SpeechTEK liveblog/crowdblog via Google Wave

Skype to put on suit and tie with help from Cisco and ShoreTel

Not content with over 500 million users using its voice and video chat, Skype now looks to make inroads into the corporate market and are in talks with Cisco and ShoreTel to sell its software. Why these two? Because their primary focus has been in corporate IP communications. Skype doesn’t want to deal with any TDM baggage often carried by Big Telecom.

The corporate communications market is obviously a very lucrative one. IDC pegs it at $203 billion. Even capturing 1% of that market is quite significant.

According to this BusinessWeek report, there are certainly challenges to come:

Persuading corporations to ditch their traditional carriers won’t be easy. “There are some major roadblocks to growing this in the large enterprise space,” says Jayanth Angl, an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont. Chief among them: giving IT managers more control. In industries such as health care and finance, companies need to track and monitor calls—something Skype doesn’t allow for. Skype also needs to convince potential customers that its service, which is sometimes criticized for poor quality, is reliable and secure enough for important business calls.

Well, that’s on top of some internal challenges, too:

To reorient the company, Chief Executive Officer Josh Silverman has replaced five people on his executive staff this year and cracked down on distracting side projects, which had some employees spending their time building 3D chess software. “Skype is serious about providing our business customers the tools and features that put them in control,” says David Gurle, who left Thomson Reuters in January to run Skype’s business division, where he’s doubling head count, to about 100 people.

Now that Skype is privatized by Silver Lake (eBay sold most of its stake for $2 billion), which interestingly also touts Avaya in its portfolio, it’s time to get serious about business. Yes, no more fooling around with 3D chess software (too bad, I wouldn’t mind seeing what they may have come up with). Skype executives are on a new mission to trim fat and boost sales resources in order to conquer the corporate world.

A conversation with Mike, Tom, and Lucy(Phone)

There are many famous Lucys we’re all quite familiar with. There’s Lucy Ricardo, the main character from I Love Lucy, known for her penchant for getting into trouble. Actresses Lucy Liu (Ally McBeal, Charlie’s Angels) and Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess). The bossy and cynical Lucy van Pelt of the classic comic strip Peanuts, Charlie Brown’s worst enemy on the football field.

It’s not common to find a Lucy in the names of contact center technologies. I know that IVR and voice prompt vendors would personify system voices — referring to “the Sally greeting” or “the Albert on-hold prompt.” A speech-enabled IVR may even introduce itself (himself? herself?) upon answering, “Hello, I am Alfred. How may I assist you?” but not many systems do.

The personification of technology seems a natural way to reach the widest spectrum of users from a branding as well as usability perspective. Score one for LucyPhone.

I’d stumbled upon this service several days ago, complete with a website and iPhone app (Android and Blackberry versions to come soon) to save you time by staying in queue for you. Yes, no more annoying ads, jittery prompts, and music aimed at hypnotizing on-hold callers! Thank God for Lucy and her tremendous patience…

When you first use the service, you’ll hear a greeting from Lucy, then it’s just pressing a button and waiting for her to call you back once an agent is reached. It’s not a new technology by any means as virtual queuing and callback features have existed for years in the contact center. However, how many contact centers have implemented this? Sadly, not a lot.

And if the number of tweets and Facebook fans is an indication of how much people love Lucy, then contact centers ought to take note. This is a feature that your customers want because nobody likes waiting in line — even if it’s a virtual line, complete with soothing music and calming voices. In essence, customers want contact centers to respect their time.

Surprisingly, founders Mike and Tom Oristian do not come from a contact center technology background. (I shouldn’t be shocked, which contact center developer uses Rails?!) They saw a big opportunity to empower the customer to drive increased customer satisfaction, instead of leaving it to the companies to decide whether to offer a callback feature. So far it’s working well as loyal users have entered hundreds of company toll-free numbers into LucyPhone’s website. (In fact, just the other day I found the unpublished toll-free number of a major online company through LucyPhone’s site. Crowdsourcing is a beautiful thing.)

Score two for LucyPhone.

According to the Oristians, the company has less than 10 people and the service is run on redundant cloud servers. The business model is to offer LucyPhone as SaaS (hmmm, “Sassy Lucy”? I like it already) in order to lower cost and simplify integration. The company is actively looking into partnering with Big Telecom to tackle the integration challenges of bringing this directly into the contact centers.

Perhaps with the popularity of SIP this won’t pose as much of a challenge as pre-SIP days. LucyPhone’s enterprise and consumer offerings will work with SIP for the most cost effective integration path. I remember a long time ago having to implement a similar feature but only using proprietary Nortel technology. The solution (or hack) consisted of generating “fake” calls using phantom PBX ports once the customer chooses the callback option, thereby tricking the CTI software into thinking these are real calls in queue, then once such a call hits the agent desktop with a screen-pop, use the softphone to initiate a call to the customer callback number. Not very pretty at all…

I won’t be surprised to see similar hacks in place today to demonstrate virtual queuing and callback. As somebody who knows a thing or two about this technology, I’m glad that LucyPhone offers another option for a contact center to implement this highly desired feature.

Don’t let social media distract your contact center

Is social media important? Yes.

Does your contact center need it? Not necessarily.

Here’s the hard truth: Your contact center still has plenty of room for improvement without even throwing social media into the mix. The IVR menu structure could be tweaked. Response from the backend data dip could be optimized. Speech applications need tuning. Staffing issues need resolution. Quality monitoring is inconsistent. Incorrect screen-pops are becoming a menace. Business intelligence is fast becoming an oxymoron. Etc.

So why are you worrying about social media?

Just because industry analysts and researchers say so? People like Zeus Kerravala of The Yankee Group cannot wait for your company to “get on board with social media,” but in this case the research was tied to Siemens Enterprise, which of course has an interest in selling as many of their social media-capable products as possible. I understand that this is part of the job description and have nothing but respect for guys like Mr. Kerravala, but here is my humble opinion on the whole matter.

Of course, the whole social media craze is spreading like wildfire — much like VOIP, I dare say — but it’s starting to sound like a WMD, or Weapon of Mass Distraction, to contact center operations. There. I’ve said it. Usage of Facebook and Twitter has increased dramatically, but trust me, not a whole lot of these interactions are about business interactions. Most of the time we’re commenting on a friend’s vacation pictures from Mexico (“Awww, so cuuuuuute!”) or tweeting about celebrity gossip (“LiLo gets only 90 days in jail?! #justicefail”). Don’t believe me? Go to Twitter’s website at any time and look at the trending topics. Rarely you’ll find anything relevant to business (e.g. company name, business terms, business buzzwords) on the list… Need more evidence? Listen in on your call recordings and find out what percentage of callers complain about you guys not using social media.

Yes, go ahead and take that deep breath. Do you feel less anxious now?

During my attendance of VoiceCon and ACCE a good portion of workshops and keynotes were dedicated to social media topics. Social media was billed as the next wave of customer engagement and interaction. UC systems, CRM systems, and CTI systems will all need to integrate with social media or risk being marginalized. Contact centers better adopt social media or risk being blamed for trashing a company brand. I saw supervisors under tremendous pressure to learn, devise, and execute a social media plan that I was worried about their health.

Enough already. It’s not the end of the world if your contact center lives in a time warp of 90s technology. My Mom thinks her Luxo-like iMac is the best thing since sliced bread. As long as the technology is doing its job by enabling great customer service to be provided — and need I remind you of the human factor in this equation — then there’s no rush to embrace the buzz of the day.

It would be wise to take a step back and take a hard look at your contact center. I can assure you there will be room for improvement without even mentioning the phrase “social media.”

Countdown to SpeechTEK (and CRM Evolution)

As animal herds in Africa are in search of greener pastures and water sources during the summer months, there’s also another migration to witness. However, this trek occurs in North America.

New York City, to be precise.

Droves of contact center and CRM industry analysts, vendors, executives, freelancers, and geeks converge at Times Square to satiate their thirst for neon lights, gigantic billboards, delicious foods, Broadway shows, and endless merchandising. That is, if the boss isn’t around.

Otherwise, it’s better to show up at the Marriott Marquis for the annual SpeechTEK and CRM Evolution conference. Learn a few things about speech analytics, VUI design, and the latest in speech technology. Ponder upon the reason why the majority of contact centers aren’t speech-enabled. Find words to convince the boss on purchasing and implementing speech technology. Confront speech vendors on why their implementation at your call center still sucked.

But what about CRM Evolution, the twin sister of SpeechTEK?

Do you really want to know? I can summarize it in two words: social media. CRM has evolved, and SCRM (Social CRM) is the new buzzword. Remember to keep tabs on how many times you hear “SCRM” during the conference. You might get tired of hearing it after the first day…

Yours truly will be among the geek bloggers attending this event starting Monday, August 2. Hit me up (via social media or leave a comment) if you’d like to have a beer or meal together while in the Big Apple. I may treat, depending on the outcome of this experiment…