Unified communications (UC) is the answer to improving communication-intensive business processes, or those prone to latency due to people involvement, according to Henry McCracken, regional sales director for Africa at Aspect Software.
Rather than making numerous calls, says McCracken, using instant messaging (IM) and presence to connect with knowledge workers outside the contact centre in real-time can assist in quickly getting the information needed to resolve customer enquiries.
McCracken believes UC can also eliminate latency and speed up problem resolution by removing people from the process. “By simply embedding presence, conferencing and IM into systems and applications, issues can be addressed based on pre-defined conditions,” he says.
“When product inventory falls below a certain level, the business' enterprise resource planning system could look at the presence of people who can automatically resolve issues and initiate a telephonic or online notification, informing sales personnel to contact customers with status changes, for example.”
According to McCracken, most sales processes require multiple steps, like capturing customer requirements, creating a proposal or quote and establishing pricing or discounting. Each step requires the participation, expertise and approval of multiple individuals, which can take time.
“Embedding UC directly into each process can improve quality, remove latency, and ultimately result in competitive advantage,” he adds.
He warns, however, that using UC requires extensive planning and a certain level of maturity in the use of presence and other tools. “Employee training and cultural preparedness is essential,” McCracken concludes.
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