Unified Communications in the Call Center Preparing for “Customer UC” Moderated by Art Rosenberg artr@ix.netcom.com

Unified Communications In The Contact Center PANELISTS Joe Staples – Senior Vice President, Interactive Intelligence Henry Denser – Vice President, Western Area Aspect Software Kevin Isacks – VX Marketing Director NET Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

What Is Changing in Business Communications? Networks Telephony Messaging Business applications Devices Personalized accessibility – Availability, Mobility Person-to- process-person contacts Not everything can change overnight and traditional customer contact (telephone) activity must still be handled along with the new modes of customer interaction. Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

What is Unified Communications? Infrastructure perspective Networks (Wired, wireless) Application platforms, software servers Device software clients Business Process perspective (Work flow) Interactive information/transaction applications (Online, Telephony IVR) People interactions (End users) – Calls, Messaging, Information exchange Regulatory compliance, security, business continuity End User Communication Device Interfaces Desktop telephone, PC Mobile handheld devices Contact initiation, contact reception/response (People, Applications) Multimodal interfaces – Speech input, visual output Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

What Is “Customer” Unified Communications? Technology Infrastructure perspective Networks (Wired, wireless) Application software servers Device software clients Business Process perspective – Work flow Automated applications (Online, Telephone self services) People interactions (End users) Regulatory compliance, Security, Business continuity End User perspective – Contact, information needs Customers Customer-facing “Agents” Others (Experts, partners, suppliers, etc.) Operations/Business management Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

What is Really Changing “Customer UC?” End User Communications – Consumers, Business Users “Virtualization” – IP networks, not location-dependent, hosted services Personalized Communication devices Desktop telephone, PC Mobile handheld devices – Not shared Multimodal interfaces – Speech vs. text, input vs. output Real-time text messaging between people Instant Messaging SMS Contact initiation needs vs. contact reception/response Inbound vs. Outbound People contacts vs. Automated process contacts “Transmodal” communications – Seamless transitions between modes People vs. Automated Applications Self-services – Online, telephony Live assistance – Voice, chat, Online info exchange Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

New Customer Interaction Concepts Personalized “Consumer UC” vs. FCR Web information access for contact initiation Multimodal Self-Service Applications “Expert” access flexibility Multimodal “agents” Customer community access and Social Networking Multimodal Mobility Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

Where Is “Customer UC” Technology Today? Understood by market? SMBs vs. Larger Enterprises Technology providers Business management IT management Customers (Consumers) Migration strategies? Products vs. Services? What’s Missing? What should business organizations do? Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View

“Customer UC” Issues – Panelist Views How will the size of an organization affect Customer UC implementations? (17th Law) Who should be in charge of Customer UC migration planning? What should be the first step in Customer UC migration planning be? What external expertise does Customer UC implementation planning need? Why? What call center processes will be impacted most by UC? Which won’t? What are key considerations for presence in a UC environment? Which customer contact end users should get “UC” capabilities first? Why? How will Customer self-service applications be affected by UC? How will outbound customer contacts be affected by consumer mobility? How will business process applications be affected by “CEBP?” How should new Customer UC capabilities be “piloted?” How should “agents” be trained to handle “multimodal” customers? How should “multimodal agents” be managed and evaluated? What Customer UC benefits are most important? How will they be measured? Top mistakes to avoid in planning to migrate to Customer UC? Copyright © 2008 The Unified-View