Every once in a while you read or hear about something that just makes you scratch and head and wonder. Last week I read an article in my local newspaper entitled, "Gamer's Town Gets Him Blocked," with the subheading, "Microsoft apologizes for flap over Fort Gay, W.Va." I'm not into gaming and I have no idea why I read this article, but while reading it I realized that this article highlights many of the problems the communications problems that companies today experience, and how unified communications could help.
By now you're wondering, what does gaming in West Virginia have to do with UC?
Here's the article synopsis: Josh Moore of Fort Gay, WV was blocked by Microsoft from using his Xbox Live, because he supposedly "violated the online gaming services code for conduct by publicly declaring he's from Fort Gay--a name the company considers offensive." Microsoft suspended his account, so Moore called Microsoft's contact center to explain that yes, Fort Gay is a real town (not that there's anything wrong with that, for you Seinfeld fans), and no, he's not violating any codes.
The contact center agent was "unreceptive," and all he would say was "I can’t help you," even after Moore suggested the agent do a web search on his zip code to prove that it’s a real town. Ultimately Moore’s complaint made its way to the director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live, who eventually remedied the problem. Explaining where the communication failure occurred, the director noted, "Complaints come to agents with no contextual information, including who the suspected offender is or what games they play. The agent simply looks at the language and determines whether it complies with policy."
The comment "Agents get no contextual information" grabbed my attention. Immediately, I started thinking about all the things that were wrong with this picture and how UC could have helped:
* First, the agent should have been able to simply contact a supervisor using instant messaging to try to get more information on how to handle the situation, rather than simply saying, sorry I can’t help you.
* Next, the agent could have brought a supervisor into the conversation to speak with Moore while he was on the phone. Alternatively, the agent could have used presence and IM to find an "expert" within the organization who could investigate the conduct policy and what really constitutes an offense, rather than simply looking at one word in the name of a town and making a simplistic judgment.
* Perhaps the simplest solution would have been If the agent and Moore had videoconferencing capabilities or document sharing and collaboration capabilities, Moore could have shown the agent validation of his address, such as a utility bill or his driver's license.
Of course, this problem might never have happened if the agent had access to contextual information (remember my previous rant about computer telephony integration?); he would have seen Moore's contact information, including his address and other information, that may have helped the agent solve the problem.
Despite the fact that contact centers provide the ideal use case scenario for UC, most companies have yet to integrate UC into their contact centers. Instead of continuing my rant, I'd like to issue a call to action to contact center managers: Utilize unified communications, including presence, IM, web and/or videoconferencing and collaboration, and expert agent capabilities to help provide first contact resolution and to provide customers with satisfying experiences.
As my UCStrategies colleagues continually suggest, enterprises should begin their UC implementations by focusing on specific use cases and business processes. We also suggest starting small with specific user groups. I encourage enterprises considering making the move to UC to look at their contact centers as the initial use case for trialing and deploying UC. Contact centers provide the perfect business processes to start with--workflows are already carefully defined and understood, which is an important first step for implementing UC.
For companies that want to get started on the road to UC but don't know where to start, I beg of you--start with your contact center! Since the workflows and business processes are already defined, contact centers provide a simpler starting step than more complex use cases, and integrating UC with your contact center will provide better service to your customers--a win-win solution.
