ADTRAN Blog

• Unified Communications

by Jon Arnold

March 9, 2012

So, what does customer support have to do with UC, and why should IT be thinking about this? I briefly touched on that in my last post, with the basic suggestion that customer support is not usually part of the equation with free and OTT services. By thinking of end users as customers, IT is in a position to provide that via their technical support capabilities. The thinking is to provide this as another reason for end users to use UC as extensively as possible; and by extension, reduce/minimize their use of free and OTT for work activities.

Of course, IT will have varying degrees of technical support resources – or even none at all – and there may even be zero inclination to extend that to UC. Fair enough, but just remember that end users will follow the path of least resistance, especially if they don’t see value in what the default option – UC – has to offer. For those who have experienced problems with OTT or free services, they will definitely see value in having some level of support from IT for UC applications.

For this post, I want to expand the range of options beyond what IT is willing/able to provide themselves to support end users with UC. In my last post, I suggested that vendors could play a role here – either enhancing IT’s resources for end users, or even offering a direct form of support of their own. In either case, here are three ways that vendors can help IT support their UC deployments.

1. Provide dedicated live agents. This would probably be the highest form of support, but would offer a real-time, high-touch resource for end users to tap. For major UC deployments, the vendor may consider assigning dedicated agents who have an in-depth knowledge of the overall environment. Smaller scale customers could be well served with generalists who know the product set very well and could address end user queries across a range of businesses.
2. Provide online resources for self-service needs. Most vendors have variations of this already: tutorials, FAQs, webinars, white papers, tips, best practices, etc. However, this could be enhanced or customized for specific customers, perhaps with a chat service, a search feature with keywords specific to the customer’s business, or even have a skin for the website that is branded for the customer.
3. Host user groups. Again, this is a widely used method to build community, but vendors could add value in distinct ways. They could host a user group for end users at a specific company, where employees can help each other with UC questions, which would also take some pressure off of IT. Thinking more broadly, the vendor could also set up user groups across their UC customer base, allowing employees from one company to learn or share best practices with employees in other companies using the same applications.

These are just kernels of approaches that vendors could take to support your end users as well as maximize the utility of their UC solution. You may rightly argue that vendors don’t feel a need to take on this role, and that it’s better covered by the resellers/integrators or the customers themselves. True enough, but if end users don’t use the features, and they keep migrating to free and OTT, UC’s value proposition will diminish over time. Active engagement and support is the best way to mitigate that, and for my money, these examples have a lot of merit. Could you see these working for you?

Tags: Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

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• Unified Communications

by Jon Arnold

March 6, 2012

My last post focused on the idea of using incentives or rewards as a way to keep end users bound closer to your UC platform. Free and OTT services have natural appeal, but they can quickly undermine your efforts to get UC adopted across the organization.

I’ve had some dialog with readers about this, and clearly, rewards can cut both ways. As a rule of thumb, this works best when trying to get people to do something they normally wouldn’t do, especially if you’re trying to change a habit or establish a new one. Short term, the results can be great, but once people are conditioned to incentives, it’s hard to sustain the desired behavior without more of the same. At that point, it’s really a job for Marketing and not IT, and a whole other realm of complexity.

Nobody really wants to go there, but IT at least needs to be thinking about things like this. There’s a need to engage end users for them to adopt UC, and it simply won’t be enough to just say that UC has launched. They need to see a practical value and make an emotional connection with UC. The latter can take many forms, such as how it makes their jobs easier, how it helps them share with others, how it makes technology easier – and more fun – to use.

As mentioned in my last post, I can’t tell you what those incentives need to be, but with some creativity, you can certainly use that as one tool in your overall plan to get them engaged with UC. Free and OTT do have an advantage in terms of making an emotional connection with end users (they’re fun!), and that will be pretty hard for IT to counter directly. However, as with all things IP, there’s a lot of flexibility with UC, and you need to be open to trying new things. Doing the same-old won’t get the job done.

Along those lines, here’s something else to consider – customer support. As a matter of course, you need to provide this for UC. There will always be issues around updates, new applications, integrating UC with various devices, security, etc. Not to mention UC 101 questions around the basics of chat, presence, video, file sharing, etc.

Of course, employees aren’t customers per se, but IT needs to think of them as such. When it comes to UC, end users do have alternatives for several elements in the form of OTT and free, and having choice is a pretty key attribute of being a customer. In that regard, “customer service” can be a differentiator for IT. I’m not saying you need to provide a world class contact center experience, but this is not a strong suit for free and OTT services. When your Skype session suddenly drops and you lose an hour’s worth of work, there’s nobody to call.

To the extent IT is willing/able to support end users with UC, this should be positioned as a value-add employees don’t get with free or OTT. Again, there’s an emotional element – peace of mind – that drives behavior, and this is one that IT can use to its advantage with UC. Ultimately, you want employees to think twice about using OTT and free for work, since they’re basically on their own. Within the LAN-based realm of UCC, they have someone to call, and if that’s communicated clearly, it should resonate.
If this approach holds interest for IT, but resources are really stretched, there’s no reason why you couldn’t lean a bit on your UC vendor. Perhaps they could play a role here – after all, it’s their UC platform you’re trying to deploy. Are you willing to give that a shot?

Tags: Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

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• Unified Communications

by Jon Arnold

February 29, 2012

Lately I’ve been advocating practicing “safe UC” as a hook to get employees to make full use of the LAN-based tools available to them. Anything they can do that’s work-related via OTT or free channels, they should be able to do using UC, but in a safer, more secure, more private environment.

This seems like a reasonable position, but human nature is often ruled by emotion rather than reason. Businesses are generally rational entities, and the world of IT is governed almost entirely by logic, rules and policies. Getting employees to fall into line this way can work to a point, but if it goes too far, you pay the price in terms of morale, retention, innovation, productivity, etc.

As such, businesses must balance a fine line between having enough rules for the organization to be effective and making employees feel valued as individuals. I could easily spin off into variations along the capitalism-socialism spectrum, but the main idea is that both needs are important for sustained success.

So, what does this have to do with UC? Not that much, but it has a lot to do with OTT and free services. Aside from the fact that their appeal is highly emotional, these offerings run totally against the enterprise ethic as they function largely outside the control of IT, and do not readily conform to rules or policies. Only the most sophisticated IT shop can truly control these services, so for everybody else, there has to be some give and take here.

As if it’s not enough, the seductiveness of employee-owned smartphones and tablets makes these services impossible to resist, not to mention being accessible anywhere, anytime. You might have just done a double-take here, since this sounds very familiar – isn’t this exactly the promise of UC? Of course it is, but IT can only deliver it within their scope of influence – over the LAN. As I’ve said previously, IT can’t treat this as a competition – UC versus free/OTT – that’s a losing proposition.

Instead, IT needs to adopt other approaches, such as “safe UC”. This is something that employees will understand, and hopefully this form of moral suasion will have the desired result. Fair enough, but how can you extend this into a lasting form of behavioral change? How about a reward program? This may seem gimmicky, but depending on how big of an issue this is, an incentive-based response might be more effective.

This really is no different than any other situation where you want a group to behave in a certain manner. Voluntary appeals will usually work with good souls, but the rest of us usually need something more. Short of a forced, involuntary decree, the best results come when employees buy into what you’re selling. If you cannot reach them with reasonable appeals, taking a step down to connect with their primal instincts just might do the job.

I’m not here to scope out what your incentives or rewards should be – and they shouldn’t be monetary. You’ll never get budget for that anyway, but you do have other forms of currency, namely bandwidth and the potential to provide super-cool applications. The details are less important than the concept – all I’m trying to say here is that with a bit of imagination, incentives could be developed to wean employees off of free/OTT, at least for business purposes. When it comes to justifying the investment in UC, you need end users more than they need you, and sometimes you just have to think a bit differently. Can you see trying this?

Tags: Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

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• Unified Communications

by Jon Arnold

February 23, 2012

This topic is a logical follow-up to my last post about network security and the safety of your data. With heightened concerns now about personal privacy on massively popular sites like Facebook, skepticism is on the rise about what we put out there and how it’s being used.

So, what does this have to do with UC? As you should know, my recent focus here on the ADTRAN UC blog has been OTT and free services. I believe they have a lot to do with how UC ends up being adopted, and if IT doesn’t manage this proactively, they could end up watching on the sidelines.

In this regard, the mantra of being a “trusted partner” for anything related to UC should carry weight, but this won’t happen by itself. By default, IT has this status for LAN-based communication, but since this is about work – and not play – end users generally don’t think that way. Before you conclude this to be a non-issue, consider the converse situation end users face all day long from the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, etc. In one form or another, these platforms are actively running on your employee’s personal devices, often 24/7. Many are also using them on the desktop – running over your network and consuming your bandwidth.

I’m just scratching the surface here, but am sure you can see how this quickly gets complicated. Even free services come with a price, and increasingly privacy is becoming one form of this virtual currency. To whatever degree end users feel they are being compromised by OTT or free services, your network starts to look like a safe haven in comparison. At work, employees don’t have an issue over your access to the company directory – it’s not theirs, and everyone needs it to communicate. That’s a very different relationship between host and end user than with any of the other platforms cited earlier.

My position is that employees need to understand this and think of IT the way they think about free and OTT. This may seem like a stretch, but as noted in earlier posts, you need to own this community to get full value from UC. Otherwise, they will continue to unwittingly use these services for applications that you really want them using on your UC platform.

Of course, there is a lot of fluidity to apps like text, IM, voice, etc., and end users will often use the device and platform that is most convenient in the moment. That may work well for them, but not for IT, especially if you’re trying to ramp up adoption of UC. They don’t see this as making a choice and thinking about what’s best for the business – but it means the world to IT.

However, if you can position UC as being the safe choice, and get them to see how OTT and free alternatives are less safe – or even risky, you at least have a shot at changing their behavior. Using those tools is perfectly fine for social communication, but for work, UC is always the safest way to go. You know that, but employees probably don’t.

What next? Well, your homework is to think about ways to articulate your messaging about this. Safety matters for UC, and you have the most trusted network available for employees. How would you convey these ideas in words that will resonate with your employees?

Tags: Jon Arnold, Unified Communications

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