SIP: Leading Contact Centers beyond VoIP

My earlier post Business of Customer Responsiveness was a teaser for the C-level. I hope it continues serving its purpose by propagating and keeping the core message alive.

Now I want to turn your attention to a key relevant topic in that teaser. Enter SIP. Session Initiation Protocol for the technically minded.

But I firmly believe that more importantly, it is really a Simpler IP!

When the art of "packetizing voice and moving the packets over IP networks" was perfected; the industry coined the term VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). You could take it or leave it alone.
By itself VoIP did nothing spectacular:

VoIP initially brought the toll costs down

when people used it to bypass the toll networks

they did so by establishing their own private IP links a.k.a. Leased Lines

and then this initial hype died...

...when the long distance communications costs kept moving southwards, partly owing to the fact that Telecom carriers themselves deployed VoIP; and also with the new avatar of many Internet Service Providers donning the hat of Telephony providers.

But the real power that got unleashed was beyond the "packets" in VoIP. The real power was in "infinitely extending the copper wire". The ability to add voice terminals wherever your IP network could reach. The ability to "convert" your PC's and Laptops into Telephones.

Of course it came with its caveats, and imposed limits on:

round trip delays

packet loss

jitter

the fact that you could not 'resend', or 'send out of order' voice packets the same way as you could do for data packets

But as long as these limits were adhered to in the network, and Voice packets appropriately prioritized using Quality Of Service (QOS) techniques; a Communication application could be pretty much "virtualized" the way you wanted.

You could deliver the Voice AND data packets without bothering about how to converge them. And these were real Applications benefits, that distinguished the "IP Telephony" from mere "VoIP"!
And the Technocrats (even amongst the C-Levels) understood WHY IP Phones were beneficial, but more importantly WHERE they were not! e.g.: for a Single location Contact Center... where the copper wire itself does the job.

I suspect something similar is going to be the case in the SIP era. There will be Organizations who are either developing "so called" SIP technologies, or thinking of deploying SIP; just because it seems to be the next wave. I'm afraid these Organizations will not reap any real benefits.

The real power of SIP is in the Applications space again. Note a few:

Interoperability between different vendor applications

Ability to add Voice, CTI data, AND Video in a session

Ability to start off on one medium (say Instant Messaging a.k.a. Web Chat) and simply switch to; or subsequently ADD another (e.g. Voice channel)

Ability to report more comprehensively on the contacts, including the above "multi-media within the same contact"

Ability to identify (through Presence) resources with relevant skills to handle the Customers in queue

Ability to also additionally identify whether these resources are interruptible at the given moment

.. etc. etc.

As SIP pervades the Contact Center Applications space, the IP Telephony benefits are going to get greatly enhanced. What VoIP did to the Contact Center Infrastructure through IP Telephony; SIP is going to do for the Applications.

What do you think?

Business of Customer Responsiveness

Theme: Organizations boast of being responsive to their Customer, but does every part of their organization engage in Customer Responsiveness?

I am aware that I am broaching a sensitive topic here. No CEO would ever admit that his/her organization is not customer responsive. Yet, when I scan the market; across industry verticals, across geographies, and even across varying business types; I find that the Contact Center is the only department in most organizations, that measures this responsiveness.

There is no trend yet where organizations as a whole are being responsive to their customers. Metrics like Average Speed of Answer (ASA), Service Level (SL), First Time Right (FTR), Abandon rate, get measured and discussed only on the Contact Center floor.

Why don't I see a trend where the entire organization answers to the customers?

When it comes to the Enterprise communications infrastructure, I see two types of organizational communications strategies being initiated.

• The "Cost Focused" business leaders

- They believe in 'isolation' tactics

- The Central office has state-of-the-art communication systems and applications

- The branches and other parts of the organization have small Key Telephone Systems

- It is presumed that that is all they require.

• The "Visionary" C-level

- They believe in having ONE integrated communication system

- Offering the same rich functionality to all parts of their organization

- They are right!

- And they are reaping the benefits of being able to collaborate with intuitive applications

Yet, neither the "Cost Focused", nor the "Visionaries" are even thinking of integrating their Contact Center with the Enterprise Communications systems. They continue to work as islands of information and connectivity. One for communicating with the customers; and another to communicate within themselves!

The "Visionaries" have actually reached a stage where they are poised to leverage and unleash an enormous amount of collaborative energy working for the benefit of their customers. Yet, they are still as far from a true integrated communication system, as their "Cost focused" counterparts of the first type.

Therein lies the huge opportunity! The opportunity of unleashing collaborated team of internal associates, external partners, as well as the customers. The opportunity of:

• Making every individual associate capable of contributing to customer queries (Fulfilling the vision of a truly Customer Responsive organization)
• Giving frontline Contact Center agents the ability to pull Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) right there in real time (increase the FTR ratio)
• Greatly streamlining many complex processes required for customer fulfilment (Increasing organizational effectiveness)
• Taking the human latency away from the entire Customer Responsiveness chain (Increasing customer satisfaction)
• Optimizing enterprise resources (e.g: Tellers in the branch sharing the Contact Center call load, because the footfalls and customer calls peak at completely different times... etc..)
• Creating the Customer Responsive organization

A few years ago, these opportunities did not exist, because the underlying technology that makes this possible, has emerged only recently. The Contact Center agents did not know back then, which SME to look for. With a true Presence, agents will instantly know exactly who is available, interruptible, and on what device can they be reached - Desk Phone, Mobile Phone, Instant Messaging, or email.

Today, I can think of at least one technology leader Avaya, who is ready with innovative solutions to deliver Presence across multi-vendor applications, Unified Communications, and rich Business Intelligence tools.

But what I find disconcerting is the lack of "Visionary" leaders who are already prepared with their strategy to take advantage of this changed landscape. The precious few who are, are an exception. The good news is that they will be at the forefront of the trend when it comes, and consequently gain tremendous competitive advantage.

I am now looking forward to that trend - that of organizations moving from their "intent" of being Customer Responsive; to "being" Customer Responsive and fulfilling their promise.

Advent of the "Service Game"

How frequently have you been a "Guest"?

I don't expect to hear very many responses of the "What's that?" variety. When you are traveling, staying in a hotel, occupying a "guest" house, visiting friends & relatives, or just relaxing in a beach-side resort - you are experiencing what I'm trying to drive at.

Which really is - you assume the "guest" status when you are not likely to be permanently "there".

That in other words means that there is a "Host" taking care of your needs. You are being "Managed" well, if you return satisfied wearing your "guest" mantle.

Now further stretch your imagination to apply this unique and fulfilling personal experience to a business situation. Why would you not want your business to be taken care of thus?
Especially when it is not "permanently there", it's being set-up, or simply because you want a perfect "Host" to take care of those aspects of your business that you would not rather handle yourself?

Enter "Managed" Services a.k.a. "Hosted" Services. This is the new mantra currently doing the rounds in the business corridors. Hosted Messaging, Hosted Contact Center, Hosted Security, Hosted Storage, .. the list goes on...

The benefit to the business is evident -
a) There are no hassles of setting up those complex technology pieces
b) Experts will be managing the systems for you
c) You don't have to invest in the entire technology
d) You only pay for what services you avail of
e) You are spared the technology obsolesence because you do not own the technology, it's someone else's problem to keep pace with the new advents being made in the field
f) The OPerating EXpense model particulary suiting many a industry in a variety of situations....

The benefits for the Service Provider -
a) Amortize one time technology investments over a period of time by providing services and getting periodic payments from multiple businesses
b) This provision of services to multiple businesses indicate a better utilization rate, because of economies of scale (it will cost lesser than setting up different individual platforms to provide services to each business)
c) Usually the Service Providers are doing this as an allied business, which would usually boost their primary business. e.g: A Telecom Service Provider "Hosting" a Contact Center, would ensure that businesses availing of this Contact Center service will use their bandwidth and 'last mile'. In Business As Usual, these customers might normally have gone to competition
d) Bring in Technologies ahead of their usual times - by making it affordable, practical, and feasible for many more businesses to "try" them out; instead of a mere handful of early adopters having a go at it, thereby expanding the addressable market

This last point finally also means that the Technology companies too will benefit as a result of this "Hosted Platforms" syndrome!

Many regions in the globe have completely imbibed this phenomenon, or are rapidly seeing multiple Service Providers introducing these services. In this regard it's really heartning to see the major Indian Telcos too beginning to open up their bouquet of services, introducing various "Managed Services" offerings to the Indian Corporate sector.

Their timing could not have been better.
With the Indian economy looking up, Indian Corporates requiring sophisticated technologies to keep them in the global race, and most importantly, the trends of "Software As A Service" and "Service Oriented Architecture" taking shape to give the "Managed Service" a new fillip; the future seems bright for the "Hosted" party.

I wish the Indian Telcos all the best.

Tags: Managed Services Hosted Platforms Hosted Contact Center Hosted Contact Centre

I Know What You Want

Today I witnessed something interesting. An experience worth sharing, because it opens up other lines of thinking.

My 7 year old daughter Nidhi, brought a friend home, and they asked for permission from my wife Varsha to play games on Nidhi's PC. Having secured the permission, Nidhi went about the task of booting the PC, and opening the folder marked "Games for Nidhi". {I still get amazed at her deftness at handling the PC, especially on the way she controls the mouse etc. See her smiling face on My Homepage... I really must update those old photographs....}

So the duo began exploring, and Nidhi zeroed down on a game, but Varsha intervened and asked them to play Pocket Tanks instead. Her reasoning was pretty sound - there are two of you, so play a game that both of you can enjoy simultaneously.

That made tempers fly, an argument ensued, and both parties stuck to their stand, not willing to holster their drawn guns. Their swords still pointing at each other, I asked the friends duo what was wrong with the suggestion of Pocket Tanks. "After all, it allows both of you to participate", I preached. "Whereas in other games, only one of you will enjoy, and the other one will be a mere spectator".

Then our little 'Customers' revealed the following:
a) they did not know how to play Pocket Tanks very well - at least Nidhi's friend didn't - hence our suggestion that both can participate was actually wrong. Neither of them could, fully!
b) Nidhi actually wanted to sit back and check out how her friend either excelled at, or bungled on, the games she has become so adept at playing... she 'wanted' to merely 'spectate'... (maybe the English language will officially adopt this word some day)..!

Fertile that my mind is when it comes to sowing the seeds of imagination, I started drawing parallels to: Senior Management telling other down the line what's good for them; Quality Heads telling Supervisors what their jobs 'should' be; Marketing whizkids on the 39th floor deciding not only on Promotion but also on the Product - on behalf of those illiterate customers loitering on the pavements....

A real revelation for me - "I Know What You Want"!

Tags: Customer Customer Satisfaction Business Intelligence I Know What You Want

Effectiveness of Self-service: Are you lovin' it?

Theme: Self-service has traditionally had a major impact on the business efficiency (by reducing costs). But now it is being widely adopted by businesses as a means to increase the effectiveness, by enhancing the user experience. Learn what has been happening and some useful information in the notes below.

When I first heard the term Self-service, the vision that popped-up in my mind was that of the Big M. Que-up, pay for the goodies, pick up the tray, lug it across to a table (if you can find one), and don't forget to dump the tray in the bin when done....

This vision sure has E F F I C I E N C Y ..written all across it. Efficiency for the Big M. Convenience? Sure, convenient for me to some extent. It's fast, isn't it? Else who would call it fast food? Gives me loads of pleasure going through the exercise? Umm... not really.
So the message is - if there is no other choice, if I want convenience right now, because [I'm in a hurry] [I'm not really hungry] [My wallet is screaming..time for refill] (pick your choice), then Big M is the choice.

Else what? What if I'm looking for effectiveness? Like impressing my girlfriend, taking a business contact out for lunch, trying to multi-task my lunch through that business report... then Big M will miss me.

In Customer Interactions, Self-service comes up either in Web transactions (Net banking, E-tickets, FAQs..); or Voice transactions - the classic DTMF IVR that everyone knows and has endured. Equate the Customer Interaction Center to the McCustomer IC; and all the corresponding scenarios will again have the same 10 alphabets written across them, in bold .. Please don't consume my Call Center Agents Mr. Customer, fumble your way through the Web and/or IVR Mr. Customer, and we will reward you with some extra [Frequent Flier miles] [Credit Card reward points] [A surprise gift?] [..], because you saved us some money.

What about effectiveness? What if businesses gave an overwhelming experience to their Customers ? That of doing transactions for which they earlier required live agents? But transactions they can now effect through Self-service, without waiting in a que listening to promotional messages, and getting irritated in the process? Processes that the Customers will cherish for their Effectiveness...

Think again. The E-ticket example I quoted under Efficiency was actually the wrong'un, and my compliments if you - the alert reader - spotted the Effectiveness part of it. E-ticketing is convenient AND effective for me. For one, in these days of 128 bit encryption security, I'm not allowing any human to read my Credit Card details, and I'm getting the E-ticket right here, ready to be printed. Makes me want to do it with loads of pleasure - my definition of effectiveness.

Sample the following similar processes you can create on the IVR to have "effective" voice Self-service:

• Reset password
• Lodge Insurance claims
• Effect address change
• Mobile phone activation (Remember the "Lara" persona of Vodafone in Customer Interaction Center: Business context)
• Obtain stock quotes
• Trade stocks
• Pay bills
• Fill up forms
• Schedule appointments
• ...... (Continue creating your own list)

Three to five years back, I would have been conferred the Man Booker Prize for creating the above fictional points. Today with the power of Speech Recognition, many more in addition to the above, have become solid reality.

The reality of creating a true Win-Win situation. The reality that affords the Businesses to create the Efficiency-Effectiveness balance. The reality to create The Effective Experience (TEE).

[Even managed to add effectiveness in my experience...(well, for my daughter really... so naturally even I'm lovin' it). The ambience / play-land / Ronald / McToys.... are all TEE for my daughter, and compels us to visit the Big M.] (Tip: Simply enabling old processes with Self-service is not TEE. TEE needs to be created afresh).

Which processes are you going to create afresh and put on your speech enabled Self-service? TEE off in the right direction... The course begins.

Technorati tags: IVR Effective Self Service Customer Interaction