What’s big in technology for contact centres for the next three years? A panel of vendors and users at the TUANZ Contact Centre Conference has just made the following predictions:
Sandeep Singh, Nortel Networks: Unified Communications, multi media and CTI (Computer Telephony Interface).
Tony Lennon, Gen-i: SaaS (Software as a Service), Unified Communications, Integration (tying together disparate technologies), and Datamining.
Miles Valentine, Zeacom: Self service – driving the customer away from contact centres and towards websites and other self service chanels.
Greg Magness, Datacom: Text, web based communication and the cost of bandwidth from the telcos.
Magness, as one of two user representatives on the panel, urged delegates to get to know everything they could about technology and not leave it to the IT department. He expected new applications to have a functionality of 5-6 years and he said his centre's recent technology upgrade involved 18 months of research.
Panel chair TUANZ CEO Ernie Newman says technology vendors need to focus less on the being the first and more on creating a robust product. He said if the aviation industry tested products on their customers the way that the IT industry does, none of us would ever fly.