Hot Communications Trends in 2010 — Avaya's Predictions

As we move into a new decade, below you'll find the top ten communications trends that Avaya (http://www.avaya.com/) expects to see bloom across all regions. 2009 saw an increase in flexible working, which drove companies towards equally flexible communications systems. Also apparent in 2009 was the beginning of a drive to bring social media into the contact centers of companies both large and small to increase customer convenience. As a result of economic conditions many companies also sought speedy deployment of converged communications in search of faster return-on-investment (RoI). As we move into 2010 and beyond, Avaya's “top 10” communications trends are:

1. Proactive customer communications will enjoy a resurgence in popularity: The falling cost and increasing sophistication of contact centre communications technologies such as voice and speech recognition systems, live and virtual agents, SMS, email, presence, call routing, etc. will allow businesses to deploy strongly beneficial outbound contact centre applications.  Not only will this increase customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, it will open the door for businesses to up- and cross-sell at the customers' invitation.

2. As the lines between devices and media continue to erode, analysis of employee communications will give companies greater flexibility at all levels: Businesses will follow all privacy standards, but also will increasingly track the phone calls, instant messages and e-mails of their employees to better predict work needs and behaviors. To meet that need, the communications industry will provide greater consistency across multimodal interfaces, whether through iPhones, standard telephones or the Web — and managing across on local servers and datamarts as well as “in the Cloud”.

3. Social media will revitalize the contact centre: Customers will initiate more company interactions via social media tools like Facebook.  Any consumer with a laptop, desktop or Web phone will have richer, multimedia experiences with contact centre representatives.  Conversely, more businesses will embrace mining of the social network, capturing new opportunities to increase customer loyalty and brand preference by providing better service, addressing issues more swiftly and satisfactorily, and through sales promotion.

4. Corporate spend on mobile phone communications will be tamed: SIP-enabled environments will control mobile phone expenses by consolidating trunk lines and using the corporate IP network to route long-distance and international mobile phone calls at the cost of local calls, drastically cutting roaming charges and other fees.

5. Contact centers will utilize real-time analytics and iterative process re-engineering, making the business more agile: By tracking customer interactions across a range of media, contact centre representatives will be able to make real-time decisions, allowing them to adapt solutions to trends.  This will cover all in- and out-bound communications, including dialogue in self-service applications and instantaneous coaching of call centre agents.

6. Flexible working practices will soar, driven predominantly by business need: As the global economy continues to stutter back to life, businesses are turning increasingly to alternative working practices and methods of remuneration to help them flex with employment demands that often change rapidly and unpredictably.  The possibility of hiring workers part time at short notice, and without provisioning offices space, will be irresistible.  Retired employees in particular may find a second working life as businesses tap into their experience and availability to increase business agility and customer service as the downturn ends.

7. Unified communications will shift to a three-click experience, massively bolstering adoption rates: UC has labored under a variety of models, which has led to slower-than-expected adoption.  In the coming year, with SIP and session management, companies will build, deploy and support applications much more easily. In three clicks, and in three seconds or under, workers will have access to many more resources and applications — using almost any device they choose.

8. The first true multivendor communications networks will appear: With ongoing consolidation of key industries, greater numbers of businesses will have increasingly complex communications infrastructures and applications provided by a wide variety of vendors — and can't easily transition their networks to meet the needs of one vendor alone. SIP-enabled communications will help to ensure disparate products from different vendors will effectively work together. Communications will truly become brand-agnostic.

9. Communications overload will cease to be a problem: At a time when many businesses are struggling with the volume and breadth of communications systems that need to be managed, new technologies will help reign in the complexities to bring greater levels of operational and cost control.

10. Contact centre queues will be made to work for the company: Businesses will aggressively find ways to make every aspect of their clients' interaction more productive in the call centre environment. A major part of this will be to make richer on-hold experiences the norm: customers will have multiple options for using on-hold time, including ways to move transactions forward before the call centre representative arrives. The result will be greater call centre productivity and improved customer satisfaction.

Jangoo Dalal, managing director, Avaya India