UC: Unified Communications or Unwelcome Chaos?

I recently came across the conference program for the upcoming VoiceCon show in Orlando.  Most of these trade shows tend to have a theme and this one had its theme all over it -- UC.

For all of you innocents who have yet to be pummeled by this acronym like you were with CRM a few years back and CTI before that, UC stands for Unified Communications.  Like its predecessors, UC seems destined to be something we're going to hear about ad nauseum for the next couple of years at least.

My knowledge of UC is somewhat limited as I tend to focus my research efforts on the contact center and the long arm of UC has yet to reach the contact center in more than just theory and "what if" stuff. I'll talk more about how UC will extend to the contact center in a minute but in order to get a better understanding of what UC means to the enterprise, I logged into a webinar last week that was supposed to get me up to speed on this exciting new communications breakthrough.

Remember when webinars used to be full of useful information?  Remember when websites would provide you with the depth of knowledge you were seeking?  Remember when you could fill up your gas tank for twenty bucks?  Anyway, this webinar, like just about all webinars today, was a thinly veiled sales pitch but it did give me an idea of how this particluar company saw the role of UC in the enterprise.

The presenter began the pitch by reminding all of us attendees of the myriad of communications devices we use today, not to mention new communications solutions that allow us to stay in constant contact.  He proudly told us that he uses instant messaging (IM) 50 or 60 times a day to stay in touch with colleagues.  PowerPoint diagrams in the presentation had a dizzying array of lines connecting the various communications devices and systems that we all supposedly have courtesy of the unlimited budget for gadgets that our respective companies provide us.

Personal Disclaimer:  I don't have IM on my desktop, don't own a Blackberry and don't text message on my cellphone.  As far as I have been able to determine, these devices/applications are best used to distract or amuse oneself when trapped in unpleasant surroundings such as meetings.  I can't tell you how many analyst briefings I've sat through over the past couple of years in which I'd estimate that 80 percent or more of the analysts seated around me are surfing the Internet, checking e-mail or IM'ing someone during a presentation and paying no attention to the speaker.  I believe there may be a direct correlation between the availability of communications devices and courtesy.  As one goes up, the other seems to go down. 

Back to the point I was going to make -- when I looked at all the ways someone could get hold of you in a UC scenario, and heard the presenter proudly crowing about how many of these devices he personally used, I started to wonder how or when he got any work done.  Perhaps this is just a problem that applies to me personally because as a writer, I prefer not to work in a constant interrupt mode.  On the other hand, I may be totally out of touch with today's worklife norms.

I've been self-employed for nine years.  Back in the day, when I had to endure annual reviews and meet work objectives, most of the objectives I had to meet were task oriented with specific results expected.  Is it possible that process will soon replace achievement in today's business?

Manager: "What do you feel was your greatest accomplishment was this past quarter?"

Employee: "I responded to 25,000 IMs, answered 5,000 e-mails on my Blackberry and sent 10,000 text messages."

Manager: "Stellar performance.  Wish everyone in this department could UC the way you do."

In the contact center, UC will probably first be deployed in the form of a solution called Presence.  For those not familiar with Presence it is essentially a means of determining, on your desktop and in real time, what resources may be immediately available to you to help you with a customer service matter.  These resources will typically be subject matter experts; i.e., people, in your business who will drop everything in order to help you complete your task; i.e., customer service, in a timely manner. In this perfect UC world, resources will indicate whether or not they are available and all you do is click on the icon on your desktop to be immediately connected and get the help you need.  In this UC world, all of these resources will be relieved of their regular tasks in order to free up the time that will be required for them to provide the help that the contact center needs.  In this UC world you'll also find lots of rainbows, clouds and unicorns.

Here's what I think will really happen -- Not a lot of people will take kindly to being constantly interrupted and unless corporate life has drastically changed since I was chained to it, there will be no relief of everyday tasks in order to respond to additional work requests from the contact center.  Workloads will double or worse and the most popular Presence option will be the "Do Not Disturb" sign that prevents calls from being transferred to an individual's desk.  Real world versus UC world.

The bottom line is, UC will require colossal management skills in order to pull it off and make it work as advertised unless, of course, your job performance actually is measured by the number of IMs you answer and the number of text messages you send.  Right now the communications industry, including the contact center, is infatuated with UC.  No one's noticed the warts yet. 

If you're currently using or evaluating UC, or if your experience or perception is different than mine, I invite you to add your comments to this post.  The link is right at the bottom of this page.

Comments

[James]

I think what you are calling UC, we call EPI in the UK an acronym for Email, Phone and Internet. I have seen a great report on the use of multiple channels at:

http://www.switchhack.com/2008/02/29/grasping-the-internettle/

UC / EPI systems put into use by strong call centres with well trained agents will make them more effective - in the wrong hands they will just make poor call centres worse!

Great blog - keep up the good work!