The social sphere is spinning into UC's orbit but how far it will gravitate is open to question.
The social sphere is spinning faster with employees communicating internally and externally of their organisations, and with the social networks available today these communications are multi-channel - people straddling their home and work offices and mixing their business and social comms. The best UC products are integrating into this mix, helping people to work with whoever, wherever they are on whatever platform they choose, according to Rob Keenan (pictured), Head of Portfolio Management, Northern Cluster at Unify.
"UC has been moving into the social sphere for some time," said Keenan. "We've seen UC elements embedded into social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook albeit in basic chat and messaging forms. The reverse is happening with UC too. New systems are now moving from purely traditional comms methods to more social-based conversations. Unify's Circuit platform is an example of this."
Traditional UC uses point-based communications where click-to-call and scheduled conferences have definitive start and end points. This has been dubbed UCv1. But things have moved on. The focus of UCv2 has shifted to dynamic and persistent conversations between people who not only work in traditional team structures but also teams where people are mobile.
"Such flexibility is akin to a social network - an easy tool that works across any device and can help people work with one another as if they were together in the same room," added Keenan. "Externally, people liaise with others outside of their organisation all the time, yet they still want to work with the same tools they use internally. This is where UCv2 can help by enabling and empowering people to work quickly and easily together, all from one social interface."
Unify is seeing far more interest in this area, driven mostly by Twitter use. Many forward-looking organisations now realise their customers and audience are using Twitter more than they use the telephone, send emails or send traditional mail. A reputation built up over many years can be lost in 24 hours due to the transparency and immediacy of social media. But it can also be used as a positive tool.
"Every organisation should be embracing social," added Keenan. "Not using it to its full potential is a trick missed. Resellers should assess how social media could affect a client's customers: Are they using it to communicate with them already? What's the balance between social, email, telephone and chat? Many organisations have an employee dedicated to social media, but their domain is often outside of the contact centre. By integrating the two an organisation can respond, market and help their customers far more quickly, easily, and often more cheaply than traditional voice options."
Social media integration not only creates big opportunities for companies it also brings new challenges, pointed out Giuseppe Fragale, Head of Microsoft UC Technologies and Services at SIPHON. "Business goals such as improving the quality of customer care or augmenting collaborative culture are certainly to be applauded," he said. "However, resellers must be aware that these desirable outcomes cannot be achieved solely with technology.
"We are talking about the way people work day-to-day, about how employees interact with one another internally as well as with their suppliers and customers, so the best solution can only be achieved by placing a strong emphasis on the user experience. In turn, this can only be done effectively by investigating and then making appropriate modifications to all the relevant processes in the company's value chain."
On the question of whether UC is heading social, Giuseppe is less certain. "It's doubtful whether this is actually the case," he mused. "In fact, the opposite may be true. These two paradigms, UC and social, have different customer segments. The social paradigm has given rise to new customer needs. Some of these needs are addressed by ordinary UC services. By comparison, UC applications have a different scope and serve different customer requirements.
"While some social applications such as Facebook are working to incorporate voice within the existing services offered to customers, it's worth noting that social companies are considering doing this with single standalone UC services, rather than the entire UC service-suite."
Giuseppe cited examples of such developments. WhatsApp started out as a simple IM chat and file transfer application. In late 2013, the former start-up added its voice-as-a-message feature which allowed voice messages to be recorded and sent peer-to-peer. In February it was reported that WhatsApp had begun beta testing Internet calls with some users. It's no coincidence that WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, Giuseppe pointed out.
"Viber began as a free VoIP call application and has since added some advanced IM features that are more typical of an innovative UC offering such as Lync 2013/Skype," he added. "Now, Microsoft is attempting to integrate a social application platform (Yammer) with a UC platform (Lync/Office 365), a collaboration platform (sharepoint/Office365) and a messaging platform (Exchange/Office365)."
SIPHON's approach takes into account the processes as well as the technologies being used. "By giving consideration to both, SIPHON can support resellers to find the optimal way of achieving UC integration with social platforms," added Giuseppe.
In the main, UC systems are alive with real-time communications and are therefore a natural fit for real-time social interactions, according to Darren Standing, Head of Products and Marketing at Solar Communications. "Social media integration in UC and contact centre deployments provides another channel to engage with customers in a forum that suits them," he said. "Integration of social channels into UC systems becomes vital for shifting between channels easily and seamlessly. It allows you to respond appropriately to particular issues, even if it involves moving the conversation to a different channel such as a voice call. However, for resellers the maturity of a customer's social media engagement is key. Bringing social into a UC environment when a customer's social media strategy is not mature is likely to result in difficult UC deployments."
It is also important for customer-facing departments to adopt social channels to meet customer demand and respond quickly to issues, pointed out Standing. "Social media is a valuable knowledge base for customer service, marketing and other customer-focused departments, and early notification on twitter of customer dissatisfaction needs to be delivered to the appropriate resources within a business. They won't want to use separate systems to do this."
The use of social internally is prevalent so organisations are wanting to set up UC with more than just video and voice. "Whether that's using Salesforce Chatter, uploading photos from smartphones or Instant Messenger, social is becoming an integral part of the communication structure," said Spencer Bradshaw, Head of Solution Architect Practice, EMEA, ShoreTel. "Increasingly, we're also seeing businesses wishing to extend their collaboration tools used inside of the organisation to other businesses, or indeed the buying public in a B2C world."
Deploying social UC tools 'for the sake of it' isn't the answer. Resellers need to review the business requirements. They also need to understand their customers' customer. "It comes down to the expectation of the end customer," added Bradshaw. "If an organisation is trying to attract and engage with a younger audience, social could make more sense for customer care. However, this has to be part of the overall business strategy and not just a bolt-on solution. Once you've looked at social and how it is aligned to customer needs as well as your business strategy, you also have to commit 100 per cent."
Sometimes the hardest part is for businesses to accept the fact that there are aspects of social media platforms they cannot control. "It's a different ball game for customer care here," noted Bradshaw. "Our aim is to help resellers and their customers understand the implications of social and what businesses are trying to achieve. Looking forward to the launch of our new platforms at our Partner Conference in April, we will introduce a fresh approach to many aspects of UC and contact centre."