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Video's Ongoing Search for Relevance in the Contact Center

I'm no contact center guru. I don't play one on TV. But occasionally I pretend to know a thing or two about the topic when wearing my blogger hat. And, as I don that hat today, I'd like to offer some thoughts about video-enabled contact centers. It's something that we're hearing more about lately, thanks to zealous marketing from a major consumer brand, a new use case for a major UC client, and an emerging comms standard--the full impact of which we're all still trying to wrap our minds around. Let's look at each in turn and explore their potential to realize that ever-elusive dream of pervasive use of video conferencing within contact centers.

Mayday
Kindle Fire HDX's Mayday button is the most innovative implementation of video-enabled contact centers we've seen in years. The fact that the capability is built into the tablet's software adds to its appeal since it evidences renewed interest in video-enabled contact centers from a major consumer brand.

Amazon has promised that within 15 seconds of pressing the Mayday button, users will have a live agent helping them resolve whatever difficulty they're having with their device. This not only highlights Amazon's willingness to buy and implement the video technology for customer service, but also to change contact center operations so that agents qualified to interact with customers over video are available when needed. It's no wonder that marketers from all corners of the contact center solutions market have been latching on to Mayday as evidence of the value of video communications between contact center agent and buyer.

But is it really? Songs of praise for Mayday regularly omit that it's not a two-way video conference. I get to see the agent, but they get no video feed from me. This is quite different from video-enabled contact center use cases we've seen in the past, which tend to assume it's two-way video that we're talking about.

More importantly, when it comes to Mayday and the Kindle, there isn't really any particular value in my ability to see the agent. Rather, the value is in the agent's ability to view my Kindle's screen, identify what my problem is, draw notations on the screen for me to follow, and otherwise remotely control the device to resolve whatever problem I'm having with it. There's loads of value in that.

Value for whom? Tablet, laptop, PC, DVR, gaming console, smart TV, and smart phone manufacturers, application developers, OTT service providers--pretty much any business whose product involves its customers staring at a screen that's connected to the Internet. Each could vastly improve my experience as a customer service recipient by being able to see what idiot thing I'm doing with their product and demonstrate--not just verbally explain--how to do it right. And they could likely close tickets much faster since they're seeing what's going on with my device rather than listening to me struggle to explain it. But is it helpful to actually see the agent's face as he or she helps me with any of this? Not so much.

Jabber Guest
But what if the business's product isn't delivered on a screen that can be controlled remotely? What if you're Boca Bikes, the local shop that Cisco plugged in its Jabber Guest demo at a recent partner conference? Jabber Guest is version of Cisco's Jabber UC client that for now is delivered as a browser plugin. But WebRTC APIs are in the software and, Cisco says, it will be able to launch plugin-less voice and video sessions later when the WebRTC standard and technology are a bit more mature.

Jabber Guest isn't specifically for customer support environments. I can stick a link in an email message, and when you click on it the plugin installs and you're plopped into a conference with me from your browser. Other use cases that Cisco says field-trial customers have deployed: Communications between manufacturers and their dealers, meetings between university professors, guest lectures from professors at other campuses. But many other use cases center around customer support.

Which brings us back to Boca Bikes. At the conference, the demo guy used Jabber Guest to establish a two-way video conference with a customer. Video lets the customer, for instance, show the shop's technician some damage to his bicycle, and the tech can use the video feed to demonstrate the repair, or show new products, or whatever.

It's not really the best example in the world. I mean, if my bike is busted and I'm going to ask the local shop for help, I'm going to bring it in. No need to muck about with a video conference. And a small business like a bike shop isn't going to have a formal contact center or Expressway or UC Manager or the rest of the Cisco stuff a company needs to make Jabber Guest work. So this isn't really an example of video usage in the contact center. Something like Google Helpouts would probably make more sense for a small business without a formal contact center and without buckets of money to throw at customer service improvements.

But of course I've created a straw man here. Cisco's point is that there are lots of businesses where two-way video would be beneficial in customer support situations. Someone at Ikea, for instance, can look at how I screwed up assembling the bookshelves I just bought and show me how to put them together right. Something like that. There's no reason why Cisco Jabber Guest along with Cisco Contact Center Enterprise couldn't be deployed to make video calls a more widely used channel into contact centers.

WebRTC
And finally WebRTC. "WebRTC will revolutionize the contact center" articles are legion out there. I agree that WebRTC will impact the contact center, introducing a new channel through which agents interact with customers. Or rather, it's an old channel--voice or video--that's launched from a browser rather than from a phone, or a browser with a plugin that enables video conferencing.

I think that the fact that with WebRTC end users don't need to install plug-ins is by and large unimportant, particularly in a customer support situation. If someone has enough Web savvy to open a communications channel to a contact center agent from a browser, he or she won't be daunted by downloading an auto-installing plugin.

What will be more important is the relative ease with which WebRTC apps can be written. The big promise of WebRTC is allowing developers with no particular expertise in realtime comms to set up websites that are fully capable of supporting browser-based voice and video communications. And it frees developers already delivering web-based realtime comms from the tyranny of Flash, the de facto technology for browser-based video chat. Flash was never really intended for two-way communications, much less for video conferencing. It is not particularly friendly for developers, its video quality is generally poor, and Apple iOS not supporting it has been problematic. But Flash was better than anything else...until WebRTC came along.

More important still is the expected ubiquity of WebRTC apps. Assuming Microsoft and Apple don't rain on Google's parade, WebRTC could make browser-enabled video chat widely available in conferencing services, Skype alternatives, distance learning, telemedicine, gaming, social networking, and other apps readily available to consumers. This could in turn increase consumers' comfort with using video communication in their day-to-day lives, which in turn could drive customers' confidence in using video conferencing with contact center agents. I think it's this--consumers' comfort and use cases where video is actually needed, not a new enabling technology or UC client or tablet button--that's more responsible for holding back video conferencing use in customer service.

That, at least, was the experience at Land's End, which launched video chat as a customer service option to much fanfare, then quietly pulled the plug on it because "it did not take off." I've got a feeling that iRobot and other video-enabled contact center pioneers with apparently defunct video chat customer support services experienced something similar. Could widespread use of WebRTC apps increase people's comfort with video communications in ways that Skype, Facetime, and Hangouts have not? I'm skeptical, but we'll see.

Not just about tech
Circling back to Mayday, Amazon is promising to get a trained agent on a video call within 15 seconds of a customer hitting the Mayday button--and not just any trained agent but one that's presentable in front of a camera and comfortable interacting with people they can hear but not actually see. To accomplish this, the company must have made a significant investment in its contact center. This investment wasn't simply in the underlying technology that enables video calls, but in making sure Amazon contact centers have enough personnel to answer Mayday calls 24/7; in call routing software that speeds callers to Mayday-qualified agents; in WFO software that makes sure those Mayday-qualified agents stay busy with other stuff when there are no video callers in their 15-second queues.

At least I assume Amazon made all those investments. I just made all that up since I haven't actually seen an article detailing all Amazon did to make Mayday possible. My point is that contact centers implementing video aren't just investing in video technology. Money needs to be spent on a lot of other things, including personnel and training. And unless those investments ultimately result in either a cost savings or more sales, then I find it unlikely that contact center operators will flock to video.

So what the contact center industry needs isn't new video conferencing solutions. It needs use cases that show a demonstrable ROI. But I fear this will be as elusive as measuring UC's impact on end user productivity--that is, it will further delay companies already reluctant to make major investments in their contact centers, keeping them from implementing video-enabled customer service any time soon.

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