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Report Description
Unified Communications (UC) is the convergence of such technologies as instant messaging, e-mail, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), presence and ecommerce in or near real-time. This convergence of technologies enables companies and employees to reduce the lag time between stakeholders such as an agent and a subject matter expert, or an agent and a customer.
In June and July 2008, Aberdeen surveyed over 190 organizations to determine the impact of UC on the contact center. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of respondents indicate that UC has been implemented in their contact center. Moreover, the Aberdeen survey indicates the continued importance of UC in the contact center. An additional 50% of respondents indicated that they are currently evaluating unified communications solutions for their contact center.
Five Compelling Facts from the Research, Providing Actionable Benefits for Readers:
- Best-in-Class companies have a 95% customer satisfaction rate compared to 81% of Industry Average organizations and 61% for Laggard organizations.
- Best-in-Class companies have a 94% customer retention rate compared to 74% of Industry Average organizations and 51% for Laggard organizations.
- Best-in-Class companies have a 14% year-over-year change in customer satisfaction rate compared to a 7% change in year-over-year customer satisfaction for Industry Average organizations and a 0% change for Laggard organizations.
- Best-in-Class companies use 3 Key Peformance Criteria to drive performance: Customer Satisfaction, Customer Retention and Year-over-Year Change in Customer Satisfaction.
- Best-in-Class companies are using unified communications to improve responsiveness, increase team collaboration, increase availability of contact center resources and simplify the customer interaction.
REPORT OUTTAKES
ANALYST QUOTE ¹ In the end the technology is as much about addressing business issues, improving efficiencies and finding specific business processes where unified communications can provide the return on investment; most companies are looking to rationalize an investment in unified communications with existing investment in telephony and other contact center investment.
'Unified Communications is as much about the business and the business process as it is about technology.'
RESEARCH QUOTE ² There is a direct correlation between Best-in-Class companies and their usage of unified communications in the contact center; these companies have a 95% customer satisfaction rate, a 94% customer retention rate and a 14% Year-over-Year change in customer satisfaction.
FAST FACTS/SALES QUOTE ³ Companies looking to implement unified communications in the contact center are expecting to use customer service as a competitive differentiator, increase operational efficiencies, enhance the customer interaction and increase revenue from the contact center.
A minority of customers (23%) indicate they already have implemented some portion of unified communications technologies but an astounding additional 50% indicate they evaluating unified communications.
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