Contact Center Wish List
Video may have, in the immortal words of The Buggles, killed the radio star. But don’t try telling that to call centers managers who, although seemingly interested in video technologies, don’t see them as the next killer app.
According to a new survey by contact center and IP telephony products and services firm Interactive Intelligence, video is the top new technology currently being evaluated among the 2,500-plus call centers surveyed, rating above decision support/data mart, e-learning, and a host of other tools.
“I think this shows that contact centers continue to look for that competitive advantage -- technologies that will separate them from the rank-and-file call centers,” says Joseph A. Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Interactive Intelligence. “Based on this response, video is clearly viewed as one of those key differentiators.”
Maybe so, but the same survey finds 76.5 percent of respondents saying that video is not important to their businesses, either currently or over the next 18 months. (Suppliers of video conferencing tools can take some comfort that their application scored a whopping 88.9 percent among those who do plan to use video, crushing the likes of individual point-to-point video, video kiosks, and ACD-routed video … but the fact remains that those eager vid-heads make up only 23.5 percent of the sample.)
So what is catching the attention of call center chieftains? Unified messaging, for one. “To have more than 56 percent of respondents state that unified messaging is a 'key priority' for their organization makes you think that maybe that application has finally hit its stride,” Staples says.
Indeed, nearly 57 percent of respondents say they’ve already implemented unified messaging, with another 19 percent planning on adding it within the next 12 months.
Not surprisingly, voice over IP (VoIP) also scored high, with 50.7 percent rating it “important” to their organization and another 34.8 percent characterizing it as “critical.” Of those who have not yet implemented VoIP, 56 percent plan to do so over the next 12 months.
Perhaps most telling, however, is the planned switch to use more hosted services: Nearly 90 percent do not currently use any hosted application services, yet 72.4 percent said they planned to do so in the future. Staples characterizes that as “a major shift.”
So is video “killing” anything right now? Well, 61.2 percent of respondents said that they're in no rush to replace their desktop phones by softphones or softphones plus a mobile client.
That’s right, Buggles fans (and you know who you are): Video killed the softphone plus mobile client. That may not sound like a hit – but then, apparently neither does video technology.
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