Microsoft Lync in the contact centre?
Microsoft held their Lync conference recently, with many announcements about upgrades to the Lync system.
One of the announcements that grabbed my attention was the ability of Skype and Lync to be openly federated. In simple terms, this means it will be possible to connect directly from Skype into anyone in an organisation that you have details for (and that has enabled this).
In the medium term, this initiative will cause a big increase in Lync being investigated and used as a contact centre product. That direct connection between a customer and the contact centre could be made very easy, especially when you throw in presence to make the organisations availability visible (you can tell when they are on phone, etc). Company’s like Luware are already implementing the Lync client into contact centres for voice, so it seems like this is an idea ready to go mainstream shortly.
Long term, this has the potential to turn an organisation inside out. Rather than contact into an organisation being funneled through s single point (the contact centre), everyone within an organisation will be visible with presence fully published, and customer service will be distributed throughout organisation, and not siloed into one particular area.
One to watch, this.
Hi Richard,
Nice article. Can you elaborate on the last paragraph? How do you envision the changes to customer service model? Does Lync have call routing logic based on skill set as well as presence? Will subject matter experts outside of call center be expected to take customer service calls based on presence although employed by another business unit?
This is a great discussion and opens the door to many questions to Microsoft as well. Is Lync planning to be a full featured cross platform product. To date, the emphasis has been on Windows OS and seems like features lighten up greatly when looking at Android,iOS, OSX offering? Why is Microsoft still gambling so heavy on Windows when the market continues to move in the opposite direction (Consumer and Enterprise)?
Hi Marc,
Thanks for reading the post.
I believe that customer service will be distributed to an individual level within organisations. There are already a number of cases where people look within their social circles for advice on products and services rather than use formal channels. If we extend UC into those social circles of contact now, who would you prefer to contact – someone you new and trusted or a contact centre that you have no relationship with?
Lync does not yet have routing based on skill set, but there are many 3rd party companies emerging that can add this to Lync. Subject experts could be expected to take calls – not immediately, they will still retain that second level role, but ultimately everyone will own the customer relationship.
Thanks for thoughtful reply.