There was a 560 per cent increase in sales of Microsoft’s new operating system Vista in February 2007, compared to sales of XP in February 2006. But exactly how many actual units were sold, Microsoft NZ client product marketing manager David Rayner wouldn’t disclose to Mouthpiece.
Yet assuming demand is high for Vista in the New Zealand consumer space, how will it affect contact centres? With many corporate users reported to be taking a cautious approach to its implementation, will rapid growth in the home market force businesses to upgrade sooner to ensure their systems are compatible with their caller’s?
Rayner says that since launch date six weeks ago only two contact centres are in the process of a fullscale Vista deployment and one of those is Datacom – who run the Microsoft helpdesk. In addition four corporate users, which include Telecom, are also early adopters. He recommends a staggered approach to Vista’s introduction, starting with a test machine that can be mastered first by the IT department and then by senior members of the contact centre team.
But why bother to upgrade at all - what are the advantages of the Vista over XP? Here are three reasons offered by Rayner.
Security – Unlike XP, Vista allows contact centre managers to lock down USP ports, which means unscrupulous employees can’t download valuable information onto a memory stick and sell it to the opposition.
Onscreen CRM metrics – On the currently unused right hand side of the computer screen, a CRM feed with metrics tailored to a particular centre’s performance targets can be displayed.
Ease of use – With Vista, login user names and passwords enable tailored security access for every member of the team, reducing the need for team leaders and managers to go through multiple logins in order to access commercially sensitive information.