Alteva – Adding Value to Video and Hosted UC

Last week, Alteva – a company I’ve long been a fan of – announced a nice twist to make not just video more interesting for businesses, but by extension, UC as well. Their news item is the availability of an on-demand video attendant. They claim this to be an industry first, and perhaps it is, but the technology is not brand new. Alteva is one of the leading providers in the hosted communications space, and their solutions are driven by BroadSoft. Video auto attendant is one of the many features on their BroadWorks platform, and to see for yourself, there’s a 17-second video demo on their website.

The video demo is actually quite bland, and does little to get you excited about the possibilities. This is where Alteva comes in and tries to make it more relevant for businesses. Whereas Alteva is BroadSoft’s customer, SMBs are the core customers of Alteva. As such, they are on the front lines and know how to add value for business owners and end users. At face value, this feature does the same thing as an audio auto attendant – so what? There’s nothing wrong with this if all you want to do is replicate your existing auto attendant regime with a talking head. Callers get exactly the same information – “press 1 if you know your party’s extension,” etc. – but they’re watching someone say it.

However, think about the possibilities video brings to make that feature more interesting – and more engaging. Of course, all of this assumes that the callers have video. That is not yet the norm, so when most people call your business from a landline or mobile phone, this feature won’t be invoked. In that regard, Alteva is early to market, but that’s missing the point. In many ways this reminds me of HD audio. Not everyone can support it, but when you use it, there’s no going back – it’s simply a better experience. I would argue the same for video auto attendant if it’s done right.

There’s another important parallel here. HD audio provides premium quality, but it really doesn’t cost extra. So long as you have SIP trunking or a network properly optimized for IP, you can have HD audio presuming your IP provider offers it. Video auto attendant is no different – it’s an existing feature within BroadWorks, so it’s there if a provider like Alteva offers it.

As such, video auto attendant is not mainstream because it’s expensive – the answer is more related to the fact that hardly anyone is offering it, and awareness among SMBs is about zero, so nobody’s asking for it yet. In that regard, kudos to Alteva; they have recognized an opportunity based on a core marketing principal. When a product or service has a high perceived value, and the price is right, demand will follow.

Video is not ubiquitous enough yet to be taken for granted, especially in business, where video conferencing is more of a luxury than a staple. A video auto attendant feature is not nearly as complex or demanding on the network, but it’s still video, and it’s not expected. This feature really doesn’t cost Alteva much to offer, so why not? Since it has a high perceived value, it enhances Alteva’s overall offering, so both parties benefit.

The key here is to innovate and take advantage where video truly adds value. A video greeting that simply mimics what an audio auto attendant does will get tired quickly. However, when you can tie this into UC, and think about how to use multimedia and real time tools, things get much more interesting. One example would be having different video auto attendant greetings for different types of callers. For a global business, you could have greetings in different languages, and even with culturally appropriate visual references to make callers feel more welcome. On a business level, calls can be routed for video messages based the skills/expertise needed – regardless of physical location. That can be a powerful feature that leverages the full roster of employees, even those not based at head office.

Then there are the possibilities for collaboration where a video greeting could involve more than one person on the fly, and allow the caller to do more than just relay a voice message. In addition, they could use images or even whiteboarding for a more interactive message. Once you start thinking like this, video auto attendant can become very attractive.

I think this is a good example of innovating on a fairly simple idea to add value to a hosted offering. The key for me is the provider – Alteva – looking for opportunities and unmet needs with their customers. They know the full feature set of BroadWorks – and they also know that SMBs cannot possibly make use of them all. Since these capabilities already exist, there is no risk or investment needed to create something from scratch. So, there is little downside to what Alteva is doing here, and the upside can be strong if they keep innovating and making the most of video in new ways that help businesses communicate more effectively.