Survey of businesses indicate uptake of hosted communications services, video, unified messaging and VOIP

Interactive Intelligence, a global developer of business communications software, released customer survey findings this week showing hosted communications services, video, unified messaging, and voice over IP deployments on the rise.

"Though our survey results showed several communications technologies on the rise, by far the most significant uptake in the near-term was hosted services, with 90% of our customer respondents not currently using them, but a full 72% stating they plan to use them in the future," said Dave Paulding, regional sales manager, UK and Africa at Interactive Intelligence.

The survey, which was sent to a sample of the company`s more than 2 500 global enterprise and contact centre customers, also showed video, unified messaging, and VOIP on the rise.

"When survey respondents were asked: `What new technologies are you currently evaluating for your call centre?` the greatest response was video," Paulding said. "I think this shows that contact centres continue to look for that competitive advantage - technologies that will separate them from the rank-and-file call centres - and video is clearly one of them."

According to survey results, more than 56% of respondents stated that unified messaging is a `key priority` for their organisation.

"The unified messaging findings indicate that perhaps this application has finally hit its stride," Paulding said. "What`s particularly interesting is that, among those who had not yet deployed UM, the primary reason listed was `no perceived benefit`. Clearly, vendors must do a better job of showing customers measurable ROI, which we think is possible if UM applications are offered as part of a broader, `all-in-one` unified communications architecture."

Other noteworthy findings included the increasing adoption of VOIP, with nearly 70% of respondents indicating they had already deployed the technology in some portion of their organisation, and of the remainder, 56% indicating they planned to deploy it over the next 12 months.

The VOIP-related findings are consistent with other third-party industry surveys, many of which show that 80% or more of businesses today have incorporated IP somewhere in their networks. The VOIP findings are particularly significant when combined with respondents` top evaluation criteria for new communications solutions, which is open standards.

"These results seem to underline the need for vendors to deliver VOIP solutions using the open SIP standard, which contrasts sharply with the many IP PBXs offered today that come with a few proprietary SIP extensions leading to vendor lock-in," Paulding said.

Perhaps the most important overarching message that resulted from the Interactive Intelligence survey is that companies are getting more creative in using technologies to retain their most valued customers.

"Our survey results showed that the increasing need to improve customer loyalty was the main trend impacting businesses over the past year," Paulding said.

"This is in line with other aspects of our survey, showing the uptake of relatively new technologies, such as video, to both personalise and make more convenient the customer experience. This means companies are demanding more flexible, highly-customisable applications - the kind that can be created and modified in-house. Business communications solutions that use open standards, are software-based, and can be easily managed and customised are the ones that will fit this bill moving forward."

The Interactive Intelligence customer survey targeted contact centres and IT managers from among its 2 500 global customers. The survey asked for written responses to 44 questions focused on business communications technology trends.

Of the customer survey responses, the largest portion represented the financial services industry (17.4%), followed by insurance (11.6%), then computer services/hardware/software (10.1%), with the rest diversified among other verticals.

The majority of responses came from North American companies, with the remaining representing Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

To download a free copy of the complete survey, visit: http://www.inin.com/products/profiles/surveyresults.pdf.