"Unified Communications is about unifying all communication channels at the personal and organizational levels to communicate more effectively"

By Ari Sonesh, CEO -  Recently there has been lot of talk in the industry about Unified Communications, which is a very broad term related to the current revolution in communication technology.  A specialized subset of this term is Unified Customer Communications, which refers to the technology that CosmoCom invented and patented in 1996.   A quick search on Google shows that CosmoCom also invented the phrase Unified Customer Communications, essentially defining a new industry to come.  

By 2000, we had already claimed leadership in this space and were promoting the concept in our Unity is Beautiful advertising campaign.  But our vision of unity is reflected in the very name of the company.  Cosmos means an orderly, systemic Universe.  It is derived from the Greek word meaning everything.   The word Unity means undivided or unbroken completeness.   Cosmos and Unity are very similar in meaning.   And, of course the Com in CosmoCom stands for Communications.  In other words, CosmoCom means Unified Communications.  To further emphasize the point, we named our product CosmoCall Universe.

In response to the recent industry buzz about Unified Communications, I would like to compare and contrast this term with the more specialized term Unified Customer Communications.    In exploring these terms, we will be exploring how the disruptive technology VOIP and the convergence of voice and data networks into one IP network are changing the ways we will all communicate, and especially the ways we will communicate with our customers.

Unified Communications is about unifying all communication channels at the personal and organizational levels to communicate more effectively.   It refers to the unification of all the forms of voice communication, such as fixed and mobile phones, video, chat, email, voicemail, Fax, SMS, and collaboration tools such as conferencing and screen sharing.  It also implies unifying the communication channel itself with other information, such as caller identity, caller state or presence, caller location, etc.

Unified Customer Communications is about systematically offering unified communications to an organization's customers, so that they may interact with it more effectively and efficiently, creating customer satisfaction and loyalty, growing revenue, and reducing costs.   Unified Customer Communications includes Unified Communications, plus facilities such as  Automatic Call Distribution, Queuing, Self Help  IVR and IVVR (Interactive Voice and Video response),  Unified Recording (recording of all the channels),  Unified Reporting , and Unified Management and Supervision -- all focused on the customer. 

But it's really much more about the process than the technology.   Unified Customer Communications is unifying and streamlining the business process across all communication channels and across all locations, all the way to the individual employee.  Implementing it unifies the organization's workforce, goes beyond the boundaries of the call center to create informal call centers or, in other words, a true virtual call center.   Every employee can and should be part of the Unified Customer Service process.  

Finally, it's about a Unified Customer Experience, in which customers can select any communication channel and receive the same quality of service, supported by the same process, by people with access to the same information, including the history of previous communication sessions with that customer via any and all channels.  

 Let's explore in more detail what it takes to create Unified Customer Communications:

Unified Queue: When customers call using any of the channels, they don't know specifically who they want or need to reach.  An ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) is needed to connect the customer with the right person in the organization.   To support unified customer communications, a new kind of ACD is needed, an ACD that supports Unified Queue, yet another innovation that came from CosmoCom. 

Unified Customer Information Access: An employee that communicates with a customer needs to have all the customer's information and interaction history at his fingertips.  This is information is fetched from a database (e.g. a CRM), actually, in most cases, from several databases.  Unified Customer Communication must support Unified Information Access to all the relevant database across all channels, with a unified view.  This capability is one of the hallmarks of our technology supported by facilities such as CosmoConnector,  which enables multiple screen pops. and  our  many XML based APIs to integrate with an organization's IT infrastructure.

Unified Self Help:  IVR and IVVR (IVR + Video) are good example of unified self help across communication channels.   With our recent introduction of Video to IVR, customers can now call using their mobile video-capable telephones or other video terminals and expect the same functionality they would get with voice, but with the added efficiency of video to see selection choices instead of just hearing them, and to receive information visually instead of just hearing it.   All this is supported in a unified way by our graphical process design tool CosmoDesigner.

Unified Agent Client:   Communication is also unified for the Customer Service Representative (CSR), also known as Agent or Advisor.  This requires a unified agent client that supports all the channels (voice, video, chat, email, voicemail, fax, etc.), collaboration, unified access to information, and is truly universal and accessible everywhere.   With our introduction of the Agent Web Services and a Web-based agent client, a CSR and a Supervisor can now work from any device, including mobile devices that support a web browser.  Organizations can benefit from installing the Unified Agent Client on every desktop and notebook in the organization. 

Unified Supervision:  To ensure quality customer service, the entire process has to be supervised. With the advent of unified communications, supervisors need unified access to agents and data across all channels and locations.   This means that supervisory tool such as monitoring, whispering, real time views, historical reports, and recording facilities need to be unified across all the channel and locations.  

Unified Administration:  Many people don't realize the huge cost of provisioning and administering IT systems.  Unified Administration makes Unified Communications sensible and manageable.   Unified Administration must use and integrate with corporate directory services such as Active Directory or LDAP.  In CosmoCall Universe, all facilities are defined via the universal access of the web, universally across all the channels and location.  Integration with other provisioning systems is also supported.

Unified Applications Infrastructure:   To make Unified Customer Communication cost effective, requires unified infrastructure for all the applications (in this case, all the call centers) that an organization may need.   Unification supports agility, enabling the organization to roll out new applications (i.e. new call centers) fast.   When technology is location-independent, relocation is not an issue.   Furthermore, an contact center can now include its own outsourcers, truly unifying the customer service environment.   In CosmoCall Universe, we support location-independence, multi-tenancy, and self provisioning tools creating any number of autonomous and secure virtual call centers within one platform.  This capability is the most important differentiator of CosmoCom vs. all other vendors.