All we want for Christmas is... Presence

Okay, I don’t mean presents, but for companies, presence can equate to the same thing, with productivity gains and increased customer satisfaction, both of which equate to improved business profitability.

We've all heard the term “presence” bandied about, and we all have our own concept of what it means in our working lives.  You may be surprised to learn the term has been around since 1980, derived from the term telepresence, which at that time meant the manipulation of objects in the real world through remote access technology.  (Thanks Wikipedia).

So, in one way, not much has really changed.  Today, presence is simply when you and your employees are not only contactable wherever you are, but others have full transparency of your contactability status. Or more simply put, it allows users to determine personnel availability to perform the work in real-time.

Presence and Collaboration for improved Productivity

Microsoft Lync, Cisco Jabber and IBM/Lotus Sametime uses presence in synch with your calendar, which combined with user settings means people in your network can tell at a glance who is willing and available to communicate, where they are, and how they are able to be reached.

As well, Microsoft Lync, Cisco Jabber and IBM Sametime extend this ability to mobile users, by offering smartphone apps that provide all the presence and messaging capabilities, with Cisco also delivering conferencing, using an escalation to the Cisco WebEx Meetings application on the iPhone.

Presence for enhanced Customer Service

The Interactive Intelligence platform takes it one step further, by synchronising the telephony system with messaging.  In the past, one of the challenges with integrating applications such as Microsoft Lync with existing telephony systems had been managing presence, since both systems had their own concept of presence.  Interactive Intelligence enables administrators to configure mapping between the differing values to enable bi-directional synchronisation of presence.

All users have an active status. Depending on the status a user selects, he or she can set details including status notes, forward number, and date and/or time they will become available. The date and time information the user enters is played for all their incoming calls while in this status.

This presence management assists operators to ensure calls are transferred with accuracy thus avoiding lost and unanswered calls and improving customer satisfaction. In a contact centre scenario, other agents are able to monitor real-time presence of staff to ensure there is always someone available to take a customer service or support call.  Staff can monitor the calls and jump in to let callers know when their call might be taken prior to placing them in the queue. 

And for staff in the office using the Interaction Client, they can easily see if a person is available to take a call or to make an interaction.

To find out more about Presence, and how it can benefit your organisation, contact us.

How can mobility positively impact your business?

With all the buzz of mobility in the workplace, and the phenomenon of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), many employers and businesses are left scratching their heads and wondering how it will impact their workplace. While they might be feeling they haven’t caught up with the technology yet, employees are one step ahead. More and more staff are bringing their devices into the workplace and finding their own ways of increasing productivity to better utilise their time.  

A Cisco-commissioned study by Forrester Consulting gives a very good analysis into the Expanding role of Mobility in the Workplace.  The study showed immense productivity benefits in: increased employee responsiveness and decision-making speed (76%), and faster internal issue resolution (59%); increased worker productivity (47%) as well as a marked improvement in Customer issue resolution (46%) and improved customer satisfaction (43%).

The Expanding role of Mobility in the Workplace study concluded that mobility initiatives are a key component to overall strategic initiatives, and that businesses should prepare to support employee owned smartphone and tablet devices and broaden the range of mobile applications and services deployed to employees.

So it may be time to stop wondering, and actively start investigating how mobility is going to be used in your workplace.  The first place to start is to look at your employees, what they do and how they do it. You could begin by assessing:

1. How are employees spending their time while in the office?  Are they always at their desk or are they away from their desks for extended periods?
2. When out of the office, how much time do they spend away?  How do they use this time?
3. What type of work are they doing and what type of tools are they using to do it?
4. What tools are available to employees when out of the office?

Just by going through these exercises on a department by department basis, you may find that it is viable to consider giving staff more access to mobile applications and collaboration.  By doing this, not only will you keep your employees happy, but you will receive productivity and customer satisfaction benefits as a result.

There are an enormous range of mobility options for businesses and organisations of all sizes.  CPS Technology Group represents all the top vendors who are leaders in the mobility field. To help you understand the technology and make the right decisions, we can consult with you to determine the best applications and services that suit your particular needs.  

If you would like to receive a copy of the study, you can download it here. And if you would like to know more about how CPS can help you harness the power of mobility in the workplace, please use our contact points here. 

Why do I need a social media presence?

Are you among those who remember when email came out?  I was working for IBM at the time, and we used it for internal purposes, but we soon came to the realisation that if we had someone’s email address, we could type a message and send it to them… and they’d get it straight away!  How amazing that was to us at the time.  But as early adopters of email technology, we had no idea what impact it would have in business over the next couple of decades. 

Social media is a bit like that.  There were the early adopters, people who were amazed at who they could follow and tweet and how they could chat with each other quickly.  Then a few businesses joined the party, realising they could communicate with their customers and promote their products.  Now, mainstream businesses are joining in and beginning to plan social media strategies.  

For those who are still reluctant and wondering what they could possibly get out of it, consider it a dialogue with customers and prospects where you can informally ask questions or talk about what matters to your business.  You can let customers know about staff training, events, or marketplace intelligence, and provide the type of information that is not usually available through other channels.  You can’t easily update your website daily, but you can post comments freely throughout the day on facebook, linked in or twitter.

What about detractors?  There is a fear that people may use your social media pages to badmouth your company.  However, wouldn’t you want to know if people were disgruntled with your business?  And who?  The transparency provided by social media gives you an opportunity to do something about it. 

So, here are 3 good reasons for having a social media presence:

1. Customer service.  You can put in a very cheap customer service solution without great investment in time or money.
2. Transparency.  Keep track of what people are saying about you, which gives you an opportunity to address issues that you may not have even known you had.
3. Advertising.  It’s simple to create a presence and simple to maintain.  You can easily invite customers to follow you and run promotions or release new products.

In larger companies, the question is not whether to use social media, but how to keep track of all the comments posted.  

The good news is that social media can now be integrated with multimedia contact centre systems to capture, manage and deliver social media questions and complaints to the appropriate point managers or customer service staff.  This type of integration ensures your customers know they are being heard, and more importantly, demonstrates their importance by being given timely answers.