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A perfect match Will integrating social media applications with unified communications technology help this underused corporate communication tool achieve its full potential?
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nified Communications (UC) have been around for some time now and although many businesses have been deploying the technology for well over a decade, many observers feel that we are only just scratching the surface of UC capabilities. The idea behind UC has always been to simplify and seamlessly integrate all forms of real-time communications – from instant messaging (chat), presence information, and telephony (including IP telephony), to video conferencing, call control and speech recognition – with non-real-time communications – voicemail, email, sms, and fax – in order to optimise business processes and reduce response time, manage flows, and eliminate device and media dependencies. Whilst there has been success in the domain of UC, it is generally understood that most businesses are not yet capitalising on the sophistication that the technology can offer. There has always been a clear vision of what UC was designed to do: fi rstly, an increase in individual productivity should lead to an increase in workgroup productivity; secondly communications-enabled workgroup processes will evolve and ultimately, the enterprise should be transformed. However, whilst the potential collaboration benefits are clear, UC has long been over-hyped and underutilised, so this vision has not yet come to fruition. And since social media made an appearance on the information superhighway, UC has become slightly over-
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shadowed. Social media is seemingly able to meet the objectives that UC set out to achieve – enabling new ways to collaborate, improving products and services, increasing sales, crowdsourcing product development, and virtualising and globalising business – in a way that people can actually identify with. Many companies, however, are still unsure of how to best utilise social media in order to benefit their business. For a number of enterprises, social media is still seen as purely another marketing medium for generating leads, which is where the mistake occurs. Only once companies realise that social media can be employed as a very effective conduit for customer communications, will they be able to see the true benefits of integrating social media with unified communications. These benefits are clearly outlined in a recent Yankee Group whitepaper, which explores how social media, combined with customer service and other revenue-generating initiatives, helps make the relationship between a company and its customers more effective for both. The report highlights the fact that the recent evolution of communication channels means that businesses must understand that social media is no longer just about chats, tweets and Facebook pages; it’s about the blending of immediate information anytime from a trusted community. The behaviour of new, socially connected consumers is changing the face of business interactions on an
“Only once companies realise that social media can be employed as a very effective conduit for customer communications, will they be able to see the true benefits of integrating social media with unified communications”
23/09/2010 13:21