An Introduction to Unifying Customer Experience with Microsoft Lync

(1)

An Introduction to Unifying

Customer Experience with

Microsoft Lync

(2)

Executive Summary

Since Microsoft launched Lync in 2010, the platform

has proven itself as an enterprise-grade voice and

unified communications alternative for the enterprise

voice market. However, when it comes to unifying

customer communications, Lync lacks the native

features and functionality required of an

enterprise-grade contact center solution.

This white paper provides an introduction to how

businesses can unify customer experience using Microsoft Lync by leveraging the Mitel MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync solution. Mitel customer, Managed Solution, will be used as a case study to provide real-world examples of how Lync can be used to improve customer experience.

This white paper is broken into the following sections:

• Background - this section provides a Lync market update and insight into Lync-based contact center uptake using data from McGee-Smith Analytics • Challenges - this section provides an overview of

the customer experience trend and how contact centers can drive meaningful interactions with their customers

(4)

Background

In 2012, analyst firm McGee-Smith Analytics published

a report based on interviews with Microsoft Lync

resellers around the world. The goal of the research

was to gain a better understanding of the variables

driving Lync Voice adoption and how a company’s

contact center application factored into a decision

to migrate to Lync. Specifically, the research was

designed to explore factors driving adoption of

Lync and Lync-based contact center solutions and

impediments or issues that might be preventing

adoption of Lync-based contact center solutions.

Based on an analysis of the interview data collected, McGee-Smith Analytics developed a set of conclusions about how the market for Lync and contact center applications is progressing and predictions on how it will continue to evolve. The following figure, Phases of Lync Adoption, offers a graphical representation of the development of the entire Lync market, beginning with Office Communication Server (OCS) in 2007.

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

OCS IM/P

Lync IM/P OCS/Lync Voice Lync Voice + MiCC

(5)

In 2011 the deployment of contact center applications in conjunction with Lync Voice began. The figure below, Lync Voice and MiContact Center Adoption, focuses on the development of the Lync Voice and contact center applications for the Lync market. After a slow start in 2010 and 2011, comprised primarily of trials and small deployments, McGee-Smith Analytics sees the market growing steadily over the next few years.

As seen in the previous two graphs, consideration of contact center applications with Lync is two to three years behind Lync Voice adoption. One factor for this lag is that while Microsoft IM and presence applications have been being deployed for a few years, true PBX-replacement solutions— including Voice—are more recent. Until Voice became prevalent with Lync, the contact center was only marginally relevant.

Still another factor is that Microsoft does not offer a true contact center solution. The Microsoft Response Groups functionality is described even by Microsoft as, “not a

replacement for robust contact-center offerings.” For example, Response Groups does not include supervisor functions or multimedia routing. Nevertheless, contact centers are increasingly becoming part of the Lync conversation.

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

OCS/Lync Voice Lync Voice + MiCC

(6)

Challenges

There is a growing trend for businesses to pay

an increasing amount of attention to customer

experience. Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) is gradually evolving into Customer Experience

Management (CEM). While CRM is more

business-oriented—looking at accounts, leads, sales, etc.— CEM

is focused on viewing interactions from a customer

point of view and, ultimately, improving the quality

of these interactions. Unifying customer experience

is about businesses creating meaningful interactions

with their external audiences, whether they are

customers, partners, or consumers. In order to create

a meaningful interaction, businesses must resolve

customer inquiries and leave customers satisfied with

the overall experience.

As part of the growing focus on customer experience, we are seeing the rise of the “un-contact center.” In order to drive meaningful customer experiences, departmental silos that once defined the contact center as a specific group or team of groups within a business are breaking down and driving high-touch collaboration throughout organizational groups. The saying “everyone services customers” is more true than ever in an effort to satisfy customer experience demands. This means much more than just having agents complete calls as quickly as possible and instead puts the focus on agents delivering the best service possible to satisfy customer needs. In order to provide enhanced customer experiences, from the moment a customer contacts a business to the moment an interaction is closed, businesses must ensure that they can:

• Optimize the caller experience with rich Automatic Call • Distribution (ACD) routing

• Empower customers with self-service and auto-attendant functionality

• Provide first contact resolution by leveraging all available resources in the company

• Quickly respond to changing contact volumes and improve service levels

• Decrease the time supervisors spend managing the contact center to enable them to focus on coaching and mentoring agents

• Increase agent labor pools by effectively extending the contact center to remote and mobile agents

(7)

Solutions

There are a number of benefits to a Microsoft

Lync-based contact center solution. With a Lync-Lync-based

contact center, businesses can accelerate Return on

Investment (ROI) through lowering the high ongoing

costs of traditional PBX infrastructures and contact

centers, eliminating third-party expenses (for example,

conferencing) using Lync’s native conferencing

and collaboration tools, leveraging the tight- knit

integration with the Microsoft stack of back-office and

desktop productivity tools, and reducing workforce

requirements through improved productivity.

In addition to accelerating ROI, businesses with a Lync-based contact center can optimize business processes and customer experience with tools to:

• Enhance the caller experience • Unify business communications • Improve agent productivity

• Report on real-time and historical contact center activity • Simplify contact center administration and configuration

Enhancing the Caller Experience

One of the core benefits of a Lync-based contact center like the MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync solution is the addition of rich Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) routing algorithms. An ACD system ensures that calls are routed efficiently and effectively to resources within a business, increasing the likelihood of first contact resolution. This can be achieved using a variety of routing options, such as: longest idle routing, interflow/overflow, priority queue routing, business hour routing, and Automatic Number Identification (ANI) and Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) routing. The Longest Idle Routing algorithm ensures that the agent with the longest idle time always handles the next available call that is waiting in queue. In this scenario, calls continue to hunt on agent groups until an available agent is found to handle the call. Interflow routing expands on this functionality, as a timed-based routing option that takes ACD calls out of the queue and routes them to the alternate answering point, such as an extension, Line URI, or SIP address.

(8)

Providing callers with an auto attendant, or “virtual

receptionist,” is another way to enhance the caller experience. For example, businesses could use an auto attendant to play callers a listing of ACD queues and company directory when they first contact the business. An auto attendant enables callers to be transferred to agents, employees, or queues without having to first go through a telephone operator or receptionist. It provides customers with a cost-effective means of simplifying incoming call routing and enables callers to make informed decisions when contacting your business, increasing the likelihood of first contact resolution and ultimately improving customer satisfaction.

Managed Solution, an IT consulting firm based out of San Diego, California, began using Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging as an attendant and simultaneous ring group solution. “Soon after, we realized that in order to improve business efficiencies, we needed a solution that could queue and intelligently route incoming calls based on ACD algorithms,” said Sean Ferrel, CEO of Managed Solution. Eventually, they decided on Microsoft Lync 2010, Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging, and MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync as the solution to improve their business efficiencies. “Since we started using MiContact center, we have been able to better manage customer Service Level Agreements while efficiently handling an ever-growing call volume.”

Unifying Business Communications

Microsoft Lync unifies business communications by providing voice and video call, online meeting, presence, and instant messaging (IM) capabilities from a single, easy-to-use client interface. This makes it simple for users to choose and switch between different forms of communication. A Lync-based contact center utilizes the native Lync communications and presence features to help employees connect and collaborate with anyone that uses Lync – whether inside of the business or remotely. With Lync presence capabilities, employees can make intelligent decisions about who to contact for assistance with customer calls. This ensures that questions are answered and handled in a timely manner because your employees do not waste time phoning or messaging someone who is not at their desk or is in a meeting. Presence is extended to other Microsoft applications like Outlook, SharePoint, and Dynamics CRM, enabling employees to tell who is online and who they could potentially respond to without having to open the Lync client.

With MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync, all agent actions are performed in Lync and the Ignite toolbar. Lync houses call handling functions as well as displaying queues, agents, agent presence, and agent ACD status. Ignite displays as a sidebar to Lync and enables agents to change their state, log in and out of ACD, join or leave agent groups, cancel Work Timer, request help from a supervisor while in a call, and view statistics for themselves, other agents, and queues.

Mitel’s MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync solution is unique in that it extends the six standard Lync states (Available, Busy, Do Not Disturb, Be Right Back, Off Work, and Appear Away) and makes states specific to the functions performed by agents within the contact center. Users see not only that you are Available, but Available for ACD. If an agent is Busy, they could be in Make Busy – CRM Notes. With MiContact center, Make Busy and Do Not Disturb states are supervisor-definable and reportable, providing flexibility that ensures a best fit with any business. Agent presence indicators are shared with not only the contact center employees, but all general business employees to support efficient communication practices throughout the entire business. Before transferring a call or initiating a conference, co-workers can see at a glance whether the agent they need is available. An agent’s presence displays automatically depending on their activity but can be manually set by both agents and supervisors.

“Lync’s presence capabilities, combined

with Mitel’s extended contact center

presence, has allowed us to not only

improve communications amongst

contact center agents and supervisors, but

also the communications between back

office employees and the contact center,

and our externally federated partners that

also use Lync,”

(9)

Improving Agent Productivity

Microsoft’s Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) is a software development toolkit that enables third-party solution providers to build applications that are tightly- integrated with Microsoft Lync. Using UCMA, Mitel built the MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync solution to be a native, end-to-end contact center for Lync. This means that employees use the familiar Lync client for unified communications and calls never leave the Lync platform. With the Mitel Ignite toolbar pinning to the Lync client, employees benefit from a unified desktop experience with a Lync-based ACD softphone that is intuitive and easy to learn. This minimizes the need for multiple applications running on the agent desktop, ensuring common actions are only a click away so agents can focus on providing prompt, efficient service, and improving the customer experience.

With their long-standing partnership with Microsoft, the tight-knit integration with Lync was one of the main reasons Managed Solution chose Mitel as their contact center solution. “Having a solution that built upon the tools our employees use every day helped us improve operations, and ultimately customer satisfaction, very quickly,” said Sean Ferrel.

Building on the ANI/DNIS routing feature of MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync, agents and employees can receive informative screen pop displays on their desktops when calls are received. ANI, DNIS, and Caller ID are included in the screen pop to provide agents and employees with instant access to customer information as they receive calls. The screen pop information appears in the Lync screen pop display and optionally can be configured to launch applications or Web pages when calls arrive, for example, to launch Microsoft CRM accounts on agent desktops. Today’s customers want to be personally greeted by agents and demand that their inquiries are answered by agents who have access to key customer information. Using screen pop, agents and employees can quickly identify callers, view and update database information, and provide more efficient, prompt, and informed service. This enables them to provide best-of-breed customer service, increasing the likelihood of first contact resolution, and providing an enhanced customer experience.

“Many of our service agents are

measured using the Key Performance

Indicators built into Mitel’s software and

it’s allowed us to get a better snapshot

of how agents are doing on a daily

basis compared to counterparts on

their team. One of the key components

our previous system lacked was a rich

reporting solution.”

(10)

Reporting On Contact Center Activity

MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync is an end-to-end contact center reporting solution, from real-time performance monitoring to detailed historical reporting and workforce forecasting. Supervisors can see in real time who is available to answer calls and how queues and agent groups are performing. With customizable visual, auditory, and email alarming, supervisors are notified immediately of any availability or performance issues. With advanced real-time monitoring capabilities, supervisors can improve service levels with quicker response times to performance issues or changing call volumes, identify agents that require assistance, and more effectively coach employees based on their real-time performance.

Mitel’s historical reporting solution has three different levels of reporting: comprehensive contact center performance reports, cradle-to-grave lifecycle reporting, and workforce forecasting, all with advanced data filtering and search capabilities. With the core comprehensive contact center performance and lifecycle reports, supervisors can readily pinpoint problem areas and effectively measure operations to make intelligent management decisions. Reporting is self-managed with minimal intervention and reports are natively generated in Microsoft Excel. Supervisors can schedule reports to be automatically generated and emailed at specific times so they can focus on what’s important— coaching agents, improving business efficiencies, and improving the customer experience.

With Mitel’s native workforce forecasting solution, managers can optimize the balance between the agents required and corporate service level objectives. This enables businesses to accurately predict future call volumes and agent requirements, resulting in improved service and operational efficiency. Using Mitel’s forecasting, managers can perform “what-if” scenarios by running forecasts and then modifying Average Talk Time and Calls Offered performance statistics. This enables them to readily assess the impact of adding or removing agents on corporate service levels. It also enables forecast-based scheduling, which is a perfect solution for call-volume driven companies, such as those that focus on sales campaigns or seasonal sales, with call volumes that can change considerably over relatively short periods of time.

“We are constantly challenged with predicting

call volume and support requirements, which

in turn drives our customer satisfaction,

and, ultimately, our profitability. The need

for greater reporting was one of the main

factors that led us to MiContact Center

for Microsoft Lync and their solution gave

us immediate insight into call patterns

and agent productivity. It enables us to

not only measure an agent’s performance

and improve the service we provide our

customers, but also predict call volume so

we can adequately staff the contact center

and meet our service level goals.”

(11)

Simplifying Administration and Configuration

MiContact Center is the only true, end-to-end contact center today that utilizes both Microsoft back-office and desktop solutions. Call control is natively delivered through the unified communications and Voice over IP architecture of the Microsoft Lync Server 2010/2013 platform and user accounts are managed through synchronization with Active Directory. Customer interactions are delivered to agents through the Lync client while reports are powered by SQL Server and Microsoft Reporting Services and delivered through Excel. On top of this, all real-time and management tools are based on familiar Microsoft Office applications making the Mitel solution intuitive and easy to learn. By leveraging Windows Server, Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory, and Lync Server 2010/2013, IT professionals need not worry about the cost and complexity of maintaining separate, proprietary infrastructures. All configuration and maintenance is performed from Mitel’s YourSite Explorer application which is a standardized, unified desktop application that enables managers and IT administrators to set up and configure their contact center and leverage Active Directory to synchronize users, groups, domains, and organizational units programmed in Active Directory with YourSite Explorer.

MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync

Built natively on the Microsoft Lync Server call control and Lync desktop client, MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync is an end-to-end Lync solution that offers a more sophisticated solution than Microsoft Response Groups without the cost and complexity of stand-alone contact center solutions. It combines Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) and a suite of feature-rich management applications with presence-aware telephony, conferencing, messaging, and agent mobility in a familiar, easy-to-use, Microsoft Office user interface.

MiContact Center for Microsoft Lync is designed for companies with 5 to 200 agents and is ideal or companies in industries such as healthcare, financial services, utilities, government, and hospitality.

(12)

About Mitel

Mitel (Nasdaq:MITL) is a global provider of business communications and collaboration software and services. Mitel’s Freedom architecture provides the flexibility and simplicity organizations need to support today’s dynamic work environment. Through a single cloudready software stream, Mitel delivers a powerful suite of advanced communications and collaboration capabilities that provides freedom from walled garden architectures and enables organizations to implement best-of-breed solutions on any network; extends the “in-office” experience anywhere, on any device; and offers choice of commercial options to fit business needs.

An Introduction to Unifying Customer Experience with Microsoft Lync