Time For Channel Partners To Exploit Big Opportunities With Multi-modal Interaction Centers

As consumers and business users move towards mobile, UC-enabled, multi-modal communications, the complexities of supporting mobile customers will be an opportunity to provide new, value-add, software-based services to any size organization. This will be a particularly significant challenge for every organization to integrate and migrate existing hardware-based communication technologies to the next generation of mobile, software-based, customer interactions.

Every organization that provides any form of service to consumers must rethink their perspectives of customer service interactions and related technologies and are prime candidates for new, multi-modal interactions with customers. Mobile smartphones and tablets have, in effect, expanded the ability of consumers to have personalized, direct control of their services, access to information, and flexible interactions on-demand with their service providers. 

Moving Forward From Wired Telephony and Location-based Call Centers

Back in the days of “call centers,” when customers only had telephones and snail-mail to communicate with business organizations, emphasis was placed on agent staffing to handle both inbound and outbound phone calls in real time. As consumers started to use desktop and laptop computers, chat, email and fax communications were added to provide additional “contact center” interactions. However, most consumers did not have or could not use their personal computers for communications as frequently as business users and information workers, so the “contact center” remained primarily a voice telephony-oriented customer interaction silo.

However, there were also limited opportunities to provide self-service applications, via IVR applications, that depended upon the TUI (Telephone User Interface) with Touch-Tone inputs and voice output. IVR applications were primarily useful only for simple applications, e.g., providing caller information for selectively routing to customer-facing staff, and for VERY simple information retrieval and data entry transactions.

As speech recognition technology improved significantly, the TUI approach was upgraded to exploit speech input in addition to voice output for use by IVR systems by telephone callers. However, a real self-service breakthrough was not possible until the arrival of the mobile smartphone (2007) and tablets, which provide screen interfaces for both user controls and more efficient information output for all kinds of self-service interactions, including initiating voice conversations, with contextual “click-to-call” options.

That capability has opened the door to fulfilling the vision of “unified communications” (UC) for all forms of business communications, but especially for the mission critical customer service role of “contact centers.” Now they can become “multi-modal” s or, with increased self-service applications, “Interaction Centers” that provide greater accessibility to information and people for mobile end users inside and outside of an organization.

Person-to-Person Business Telephony Is Not Good Enough! Why?

The rapid adoption of smartphones by consumers (“Consumer BYOD”) is causing those end users to minimize the use of wired, location-based desktop phones in favor of their own, personalized mobile smartphones. Because they are “multi-modal,” i.e., can accommodate all types of media (text, voice, pictures, and video) and all types of communication modes (messaging, chat, voice or video conversations), these end users now can selectively choose how they want to communicate, either as a contact initiator or contact recipient. Furthermore, end users also have the flexibility of changing communication modalities, as their situation requires, escalating from a message exchange to Instant Messaging/chat IM to voice or video connections and conferencing on demand.

However, the consumer use of multi-modal smartphones and tablets is doing even more than supporting various types of person-to-person communication contacts. They are also providing two-way access to information and computer applications and displacing the need for desktop and laptop computers by consumers. This is particularly important, as Web portals are becoming the source of information and services for consumers, both on demand and for time-sensitive, pro-active service notifications to personal mobile devices (e.g., emergencies, health care, financial services, etc.).

The ability for consumers to have easy, rapid access to information and online transactions will have three important benefits:

1. Reduce labor costs for servicing customer information needs, typically done through contact centers, by offering more self-service applications that will work effectively on smartphones and tablets.
   
   
2. Improve customer satisfaction and retention because customers won’t have to wait in queue just to get simple information or to perform simple transactions.
   
   
3. Because of increased anytime mobile access to personal consumer smartphones, automated applications can pro-actively initiate timely notifications and alerts in any medium directly to individual recipients, rather than wait for the end user to initiate the contact.  

So, there are plenty of incentives on both sides to support the new “Multi-modal Interaction Center” which can provide access to self –service applications, on-demand, contextual “click-for –assistance,” and pro-active, outbound, multimedia notifications. Under the label of “Communications Enabled Business Processing,” (CEBP), automated operational workflows can be extended to interact dynamically with individual customers to minimize the delays that person-to-person contact attempts can bring to any operational process just to deliver information.

What we have described is the way that business communications can now be exploited by using “cloud”- based, IP communications, UC-enabled applications, and multimodal smartphones and tablets. The challenge for every consumer services business organization (health care, financial, government, education, retail, etc.), however, is how to implement such capabilities without the internal expertise to analyze operational needs, design new, mobile self-service applications, or integrate new technologies with existing capabilities. That’s where huge opportunities for channel partners come into play to provide their value-add expertise to strategic migration planning, integrations and implementations, user training, and ongoing management support for the next generation of cloud-based “Multi-modal Interaction Centers.”   

The Trains To The Multi-modal Interaction Center Have Already Left The Station

While UC enablement is still slow in getting off the ground for a variety of reasons, the two other components that will support the Multi-modal Interaction Center are already moving quickly, i.e., mobile consumers and “cloud”-based applications. More consumers now have smartphones (and tablets) making it important to provide new UC-enabled “mobile apps” that they want from the organizations they do business with. Once such mobile apps are available to consumers, typically through “app stores,” the next step will be to support mobile app usage through Interaction Center customer service. That will require UC flexibility and inter-operability, as well as “click-for assistance” access to customer service.

Unlike the telephone call approach of the past, the fact that the customer is using a mobile, multi-modal device, means that there will be several alternatives to how such customer service needs can be handled.  These alternatives can be much more cost efficient, effective, and satisfying to the customer, as well as the customer-facing staff. The choices, of course, will be dependent on a number of variables that must be customized for the type of business and customer service needs involved. However, because of such variability, the inherent flexibility of the underlying communications technologies must be combined with the expertise of the channel partner(s) to arrive at a practical and acceptable solution. It won’t be your father’s old call center game!

Implementing Interaction Center applications no longer depends upon premise-based hardware systems, but has moved to software solutions that can be easily developed, accessed, maintained and managed in a “cloud” environment. Not only does the “cloud” offer cost-efficiencies in implementation and operational deployment, but also the flexibility to accommodate the real-time analytical data for all forms of customer and agent interactions will require for operational management. This flexibility will especially be needed to accommodate mobile consumers who will be exploiting all modalities of contact and interaction that their mobile devices enable (“Consumer BYOD”). In effect, this will increase the “personalization” of customer choice for business interactions, especially for self-service applications.

So, while the power of multi-modal mobility will enhance customer flexibility for contact accessibility and self-service applications, the big challenge to business organizations is how to make it all happen. Because most organizations have little or no experience (yet), it will be extremely difficult for them to tell you exactly what they need or want. They need expert help in getting started to define future operational requirements and priorities, let alone quantifying their technology requirements expectations.

So, this where experienced technology vendors, coupled with experienced channel partners in various vertical industries can play a strong and profitable role in the future.

Barriers to Multi-modal Interaction Center Implementation

Technology change is inherently always difficult and involves a number of traditional barriers that are slowing down the evolution of the Multi-modal Interaction Center evolution. 

The main barriers include:

1. Insufficient understanding by management of operational needs that can benefit from new technology approaches. This often results in simple lack of demand or resistance to technology change.
2. Lack of internal technology expertise and support to help business management overcome the above-mentioned problem, as well as an inability to help plan and manage implementation strategies.
3. Investments in legacy technologies often deter making technology changes from an ROI perspective
4. Difficulties in correlating new technology benefits with specific business communication needs of different types of end users.
5. Fears of loss of control over secure information access, mobile communication costs, and differences in customer needs and employee device requirements for both communication contacts and access to information. This is particularly evident in moving towards “cloud” based applications, which can better serve the different needs of remote and mobile end users.
6. Concerns over internal resources for managing and supporting new modes of communication and information access.
7. Technology developers and vendors must now support customized software applications that are device and network independent.

While these are all valid concerns, they present barriers for any organization to strategically start moving forward selectively from old telephony technology to more flexible and network independent communications. Thus, this will require partner assistance in both marketing and implementations. efficient mobile and multi-modal interactions with people and automated self-service applications.

To overcome these barriers, business organizations are looking for trusted technology vendors/providers with experienced channel partners who can take over many of the responsibilities previously delegated to internal IT staffs. What are driving these shifts are not only the new demands from mobile users, but also the new service options for trusted and experienced application implementation, integrations, support and maintenance.

Since most vendors can’t undertake all the responsibilities involved, they are looking to recruit qualified channel partners to fill the application needs of individual organizations with “cloud”–based services and integrations. They are coming up with new business models that provide long term, ongoing revenue generation opportunities to replace the traditional sales commissions on hardware systems.

How VARs, System Integrators, and Consultants Can Help Their Clients Migrate To A Multi-modal Interaction Center Service

• Become a “one-stop shop” for organizations to migrate to multi-modal, mobile communication and business applications in private and public “clouds”
  
  
• Assist clients in identifying and analyzing operational “pain points” that can be relieved with more flexible and efficient multi-modal communication and self-service business applications
  
  
• Assist clients with strategic planning expertise for prioritization and customization of UC enabled applications
  
  
• Implement cloud-base integrations of business process applications with multi-modal user interfaces and CEBP capabilities
  
  
• Partner with different trusted vendors, service providers, and specialized application providers for comprehensive support of specialized, UC enabled applications and “cloud” services in vertical markets
  
  
• Choose core UC-enable technologies from trustworthy, experienced providers
  
  
• Provide necessary tools for reporting and analyzing all multi-modal business communication and transactional activities
  
  
• Provide cloud-based facilities and analytic tools for “Try before buy” trialing of new self-service applications and integrations with legacy applications, along with analytic tools to evaluate results.  (Example: Interactive Intelligence’s “Quick Spin”)
  
  
• Provide evidence of adequate security protection of offsite information and controlled, authorized access to ‘cloud” based applications 
  
  
• Develop and provide operational reporting on multi-modal communications and application usage to business management

What VARs, Solution Integrators, Business Communication Consultants should look for in technology providers

The challenge facing telephony VARs and contact center application developers who want to be involved in the development of multi-modal interaction centers is to start partnering with technology vendors who are going to be leaders in tomorrow’s world of multi-modal business communications and mobile business applications. Such partners must support the new technologies that will be needed for cloud-based, multi-modal applications needed by both internal staff and external mobile customers/consumers in specialized vertical service markets.

Here is a quick checklist for expertise required from technology vendors:

• Core contact center expertise that is flexible and innovative in supporting software-based multi-modal customer interactions
  
  
• Core online application software providers by industry (CEBP)
  
  
• Core communication application providers
  
  
• Desktop vs. mobile endpoint communications expertise
  
  
• Internal, collaborative UC technologies vs. Customer-oriented self-service and assisted service applications
  
  
• Cloud/Network access providers (Private, Public) – Carriers, cloud brokers
  
  
• Cloud applications service providers
  
  
• Operational management tool providers (analytics)
  
  
• Opportunities for value-add ongoing revenue generation
  
  
• Opportunities for extended partnering (other channel partners)
  
  
• Plan for the future, not yesterday!  So, avoid:
  
• Technology vendors who are simply offering pieces of what’s needed for complete solutions for multi-modal customer interactions, both from live assistance and self-services.
  
  
• New technologies that can’t easily integrate with key legacy technologies for a graceful migration of customer support solutions.
  
  
• Replacing all old application functionality that is still useful to end user customers, but try to fill in the “holes” that are not properly covered by existing technologies, e.g., new needs for mobile applications, video conferencing options, contextual “click-to-contact” options in online apps.

Summary

A whole new ball game for supporting customer contacts and self-service interactions is evolving in the industry and being driven by cloud-based applications and multi-modal, mobile devices. Because the mobile end user experience is the target for success in this environment, it is a challenge to existing IT staffs to undertake or take responsibility.

While technology providers could fill the gap by providing professional services from within their own organizations, the real opportunity for technology vendors is to use channel partners who can contribute various new value-add skills to the implementation process. In line with the above, what organizations really need “value-add” help in is to easily and cost-effectively develop new, customized “smart” Multi-modal Interaction Center services to support all their end users who are already using mobile smartphones and tablets. A good example is Interactive Intelligence’s recently announced “Interaction Mobilizer,” which integrates nicely with back-end business systems and with their standard Customer Interaction Center™ software.

So, the challenge for prospective channel partners is to ally themselves with the right kinds of technology vendors who have innovative vision, the right software products and tools, proper channel and customer support, the right new and old experience, and the right business model incentives for their partners.