Video Communication: Crucial Connectivity in Troubled Times

Enghouse VP elaborates on the vital role of UC and video in facilitating vital interaction

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Published: March 26, 2020

Maya Middlemiss

At a time of few certainties, it is clear that the worlds of communication and commerce as we know them are being changed beyond all recognition. While responding effectively to the fast-moving challenges of the health crisis dominates the business agenda right now, strategic decision-makers are looking to the future, a future in which digital communication and collaboration will play an increasingly vital role.

Jeremy Payne latest
Jeremy Payne

I sat down (virtually) to discuss this with Jeremy Payne, Group VP Marketing & Alliances at Enghouse, and explore the way that video communication in particular is coming to the fore in unanticipated ways.

Enghouse’s white label video platform is already deployed in a number of non-traditional B2C settings, where its use is rapidly expanding, to maintain the trust of customers at a time of heightened anxiety — and reduced physical contact.

Circumstances drive new adoption

“It’s not just business, but healthcare and a whole bunch of other things. Education is another one, and personal banking,” explained Payne. All of these sectors are being forced to embrace the potential of video calling, and realising unexpected benefits:

“The technology was there before, but there was a cultural resistance or barrier, people didn’t really want to use video technology — they wanted to go in and see a doctor in surgery, because that’s what they’ve always done”

“Whereas now this external, unplanned thing has happened, people are now forced to use that technology and approach and the world will never be the same again — because it’s far more efficient and effective for rather than a doctor doing outpatient visits, to be sat in a surgery, and get through 10 patients in the time previously taken for one.”

Customer service and sales are transformed

It’s the same for businesses, who may have a raft of expensive and skilled sales people, typically, “buying bankers lunches and trying to sell them software. And most of those guys are now being told to work from home.”

“So in three months time, somebody’s going to say, do we really need these kinds of people, would be better off with people that are better off doing stuff over the phone/laptop? And maybe that’s a slightly different skillset. Then somebody’s going to say, maybe we don’t really need this really big office any more…”

Payne concedes that face to face sales encounters will always have a role to play, perhaps on a spacious golf course somewhere, but that increasingly sales interactions will move to virtualised contact centres for the main part. And those who are ahead of the curve in cloud adoption will be advantaged, as in any unexpected situation.

“Enghouse has previously created advice to help ‘weatherproof your contact centre’ — anticipating that one day in the UK when it snows really badly, and Heathrow airport shuts, the whole news is covered with ‘Oh my god, how are we going to cope…?’ What ends up happening is contact centres suddenly see a massive spike in demand, because everyone’s phoning up saying, ‘my Tesco delivery hasn’t turned up, when am I going to get my bread…?’

The future is distributed, digital, and video

“Having that burst capacity where you can rapidly virtualise and upscale your business is has always been there as a competitive advantage, but the difference was that the snowstorm would last a day -and then it would go back to normal.” Payne reflected.

With the present combination of earthquake, hurricane and tornado set for the long haul, decoupling your contact centre and your entire sales process from physical locations increasingly makes sense as a long-term strategy, and while little else is certain about the long-term future of business and the economy right now, the fact is there will always be winners and losers — and winners will be those who manage to stay connected.

“This is an external event that nobody planned, but it is going to change the way things work profoundly”, he concluded

“The longer this goes on, the more pronounced and more radical the shift in the way businesses do business will be…”

 

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