Tweet Originate is a custom Anana development for Genesyslab Interaction Workspace 8.1.200.16 on Genesys 8.1 with Social Messaging Server. It is a functional addition to the main shipping capabilities of Twitter as a media type for Social Media Customer Service. It allows Customer Services Representatives to conduct 3 typical additional functions in the following typical use cases;

1 – It allows the CSR to post an outbound tweet to the underlying Brand Twitter Account that doesn’t specifically target an individual customer
2 – It allows the CSR to initiate an outbound tweet to a new customer which has not yet interacted with Customer Services on the inbound side
3 – It allows the CSR to initiate an outbound tweet to a known existing customer

Use Case One
We have found our existing Genesys based customer deployments of Twitter required the ability for the Customer Services team to send a “Good Morning” or end of the shift tweet to their followers. Another use case could be a tweet to the timeline that recognises an event that touches a significant number of followers; for example, an Operating System Update available for their phones; or an outage or similar regional or national event.

Use Case Two
Could be triggered by a scenario where someone in another part of the business is very keen that someone in Customer Services reaches out to a customer who is talking about the Brand; but not directly at them. This form of escalation is quite common; where Customer Services may get an urgent request from Marketing or the Brand team to reach out to a Customer and offer assistance. “Could you please get one of the Customer Services team to reach out to Dave Tidwell @dave_t_pilot and assist him with the problem on his iPhone?”. In this case Dave may have been complaining bitterly about the device and/or the brand but not mentioned the brand directly. This is common too where your Genesys deployment is configured to pick up MENTIONS and Direct Messages but not to listen for keywords.

Use Case Three
Is typically triggered by a customer who might say “Okay, when you’ve got the answer from engineering can you please tweet me with the update?” The time lag between the original interaction and the subsequent response from the back-office could be minutes, hours, days or even weeks. Without Tweet Originate it is impossible for the agent to initiate a response to the customer as the previous interaction will have been closed.

The following video explores these 3 use cases in detail, completely narrated and described step by step.

All of the custom features included in this module are designed to fully harmonise and replicate usage of the Interaction Workspace by Agents on the inbound side. Some are subtle; for example, the lookup of the target customers KLOUT social influence score when the outbound tweet is initiated. This activity is conducted asynchronously so that a failure of score to return from KLOUT will not prevent the agent from doing the response; and will appear after the interaction has already been started. You’ll notice that perhaps in the video.

Further to our recent post describing the development of the first concept Customer Services application on the iPhone we are pleased to continue our exploration of this theme with a video of the application in action.

Anana will be showcasing a version of this application at the premier Call Centre Expo in London next week. Please pop by and ask to see it in action in real-time. We’ll be able to show both Customer Services Representative as well as the Customer Experience from the same place at the show.

For best results make the player below fullscreen and select the HD Mode On format for the video.

Exciting times appear to be ahead. Over the last 4 months or so my team has been very busy delivering on customer projects to bring Genesys Social-Engagement into the enterprise Call Center. Change that; into the enterprise Contact Center!

Social Engagement as a strategy for the Enterprise makes a lot of sense for many reasons. Now we see our customers begin the process of moving Social Engagement from the control of the Marketing Department into the operational front-line in the Contact Center.

That process too, though, adds more questions for the Enterprise. Should I segregate my agent pools and teams so that the large proportion stay on the original inbound voice channel, answering telephone calls? Should I create new agent teams that are trained specifically in written communications rather than verbal communication skills? If I create a team of agents that are now familiar with a text based interaction method (Facebook and Twitter in the Contact Center for example) then it is an easy step, is it not, to add other textual channels to their tasking too? Channels of Communication with Customers like SMS, eMail, Web-Chat and Instant Messaging?

With these questions Anana spends a lot of time thinking about the impact of this sudden and rather remarkable swing of interest from inbound (and outbound) voice in the Contact Centre to one of “Blending” across channels and interactions.  One of our most recent technical additions has been a mobile framework that brings the power of Genesys as a solution itself to the Customer! How can the customer themselves become part of the Customer Services paradigm?  How may Anana effectively explore this new “Voice of the Customer”?  What meaningful ways could be explore that help our customers and clients begin the process of thinking about Customer Enablement?  How can we also reduce the Customers actual (and perceived) effort score (Customer Effort Score) in reaching out to their contact center?

An excellent vehicle to explore these questions has been the creation of a series of ATOMIC and COMPOSITE web services that act as a bridge between any HTTP enabled device and the software that powers the call center itself from Genesys Labs.  When I think of any HTTP enabled device, in our current modern context that could be as simple as a smartphone, an Internet Ready TV, a Sony Playstation, or even in the case of some manufacturers In Car Entertainment (ICE) systems.  We started with the obvious paradigm; the smart mobile phone. As telephones are still the prevailing method to access Customer Care Services that are multi-channel ready the smart-phone is a great place to begin exploring.  Smart Phones are everywhere!  This market includes other devices that aren’t typically associated with Telephony; like Tablets.

To help our clients and customers begin the process of understanding how to enable Customer Care over these types of devices we have built an iPhone application which runs on any HTTP enabled iOS (Apple) device; this includes iPhone3, the iPhone4 and iPad (even some versions of iPODs). This application is an ALPHA (brand new initial exploration) and only just begins to scratch the surface of customer care solutions on smarter devices. Please see my earlier post on this subject for the technical details.

What are the details of this first iPhone customer services application for Genesys?

For all pictures in the post; please click on the picture and it will open full size for easier viewing. The application sits resident on the device itself and is started by touching the associated icon. In the picture on the left of your screen this is the ABC Company application logo. Prior to first use of the application the customer would configure their own Customer Services account details in the iOS settings application; declaring their name, contact details and associated customer record number.

Once the customer has opened the application we immediately publish ALERTS for them that have been generated by their activity with the Enterprise. If they have orders open and the status of those orders has changed we can show them here for example. We also show a list of any open ‘interactions’ and their status.  We also list any customer requested callbacks that are pending so that they don’t forget the callbacks that they have already requested.  From this simple home screen we would obviously have enormous opportunity to offer cross-sell and up-sell, advertising etc for and on behalf of the enterprise. If we know what products and services the Customer has purchased in the past; and there’s a better offer on the table then we can show them here. Indeed, the very nature of these types of smart-phone applications makes it incredibly easy to solicit location information, and presence information.  There is absolutely no reason why the consumer wouldn’t have this application open by default if it was adding significant value to the progress of their day (in any form!).  This presence can be reflected back into customer operations in cool ways; for example; If we know how many Customer Services Representatives are currently available AND we know how many customers are currently logged in to the Customer Services Application then we can take this information to use our excess CSR pool to do outbound call campaigns to subscribers that are ALREADY known to be available.  This could even be geo-fenced into “Add subscriber to the campaign if they are within X metres of one of our retail outlets”….and then target them with GEOFENCED offers when they break this border.  An obvious example is an airline customer on the loyalty scheme that happens to be within 2 miles of the airport. Back office systems confirm they are booked in for a flight that leaves in an hour and a half; so why not offer immediate concierge based curbside check-in?

From this home screen the Customer has fast access to common Customer Services functions.  They can view their HISTORY for example.  The interaction histories are interesting to me for one very profound reason. As a consumer, when I have to phone in, or email into a Contact Center I feel an overwhelming burden of ‘effort’ due to the fact that I have to verbally reiterate the entire reason set for calling in; specifically so when following up on an existing customer services activity. Knowing that my interaction history is clearly understood relieves me of this assumed requirement. Publication of the interaction history for the customer also shows a full commitment to transparency and a 360 degree view of the customer ‘journey’.  Telephony (inbound voice) call centres have typically focussed on First Call Resolution (FCR); often in defiance of the actual ability to resolve the issue in one swoop of the agent script. With the Genesys solution we focus more on managing an interaction, that itself forms part of a dialogue or in other words as part of the overall “conversation”. This reduces the relevance of first call resolution, and puts more focus on the actual current need cited by the consumer and relieves the CSR from the shackles and constraints of the published script.

From the Home Screen the consumer can also select to open a chat session. In keeping with the familiarity of SMS chat, web-based chat, instant messaging chat and other chat mechanisms the Chat function works exactly the same way. If the consumer starts a chat, we take this chat request, and target it to an underlying Genesys Strategy that will find an appropriate agent in the pool of current resources. The Customer Services Representative desktop uses the prevailing ‘out-of-the-box’ web-chat capability already shipping in the Genesys Agent Desktop and the Genesys Interaction Workspace.  The CSR see’s absolutely no differentiation between web initiated chat or a chat that starts from the iPhone application.

Once a chat is initiated the Customer can interact with Agent freely. The agent is able to send URL’s, and to dip in and out of Content Analysis, FAQ and knowledgebase at the desktop level to offer immediate customer assistance that is timely, appropriate and accurate. <<USER ACTION>> is very much a work in progress. This is a placeholder in this alpha version of the application that will offer status updates, for example, Agent is Typing and notifications of other parties joining; “ABC Agent 1 has joined the chat”. These are useful updates to the consumer about who’s on the chat, who’s currently typing, and who’s been added to the conference, transfer to other agent updates; or the simple fact that the Agent has invited a subject matter expert to join in the chat (conference). It is also remarkably easy for the Customer Services Representative to nest other interactions whilst in a chat; for example, sending an email to the customer that is recorded as part of the chat interaction and have it reported on for full cross-channel transparency purposes.

What happens if the customer would like a call-back at some point later on? Using the call-back web-service we can add a callback request into the Genesys Customer Interaction Management Platform so that the callback request is targetted to an available Customer Services Representative at the requested time.  A customer may have hit a busy period in the call center. They may have remembered whilst in a meeting that they need to speak to the Call Center but right now is inconvenient or inappropriate. It may be convenient for that call to take place some hours later, say, on their way home from work in the commute.  Anana could even extend these callback bookings into ‘campaigns’ mapping agent availability, workforce management and the Genesys Dynamic Contact Center capability to only offer callback times that coincide with planned operational performance. There’s a lot that we can do with this I’m sure.

Summary

My view is that this is a great place to start a journey of exploration, discovery, learning and innovation around Mobility Enabled Customer Care. We have already showcased this application to our existing customers and all are extremely excited by it. We’ll maintain a keen and steady pace on improving the interface; do some more work on graphics, layout and functionality and continue exploring how we can use the Anana Atomic Services Bridge into Genesys technology in innovative ways.  We have already built out a series of use-case scenario’s to effectively demonstrate this application as part of the already extensive Anana Briefing Centre experience.

As part of our continuing exploration of all things relating to the cross-channel Customer Experience we have been doing some work creating a “bridge” between the Genesys Platform Software Development Kit (PSDK) and other media formats and devices.  The latest exploration is in the form of an Apple iPhone application that acts as a gateway into customer services from the popular Apple device.  We have created a range of Atomic Web Services that allow us to populate the iPhone with a Customer Services Application that brings the consumer into the Contact Centre!

What type of features are available?

Our initial exploration of the capability includes an ability for a customer to initiate a chat session, request a callback (with options to see currently booked call-backs and reschedule them) and an option to review their own entire interaction history with the Customer Services Team across all channels and media.  We are particularly interested in the option to publish a customers own interaction history for them to their device so that they have instant access to the ‘single version of the truth’ and recorded by ‘Customer Services’ across all interactions with the customer over time.  This attitude could be a significant catalyst in bringing the customer themselves into the Customer Services activities; empowering them with the same view of activities, potentially improving loyalty and also reducing churn propensity.

Architecture

The architecture is based on sound design principles, utlising out-of-the-box shipping Platform SDK capability expressed by the underlying maturity of the Genesys solution framework and Atomic Web Services.  Anana has written a suite of Atomic Services that enable a range of media and interactions via the Genesys SDK into the framework.  Currently written are a few of obviously many Atomic Services libraries that enable for a huge and very interesting range of customer service applications to be enabled on literally any device; including smartphones, set-top-boxes, internet ready TV.  Anana has completely separated away the presentation logic away from the underlying data-architecture using Atomic Web Services. Therefor any presentation device capable of using HTTP is available for this type of service expression.  HTTP requests arrive from the device to the Anana Atomic Services, and we respond back typically with JSON (Java Script Object Notation).  This allows us to manipulate the presentation layer back to each device type with remarkable flexiblity.

I just returned from 2 good days in Barcelona at the IMS World Forum event.  Those few people who read my blogs will know already that Anana was invited to attend a breakout ’round-table’ event at the Forum with Alcatel-Lucent, with a view to exploring in an open debate the state of play in the IP Multimedia-Subsystem (IMS) across the global Service Provider and Carrier Markets.

Alcatel-Lucent is a huge player in IMS, and attracted very strong attendance from some of the major Tier 1 operators around the World.  Anana’s remit was to represent the Application Developer, who uses Application Programming Interfaces (API) or External Interface Specifications (EIS) inherent in Alcatel-Lucents Carrier Applications Portfolio.  We were all challenged in active debate for a good couple of hours by Yankee Group Vice President, Brian Partridge to address key themes across Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) migration via NGN core to IMS, and then into more explosive discussion around RCS (Rich Communications Services) and the new GSM ratified RCS-e (Enhanced) capabilities.

We finished around Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) and on many occasions the panel turned its attention to Paul (Pearson, Anana Platform Practice Lead) and I representing the Application developer for our views and observations.  We were tackled around many themes, including High Definition Audio, Voice Services, Applications Development, Video Services and Rapid Applications Development.

I know that I pushed the envelope on at least a couple of occasions around the theme of “Trust your Developer, No? Trust your API, Yes?!

My main arguments were around the terribly long execution cycles in Carriers to take idea’s from an idea to a live service.  Even if really aggressive we typically tackle projects spanning 18 months or more to deliver even basic applications of moderate complexity in the core network.  Modern markets require cycles of innovation 10 times shorter than this in order that the Carrier remain nimble enough to tap revenue from the current ‘theme’.  I used simple examples like Viral broadcasting, like “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” or “American Idol” to indicate that these phenomenon attract huge public attention for periods to be measured in weeks.  If the Carrier cannot innovate with Enhanced Services that tap the ‘public interest’ at the time they are active then of course the Public’s attention is drawn immediately to the Web2.0 channel where Applications are available on the CLIENTS (Handsets) within days of the ‘interest starting’.

My second line of argument was around “Trust”.  If a vendor like Alcatel-Lucent opens the ‘hood’ on a vertical platform capability, say for example, the heart of their IMS solution, then the Carrier should explore the VALIDATION and TRUST certfication of the API; knowing and trusting that 3rd party application developers for the Core, like Anana, be allowed to explore the API capability set without going through months of regression and inter-operability test on the resulting ‘innovation’.  This theme sparked good interest and dialogue.  The API in turn, must be open enough to afford the functionality required, but at the same time, not expose the underlying core to threat.  It is a fine line, I agree, but one that I think Alcatel-Lucent and its Carrier Customers can find by working together in collaborative exploration.  This really is about a market of “Applications Enablement” on High Leveraged Networks!  Alcatel-Lucent has got their message and activities SPOT ON!

Of course, it is humbling for us to be invited by a Global Giant like Alcatel-Lucent to support them at these forms of key events.  I hope and trust that Anana did not let anyone down or downplay the relevance of Carriers challenges to keep up with Over the Top revenue haemorrages!  The positive feedback on the round-table was strong enough for me to feel surity that we acted in accordance with the needs and expectations of the carriers at the meeting.  It was nice to get a note from Brian at Yankee Group the next day indicating that the sessions on the Application Developer view of the IMS core was probably one of the most interesting of the entire event.  Thanks Brian!

We did get the chance to demonstrate some of our Carrier Applications Innovations; including the Social-Media aware Voice Messaging mash-up we created with Alcatel-Lucent.  Every Carrier we showed it to wanted to learn more!  Standing by of course for follow-up!

Special quick note of thanks to Sandip Mukerjee, President of the Alcatel-Lucent IMS Solutions for the invitation to support his team, and of course the excellent company for Paul and I throughout the subsequent evening.