1. Unified Communications in the Call Center
Preparing for “Customer UC”
Moderated by Art Rosenberg

2. 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
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3. 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.
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4. 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
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5. 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
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6. 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
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7. 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
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8. 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?
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9. “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?
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