Keeping up with mobile-connected customers

It is a business maxim that the more a company knows about its customers and

what they want, the better its chances of providing them a positive, fulfilling

experience. With today’s ubiquitous, convenient communications methods,

particularly the use of mobile devices and networks, opportunities for rich

customer interactions are flourishing. Whether their interest is pricing, store

locations or product support, people increasingly expect information to be

available wherever, whenever and however they want it.

Meeting the growing demands of customers using mobile devices falls largely

on the shoulders of the contact center. As discussed in the Avaya white paper

How mobile devices are driving innovations in contact centers, businesses that

provide an effortless experience for customers who are using mobile devices

for voice, text, social media, video and Web interactions can gain significant

advantage. They can build customer and brand loyalty. And they can use the

wealth of contextual data about customers that mobile devices and apps

provide to improve products, services and contact center operations.

Equipping the contact center for this expanded role is not a trivial undertaking,

but neither is it an insurmountable hurdle. In this white paper, we explore the

architecture that Avaya is using to help our clients increase customer satisfaction

using visual self-service, contextual information and anytime, anywhere

communication.

avaya.com | 1

An architecture for mobile communications innovation in the contact center

Businesses that provide an effortless experience for

customers who are using mobile devices for voice, text,

social media, video and Web interactions can gain

significant advantage.

avaya.com | 2

The introduction of this contextual information into

the customer support process opens the door to a

much richer and more fulfilling customer experience.

Visual self-service

Thousands of mobile applications are available that provide some form of

self-service to customers, offering the convenience of efficient interaction

anytime and anywhere. Such applications typically connect to a company’s

Web site for product or service support information; to a contact center agent

via SMS text or e-mail; or, if the customer initiates a call, into an interactive

voice response (IVR) application.

Once a customer initiates direct contact with the contact center, well-defined

interfaces already exist between self-service applications and back-end cus-

tomer relationship management (CRM) systems to help agents understand the

customers’ value and history. What has been missing until now is a centralized

self-service framework, including CRM interfaces and routing capabilities, that

can be extended with other applications to customers through mobile and Web

applications. With self-service workflow centralized, the amount of effort to

build new applications or to enhance existing ones is reduced considerably.

For example, a visual interactive self-service experience designed specifically

for mobile devices could enable users to navigate through a series of visual

prompts many times faster than they would listening to the same content

via a traditional IVR solution. Avaya Customer Connections Mobile is such a

framework.

Bringing contextual data into the contact center

Avaya Customer Connections Mobile is a framework that fully integrates with

existing or new mobile applications. It simplifies customer service options by

offering selections based on the way a business operates, such as how it

handles order status, account information and technical support. Customer

Connections Mobile also enables the use of rich contextual data being

generated in mobile environments, including transactional data (purchase

history), situational data (location), collaboration-enabled data (photographs

and online interactions) and application-driven data (self-service use). The

introduction of this contextual information into the customer support process

opens the door to a much richer and more fulfilling customer experience.

Also, when customers decide they need additional help, routing decisions

must be made to send the request to the appropriate group of company

representatives. With the wealth of contextual information and the capabilities

of Customer Connections Mobile, this routing decision can be made very

accurately and without forcing added burdens on the mobile application

developer. Should the appropriate agent not be available, Customer

Connections Mobile can provide the customer with an estimated wait time

and options, such as receiving a callback from a contact center agent,

based on their queue position or at a date and time convenient for them.

Avaya Aura® Experience Portal is at the heart of Customer Connections Mobile.

Experience Portal delivers the customer experience to mobile devices, as well

as other channels of communication. Customer Connections Mobile can reuse

this customer experience across other communications channels by extending

self-service from Avaya Orchestration Designer, the service creation environment

that drives Experience Portal.

Customer Connections Mobile takes advantage of Orchestration Designer’s

speed and flexibility to design, develop, test and deploy applications that are

then automatically extended to mobile applications that use the Customer

Connections Mobile Web service application programming interface (API).

Using this API, companies can put less logic in mobile applications and more in

the common business logic hosted by an Orchestration Designer application.

This translates into much faster development time, more business agility, and

lower costs for businesses deploying iOS, Android, Blackberry and Web apps.

Other benefits include leveraging Orchestration Designer’s capabilities to help

route requests for further assistance and Avaya Aura Experience Portal’s

reporting capabilities to create a very valuable set of metrics on the relationship

between contextual data and how mobile and Web users navigate the workflow.

Avaya Aura® Experience Portal is at the heart of Customer

Connections Mobile, delivering the customer experience to

mobile devices, as well as other channels of communication.

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Putting contextual information to work

Many businesses are finding that customers who use smartphones or tablets

will download an application if it will help them find information or take care

of business faster. Contrast these two scenarios:

Scenario 1:

A customer uses a smartphone to call

a company’s toll-free number using

the traditional IVR menu: “Please select

from one of the following options:

press 1 for your account balance, press 2

for a transfer between your accounts,

press 3 for your last bank statement,

or press 4 for help.” Navigating these

prompts can take 20 seconds or longer,

as well as requiring an audio connection

and the customer’s attention.

Scenario 2:

The customer has

downloaded an app

offered by the company,

in this case a financial

institution (Figure 1).

As Figure 1 suggests,

the same selection process

conveyed visually can

take only a fraction of the

time required for IVR.

Figure 1: Company-created smartphone

app provided to customers

The extreme portability of smartphones and tablets also contributes to user

convenience. Customers typically have their devices with them everywhere,

and they don’t have to boot up a laptop to access the app.

Offering a user-friendly self-service portal isn’t always enough, however.

Customers may need the ability to communicate in real time with knowledgeable

company representatives who are instantly aware of their needs.

Determining what the customer wants and then routing the request to a

qualified, available company representative provides the foundation for

the service interaction. The customer’s intent and relevant context for the

session can be delivered to the representative simultaneously in a screen

pop. The context can include what information the customer viewed prior

to requesting help as well as account information, a callback number and

location coordinates. Customer Connections Mobile can provide this context

as a Web-based screen pop or deliver a session key to a third-party computer-

telephony integration (CTI) application that retrieves the context. Once the

agent is selected and the context delivered, the customer can be called back.

This process can produce significant savings in a contact center’s largest

expense — agent time.

The extreme portability

of smartphones and

tablets also contributes

to user convenience.

Customers typically

have their devices with

them everywhere,

and they don’t have

to boot up a laptop

to access the app.

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Exploring the architecture

Like other types of applications, mobile apps need updating. The cost of

refreshing apps for the various mobile operating systems can be significant.

Without a common framework that centralizes common business logic, the

application on each platform would have to implement the changes separately.

To help avoid this complexity and expense, the Customer Connections Mobile

architecture is built around four core service modules:

• Session services

• Visual self-service

• Data-sharing services

• Customer assistance services

The architecture is designed to be modular and employ only those services

needed to support desired features (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Customer Connections Mobile architecture

CC Mobile can integrate with both native and Web applications

Native app

Session services

Customer Connections Mobile server

Customer ConnectionsMobile runtime

Self-service

Data-sharing services

Customer assistance services

DO/OD 6.0app CacheAAEP

Callbackassist

API

Web app

At the root level, session services are used to establish a communications

connection between the mobile device and Customer Connections Mobile and

request other services. Session services are the foundation from which all other

services are invoked and are the only mandatory service module.

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If a mobile or Web application requires access to visual self-services, such as

video chat and video IVR, the self-service module is deployed to manage the

dialog interactions with one or more Avaya Orchestration Designer application.

Orchestration Designer applications can be written specifically to provide content

for mobile applications or be leveraged for inbound voice, short message

service (SMS) and other channels.

When contextual data associated with a session needs to be shared with other

applications for screen pops or reporting, the data-sharing services can be used.

Finally, if there is a need to request live agent support, the customer assistance

services APIs allow an application to place a request to Avaya Callback Assist for

an agent to call the customer back. Mobile applications can invoke these services

through the Customer Connections Mobile API or through a higher-level runtime

that will be available in a subsequent Customer Connections Mobile release.

Leveraging your contact center investment

As an Avaya-built application, Customer Connections Mobile leverages existing

infrastructure and uses its modules to achieve a full integration to the Avaya

contact center framework, including these features:

Automatic call distribution (ACD) infrastructure

Customer Connections Mobile runs on Avaya Aura Experience Portal as its main

application platform and fully integrates with the Avaya ACD. Internet Protocol

(IP)-based integrations are preferable — either H323 or Session Initiation Protocol

(SIP). SIP-based integration is also available via Avaya Session Manager.

Agent tools

Among the benefits of Customer Connections Mobile, the context-rich call from

a smartphone can significantly improve the efficiency and quality of agent

screen pops. The agent can also retrieve the customer screen prior to launching

a call, potentially reducing required talk time.

Recording and quality monitoring

Because it is interpreted as a regular inbound phone call for the agent, Customer

Connections Mobile leverages in-place call-recording mechanisms. Also, specific

context data can be passed to the call-recording framework to tag and sort the

call segments.

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Businesses can expect

easily measurable and

quantifiable return on

investment, as well as

reputational or brand-

enhancement benefits,

from expanding contact

center access to

mobile devices.

Reporting

Customer Connections Mobile fully integrates with Avaya reporting tools. For customers

with investments in Avaya Call Management System (CMS) or IQ, calls can still be

monitored, historically or in real time.

Routing

The Avaya ACD framework will see a Customer Connections Mobile call as a requested

callback and apply configured business rules in the same manner as with a regular

incoming phone call. Vector directory numbers (VDNs), as well as specific skills,

can be created and allocated for Customer Connections Mobile.

Equip your contact center for the mobile device world

Virtually every business faces growing customer demand for conveniently available

information and the assistance of trained personnel when needed. And increasingly,

customers are using their smartphones to access this support. Integrating smartphone

connectivity into the contact center can introduce new efficiency and lower agent

costs, while providing a framework for new services and apps available today and

in the future.

About the authors

Brian Hillis is a managing principal with the Avaya Emerging Products and Technology

group. Tore Christensen is a corporate consulting engineer and Eduardo Ponciano is a

solutions consultant, both with Avaya Business Communications Solutions Group.

Integrating

smartphone

connectivity into

the contact center

can introduce new

efficiency and

lower agent costs,

while providing a

framework for new

services and apps

available today

and in the future.

avaya.com | 7

About AvayaAvaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions,

providing unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services

to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information, please visit

www.avaya.com.

respectively, of Avaya Inc.

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