access to any type of network connection associated with their choice of mobile application. While in the past, cell phones required carrier services and cell towers for off-premise voice connections coverage, new multi-modal smartphones and tablets are creating greater demand for lower-cost, local Wi-Fi networks for for both information and people access. Although enterprise organizations may still provide their own premise-based Wi-Fi facilities for this purpose, the real world of BYOD users now must include consumers who can now exploit online access to customer self-services and live assistance.

To accommodate internal workers who need inexpensive mobile connections, new service providers, like iPass, are offering global, “cloud”-based, Wi-Fi services to organizations to control and manage all their mobile business contacts. For interesting insights on mobile work usage, check out iPass's recent end-user global study.

As business applications logically move into the clouds for increased mobile and remote access, UC enablement will also be there to support end user needs for greater flexibility in user interfaces for all forms of communication and information access via their multi-modal smartphones and tablets.

Note: I didn’t even mention the important need for “dual persona” controls (software clients) to separate personal and business usage on an end user’s BYOD mobile device!  

"Mobile Apps" Need Multi-modal UC "Cloud" Services

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

It’s getting very obvious that the use of computers is shifting dramatically away from just desktops and portable laptops to personalized, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. It’s not that desktop and laptops are going to disappear, but everyone, including kids and their grandparents will be using those wireless personal computers for information access, online transactions, and personal contacts. In effect, there will be “BYOD” in play for all types of end users, which in turn means that both communication applications and business applications will all be software-based and live in different kinds of network “clouds.”

This shift in how and where software and data will be stored brings with it many challenges for organizations that are used to controlling all of their applications and data on premise-based hardware systems with more controllable, wired connectivity. Now that “consumer BYOD” is starting to displace or replace telephones and online PCs with wireless smartphones and tablets, what should organizations do with all their apps and data stores to accommodate all the end users, both inside and outside of their organizations?

“Clouds” To The Rescue!

Fortunately, the solution to that issue has already become available in the form of “cloud” computing, alias “network” access, to “virtual” data storage and applications. Options for using public, private, or hybrid “clouds” are being offered by all the big technology providers, allowing selective migrations of both business and communication application services to end user groups who have different operational requirements.

This is very fortunate for business organizations that are challenged to provide complex multi-modal “unified communications” to their end users. Because most of it is now becoming software-based responsibilities that few IT organizations have any practical experience with, it is an expensive proposition to consider doing things in-house as before. Even if all that software were “free,” it would still be a daunting task to use it effectively and maintain the never-ending changes on an ongoing basis. So, here come “cloud”-based customized and managed solutions to the rescue.  

The challenge of “cloud”-based applications of all kinds is proving to be a great opportunity for the old VARs or sales “channels.” Not only will smaller organizations, who have little or no IT staffs, be interested in exploiting mobile contacts and access to information, but even the larger enterprises and government organizations will need help in satisfying the many needs of customers and internal end users.

So, Whose “Cloud” Service Should You Use?

Now that vertical markets have begun to appreciate the need for UC-enabled applications and CEBP, the still have to understand exactly how they will be able to benefit properly from using the new technologies, They have to know where they are going before they can abandon the past. Nowhere is this more critical than with customer contact centers, which generate revenue and ensure good experiences for customer satisfaction and retention. In my view, UC can really pay off the most with its ability to satisfy mobile customer needs more flexibly and cost effectively than the old telephony call center game.

When it comes to playing any “cloud” services game, it is critical to use a service provider that is reliable, experienced, and specialized in the application functions you want to UC-enable in a “cloud.” I recently highlighted this concern in a new white paper on contact center applications that you can read at the site of one of the leading contact center “cloud” service providers, Echopass. 

   

 

Defining UC to Business Management Is Still Confusing

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By Art Rosenberg
The Unified-View
 
Months ago, someone started a discussion on LinkedIn about how to define unified communications to a prospective customer in a simple, understandable way. You can see all the suggestions tendered at this link:
I didn’t try to read all the comments, but scanned through them enough to see what is most overlooked in trying to explain what "UC" really is these days.

I’ll save you the trouble of looking up my comment on that LinkedIn discussion by posting it here.


There were so many comments on this issue, I couldn’t really read them all in this discussion, but what I think most people are missing is that UC is so dependent on the individual end users involved, and their communication roles in a business process. That means the individual end user, either as a contact initiator or as a contact recipient/respondent. Then, it becomes an issue of the individual end user’s situational and preferential modes of communicating, as well as the endpoint device capabilities for multi-modal user interfaces and connections. With the rapid consumer adoption of multi-modal smartphones and tablets, UC-enablement is now a practical reality for everyone and every online application.

As one commentator pointed out, UC was all about her iPhone, which gives the user the multi-modal flexibility to exploit UC, however it is supported. Which brings me to the next key point - UC is not just about person-to-person contacts, but increasingly and explosively to automated applications that initiate contacts with people. That now includes online “mobile apps” that exploit smartphones and tablets to deliver time-sensitive notifications and “alerts” with options for self-service applications and “click-for live assistance.”

So, with this kind of “BYOD” dependency on mobile devices, the responsibility of a business organization to support “UC” becomes very complex and difficult to do with internal, premise-based, hard-wired resources. It’s all about wireless connectivity and access to software applications of all kinds. Thus, the virtual “cloud” solutions (private, public) come into play as “virtual platforms” for UC-enabled (integrated) business process applications that will service various types of end users with mobile and remote desktop endpoints, including customers and customer-facing staff (agents, experts) that use contact center technologies.

The benefits of UC enablement (integrations) remain the same for business process performance and individual productivity, as suggested over and over again by the various comments, but when it comes to how will UC be implemented, the game has changed dramatically. The technology challenge, of course, is how to migrate existing business processes to the cloud-based, UC-enabled future from existing legacy technologies, particularly for real-time telephony and video options. So, don’t start off with explaining how the technology works, but rather why it is needed and worthwhile doing for changing and improving different end user communication needs involved with particular business processes. 

Wherever time-sensitive contacts from or to a person, inside or outside an organization are important, that’s where the priority “hotspots” can be addressed with UC-enabled solutions.

Consumer Mobility, “Customer BYOD,” And The UC Contact Center

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August 28, 2012



By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View

In a recent webinar, the speakers from the National Association of Call Centers described what industry members were doing to improve their operations through technology. There were two key factors mentioned.

Paul Stockford, Research Director for the Association, highlighted the fact that “Big Data” analytics for contact centers includes all customer interactions, including voice calls, email, and chat. David Butler, Executive Director of the Association, pointed to the growing need to automate simple customer service tasks with self-service applications to minimize demand for live assistance.

As it turns out, the rapid adoption of mobile smartphones and tablets, will not only facilitate consumer abilities to exploit self-service applications, but will also drive an increased need for customized options to flexibly access live assistance on demand through the various forms of contact available to consumers. Such flexibility comes under the label of “unified communications” (UC), and may well make the Contact Center the biggest source of ROI for UC-enablement.

While there is a lot of discussion about how new “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) policies will impact organizations in supporting their employees with mobile access from different devices and operating systems, what has not been properly acknowledged is that consumers/customers will also be bringing that issue to the challenge of designing and exploiting self-service applications. In addition, the flexibility of multi-modal mobile devices, coupled with any demand for live assistance, will also require greater flexibility on the part of customer-facing agents to interact with mobile customers.

The New Customer Perspective

For consumers, who were restricted in the past by legacy IVR applications, self-service applications no longer have to start with a phone call. In fact, the reverse is becoming true – online (visual) applications are becoming a primary gateway to a voice or chat connection for live customer service.

Many market studies have confirmed that most consumers would prefer direct access to information and business transactions, rather than have to deal with a live person. Of course, such access would have to be simple and easy to use from an interface perspective. That is one area where the combination of speech input (like Apple’s Siri) combined with visual information output would be the fastest and easiest way for a mobile user to interact with an online application. However, the choice of user interface has to be dynamically controlled by the mobile end user, depending on their circumstances, e.g., while driving a car, in a noisy environment, or sitting in a meeting. Such flexibility is now possible with Mobile UC technologies and multi-modal devices.

Bottom Line For Contact Center Management

As mentioned in the webinar, while more-self-service applications may reduce the total demand for live customer staffing, it will increase the need for greater flexibility in customer interactions with customer service staff. This in turn, will make management of contact center operations and performance more complex, especially in the design of user interfaces to maximize the Customer Experience and minimize the need to “click-for-assistance.”

“Cloud”-based applications (private, public, hybrid) will facilitate the development and management of contact center applications, including self-service “mobile apps.” Contact center technology vendors are all moving into this service space, making it easier for existing contact centers to start adding new self-service applications, as well as allowing remote agents and contact center management to easily be involved with both current customers and the next generation of mobile customers. Key to mobile flexibility is “unified communications” (UC) that enables communication contacts to be initiated in any form and to be dynamically shifted as needed (e.g., from a text/voice message to chat to a voice connection).

Customer Service Is Becoming The Biggest Payoff For UC

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August 20, 2012


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

There are several key benefits to be gained from unified communications (UC) to be realized by an organization, but there are also different technologies involved in implementing UC. If you are on the IT side of the organization, reducing costs and simplifying implementations and integrations through UCaaS offerings will be the key benefits technology vendors think you want to know about. If you are a business unit manager, you might be told about how Mobile UC will speed up operational performance when end users are working away from their desks or office. Most importantly, however, business organizations will start hearing more about how their mobile customers can be better served at lower operational costs with multi-modal, self-service applications that are "UC-enabled.”

The best choice should be “all of the above,” but unfortunately, most vendors in the “UC” market focus these days on the benefit that is closest to their particular product or service offering. That is why you see the IP telephony vendors harp on starting your UC journey by replacing your phone system. But, legacy telephony has been entrenched in more than person-to-person conversational voice, so the migration to UC has to be really more than implementing IP telephony connections.

It’s All About Business and Communication Applications

While integrating telephony functions is a key challenge for UC enablement, voice connections are just one option for person-to-person communications. As more consumers exploit the flexibility of mobile smartphones and tablets, they are texting more, rather than making phone calls. This is particularly true for the younger generation, which never really had much to do with expensive cell phones.

Communication applications are more “open,” and UC-enablement facilitates the ability to easily switch modalities between real-time connections and asynchronous messaging. Just as “telephone answering” services let a caller leave a voice message for a failed phone call attempt, now, with UC integrations, voice connections can be initiated from a message or a chat connection.

UC-enablement can be even more useful in providing user access to online (self-service) applications, particularly from mobile devices, as opposed to desktop or portable PCs. For consumers, who were restricted in the past by legacy IVR applications, self-service applications no longer have to start with a phone call. In fact, the reverse is becoming true – online applications are becoming a primary gateway to a voice or chat connection for live customer service.

Many market studies have confirmed that most consumers would prefer direct access to information and business transactions, rather than have to deal with a live person. Of course, such access would have to be simple and easy to use from an interface perspective. That is one area where the combination of speech input (like Apple’s Siri) combined with visual information output would be the fastest and easiest way for a mobile user to interact with an online application. However, the choice of user interface has to be dynamically controlled by the mobile end user, depending on their circumstances, e.g., while driving a car, in a noisy environment, or sitting in a meeting. Such flexibility is now possible with Mobile UC technologies.

Where Is The Greatest UC Payoff Going To Be Found?

While UC has been particularly promoted by telephony vendors to support “collaboration” between team members who need to communicate efficiently regardless of their physical locations, I look at UC enablement having even greater potential when used to support customer services. I haven’t researched the numbers, but I am sure that most business organizations have more “customers” than they have internal employees. That certainly applies to government as well. If you go by the numbers, there will typically be more “customers” benefiting from UC enablement, than internal users. So, there will be more increased productivity, end user satisfaction, and reduced costs coming from customers than just from internal staff.

Add the fact that customers also generate revenue, and the value of UC enablement to serve customers becomes extremely high!

This perspective does highlight the need to seriously consider implementing what I have been calling the “UC Contact Center” to replace legacy call centers. Doing that has recently become significantly easier with the advent of a variety of “cloud”-based services that specialize in contact center applications and integrations for both customers and customer-facing staff, e.g., Echopass. So, if you are seriously concerned about how to migrate your legacy call center operations to the UC-enabled future, start by taking a really hard look at the right kinds of “cloud”-based applications and services.

UC-enabled Unified Messaging And Old "Voicemail"

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August 12, 2012

Will UC-Enabled Unified Messaging Change Business Voicemail Systems?

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

Moving premise-based business communications to Mobile UC is going to be challenging to most organizations that have to rethink their needs for telephone (voice)  communications. Not only are there now different ways to communicate, but, with BYOD mobility, the variety of mobile endpoint devices that end users can choose to utilize for both business and person-to-person contacts, requires greater flexibility in all call handling and messaging user interfaces.

This confusion is most evident in how organizations will migrate their old premise-based “telephone answering” needs to exploit the benefits of UC-enabled telephony. These include capabilities such as federated presence management and “click-to-call” connections integrated with all forms of online information and messages. It is not just the new UC capabilities that are of interest, but it’s the old voicemail shortcomings that we have put up with for so long that we can finally get rid of. However, the big challenge is how to migrate from old voicemail systems and culture to the new ways that phone calls can be initiated more efficiently, as well as the way failed call attempts will be dealt with.

In addition to cultural issues and end user education (training), the migration to UC-enabled messaging may require changes in how callers are handled, as well as how call recipients are notified about both incoming calls and messages and their response options. It may very well be that internal users can be trained to do things differently, but external callers (customers, business partners, etc.) will continue initiating phone calls the same way they have always done. Until federated presence is universally available to all end users and they have learned the better ways to initiate person-to-person contacts intelligently and contextually, person-to-person phone calls will remain a staple of business communications. It does take “two to tango!”

The Fundamental Weakness of “Old” Voicemail

Actually, nothing terrible, but it just wasn’t very efficient for end users, especially outside callers.

For openers, in order to leave a voice message, outside callers had to initiate a conversational phone call attempt, wait for the ring count to run down, and then they could leave a voice message. Aside from the cost of the phone call, it was a waste of the caller’s time when all they really wanted to do in the first place was to leave a message, not necessarily have a long conversation. With increasing access to online information, messaging is becoming more practical for all types of users.  Internal users, however could access mailboxes directly with no problem. Today, of course, we also have email and texting alternatives.

I remember deliberately making calls late at night as an outside caller, when I knew the call recipient was gone for the day, to leave a message without having a conversation. I thought it was funny when they didn’t bother changing their recorded message on their voice mailbox, which would usually say something like, “I just stepped away from my desk…” Sure!

In some cases, external callers could be given a “backdoor” main number, which would then allow direct access to a recipient’s mailbox for message deposit, but few organizations bothered to do that or even publicize such capabilities to their outside callers.

There have been a number of new voicemail-related service functions that make things better for call recipients, e.g., options for real-time screening of incoming calls that are leaving voicemail messages, with the option to accept the calls immediately, if desired. More practical, however, is the option for the recipient to have voice messages transcribed to text, which can more be efficiently reviewed and managed than voice, and won’t require manual transcription of important items like numbers, names, etc. Even more features can be expected for call recipients, in terms of notifications and response options.

(It never helped that phone calls could not include information about the purpose of the call, like the subject line of a text message.)

Mobile UC and Caller Needs

However, we need to see more options showing up for “callers,” who will now be using multi-modal smartphones and tablets, not just traditional voice/touchtone desktop phones. Now those “callers” will also be increasingly sending a variety of messages, including voice messages, which can be created easier and faster than by typing text. By UC-enabling such messaging, senders will also have a more convenient and flexible form of initiating contacts that can also transition quickly and more efficiently into voice or video conversations when both parties so desire.   

While we should look forward to continue having “voice messaging” in the future, it can’t be the old “voicemail jail” of the past. Leading technology providers who specialize in voice messaging, such as AVST, are in an ideal position to help migrate legacy voice mail gracefully to the future of UC-enabled, true unified messaging (UM). Hybrid “cloud” based implementations will also provide a convenient way to facilitate the shift from legacy CPE voicemail systems to support the new world of BYOD and Mobile UC. 

I have also commented on what will happen to voicemail in the future in this previous post.     

       

    

Users Need UC-enabled "Dumb" Phones For Mobile Apps

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

August 4, 2012

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

The mobile world is getting misdirected about the real role of mobile devices that end users are gobbbling up these days. It’s unfortunate that the mobile devices got associated with the label “smart.” It made it easy to think that "smart" mobile devices would do every thing, even though the “smarts” were really based in software somewhere else in the network. Including “phone” in the label merely highlighted the fact that traditional voice telephony capabilities were accessible and integrated with other forms of communication and information (text, video, pictures, etc.).

As a result of this "smartphone" labeling, the traditional telephony carriers have continued their dominance of wired network access into the wireless world and the many mobile devices and “apps” that end users will exploit for both business and personal needs. This, in turn has had a ripple effect on business organizations with the need to support BYOD policies, a variety of “mobile apps” for different types of end users, using various devices, supplied by various service providers and carriers. What a mess!

Mobility is also causing traditional online business process applications to move from the desktop to handheld, mobile device form factors and be supported by a variety of mobile Operating Systems. The combination of devices, mobile operating systems, integration with a variety of business and communication applications has created a complex and impossible challenge for organizational IT to support as they used to with restrictive, premise-based technologies.

Mobile devices cannot be treated like traditional desktop PCs

Mobile end users, whether business users or consumers, want access to both communication applications and information that are flexible enough for their different needs while mobile. Thus, they want selective access via different modalities of contact and different choices of user interface media (visual, voice, touch, etc.). The control of such interfaces, as well as the basic information for securing the identity and authorization of the end user to access information and applications, are really all that must be stored in a mobile device; all the rest of the “smarts” will be provided by a variety of different applications that can be stored in public and private wireless networks, better known these days as “clouds.”

We should have learned our lesson about using ‘dumb” devices back in the early days of he Internet, when end users could access a variety of online, interactive  “time-shared” mainframe computer applications with simple “dumb” teletype terminals. Along came the PC which made “sharing” anything unnecessary, just take responsibility for controlling and supporting individual PC users needs locally. Now we can get back to selectively managing, controlling access, and maintaining application software for both business and communication applications for all types of end users (mobile or desktop) in a centralized and responsive manner. Just make those endpoint devices as  “dumb” as possible, with very “thin” software clients that provide network access to the “smart” software applications in the wireless public and private “clouds.”

I have suggested changing the name of “smart phones” to “app phones,” to reflect the new role of telephony as just part of UC-enabled access to mobile communication and business applications. Just a thought!

This topic will be discussed at length in an upcoming UC Strategies podcast discussion this week on this site, so stay tuned!   

       

    

UC-Enabled, Social, Customer Care

I have long been an advocate of UC-enabled self-service applications to offset the demands of expensive live assistance when not really necessary. Clearly, this was difficult to do with legacy telephony systems and call centers, but all that is changing with rapid consumer adoption of personalized, multi-modal smartphones and tablets, access to "mobile (online) apps," and social networking communities. 

Now, the challenge for all organizations is how to migrate gracefully from old call center technologies to the many benefits of what I have been calling the "UC Contact Center," which is evolving quickly in new, "cloud"- based environments.

Here is a brief post on that subject provided by Ashley Furness, a CRM Analyst with Software Advice

 How to Create an Effective Customer Care Community

Customer self-service communities are among the most effective means for cutting down help desk operational costs. But you can't just flip on the switch. Public knowledge bases, customer groups and discussion forums are useless if no one wants to use them.

This week Software Advice interviewed JD Peterson of Zendesk to find out what strategies companies can use to build an effective customer service community. Petersen recommended focusing on five concepts: usability, gamification, employee engagement, measurement and smooth integration with other customer service channels.

Usability

Think of usability as a science, rather than an art. Peterson recommends hiring a consultant or freelance usability expert who knows the specific places navigation signals should be placed to foster engagement--or where the customer natural gravitates to find service channels. This person should also consider titles and topics headings that are appealing and eye-catching, but also immediately meaningful to the visitor. 

"Don't guess with this kind of stuff. If you don't have usability experts internally, look for a partner or vendor that can drive those best practices… how to develop the structure of you community," Petersen said.

Gamification

Gamification means adding elements of the gaming world to your community, such as leader boards and score boards. Developers should set up communities that award points or "badges" for actions such as answering another visitor's question, or voting on an answer from another user. This recognizes customers for their contribution.

Integration

In order for the self-service channel to work efficiently, Peterson recommends integrating with traditional service means. He calls this the "escape value."

"If I can't ultimately find the answer I am looking for I need an easy way to get from the community to another channel - phone, or email or live chat," he said.

Employee Engagement

Even if the community is focused on the user, customers will interact more if they know your company is actually listening. Staff should keep a close eye on discussions and chime in if the answer isn't available. Customer service staff can also pick up on valuable customer feedback that can then be shared with product and feature development teams.

Measurement

Only way you will get an effective community is to continually improve it. This is best done through trial and error. Look for trends, such as which topics are getting the most comments and views, reoccurring negative feedback or hot topics people search.

Visit this link to watch the entire video: http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/crm/how-to-build-a-strong-self-service-customer-community1061312/

Avaya Moves To the UC Contact Center

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

All the major business telephone system providers face the challenge of gracefully migrating their legacy voice-based technologies to a mobile, multi-modal, UC-enabled communications environment. Under it's "Customer Experience Management" portfolio, Avaya recently announced some new UC-enabling capabilities for self service "mobile apps" for premised-based contact center operations under the label of "Customer Connections Mobile."

This announcement included continued support for mobile voice self-service applications using VXML (IVR). Such voice applications, which can be most useful for hands-free applications (e.g., when driving a car), include: driving directions, emergency notifications, voice access to email, voice dialing, and directory assistance applications. VoiceXML has tags that instruct the voice browser to provide speech synthesis, automatic speech recognition, dialog management, and audio playback." 

 Avaya described it's new multi-modal customer service capabilities to me this way:

"Customer Connections Mobile (CCM) has two primary functions.  One is a visual self service menu in which the user navigates through screens to access information.  Should the user require additional assistance or wish to speak to an expert, they can request an agent."  



"If an agent is available, the caller (who started out in self service) will receive assistance from the agent.  If there are no agents available, the caller will see their estimated time to answer (ETA) and will be able to request an immediate callback or a scheduled callback (at a time of their choosing). "

"Customer Connections Mobile does not include a ‘click to IM chat’ element, handle speech recognition (though might be possible), or accommodate text-to-speech.  The ‘click for assistance’ is to speak to a live agent…if one is available or request a callback (as described above)."

This announcement by Avaya is evidence of progress in evolving the "UC Contact Center," both as on premise technologies and as "cloud"-based services. Note, however, when Avaya talks about "visual self-services," they mean real-time video chat or "video IVR." Online interactive self-service applications will come from Web portals, but, with appropriate CCM APIs, can invoke the above described flexible access to live assistance. 

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

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

 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