I had a chance to speak with Eran Levinson from AudioCodes here at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona and he explained that his company is the main shareholder in MailVision who helped develop this software solution.
Zeev Lerner the CEO of MailVision says this is the only solution which is designed for large-scale carrier implementations with out-of-the box support for carriers. He went on to say, "The solution is designed to have business logic behind it. This is designed for carriers." He continued, "If you have Skype and your phone gets lost... Another person can use the service. With our solution you can call customer service and kill the service and bind it to your new telephone." He said we are in the business mind of the carrier - including security issues. Security call flows are very important to carriers - and we know how to handle access to the carrier's walled garden. And this is voice - the main business of the carriers.
Another differentiator is support for Blackberry as well as the other major players such as Android, iOS, and a web client.
The company also sells Bluetooth controlled cars and has many new accessories on the way.
Russian search engine Yandex now owns SBP Software the company which made the extremely useful SPB Backup which lets you backup your Windows Mobile device. This software saved me more than once.
At first glance, this is a better way of organizing your applications. Cost is $49.99 for consumers and the software is available for carriers, OEMs and ODMs as well.
Which to fully stay in touch and to communicate with others effectively over multiple channels means having to lug both sets of devices, which are a pain in the back, neck and arms and most importantly the wallets. And as the number of things one has grows arithmetically the odds of losing, misplacing, breaking or having the items stolen or most commonly the batteries dying increases geometrically.
That’s why I have neither a so-called smartphone nor a tablet. And I’m on a rate plan that my carrier now loses money, so my mailbox (and recycling ban) regularly gets filled with offers to upgrade…
I keep checking at my carrier's local outlet. Maybe I ought to write to them and make the suggestion...if they really want my business and that of many others in the same position.
Now could it be that the device manufacturers may finally get it right by combining the two? And actually give heavy duty voice and keyboard users like journalists (like me), emergency personnel (like my paramedic son) and yes salespeople, field support and contact center supervisors a do-everything/anytime/anywhere box?
The other week I was in a competing carrier (to mine)’s retail outlet, saying how convenient it would be to have an iPad combined with an iPhone and the salesperson hinted to me that it the iPad could have that functionality…
Now HP’s new TouchPad tablet, says the release… is “Designed to be used alone or as a digital companion to your webOS phone, TouchPad connects you and your devices through the elegant webOS experience. Never miss an important call or SMS message – they can be answered and viewed right on your TouchPad.”
Two key footnotes point out that the TouchPad “Requires connection to compatible webOS phone with the same HP webOS Account. Voice service requires separately purchased service contract. Availability may vary by carrier.” Also “Within wireless coverage area only. SMS and IM require data services at additional cost. SMS requires connection to compatible webOS phone. Availability of IM functionality may vary by carrier.”
A CNet article on the release including this information: “Initially the TouchPad will be offered as a Wi-Fi only device, though HP said it plans to release a version with 3G/4G mobile connectivity later on down the line.”
Hmm: 3G/4G…could it mean I could run Vonage of the tablet with a speech-to-text softphone app, clip on the Bluetooth and do an end run over cellphone fees through VoIP?
Now we would be talking…
In doing so the DNC legislation also saved the telemarketing industry and the jobs it creates. So ticked off were lawmakers who were being bombarded with consumer complaints that they didn't care about the risk of employment losses. And that's unusual for politicians.
Tom Cardella, founder of Thomas M. Cardella Associates, and one of the teleservices industry's leading lights, called it right in a recent article on TMCnet:
"There has been much hand-wringing about the effects of the national Do Not Call list. It has been blamed by some as the cause of huge job losses in the teleservices industry."
"I don't agree. Those jobs would have been gone anyway because consumers were getting annoyed with unwanted calls and were hanging up, not answering, and otherwise not buying, which was making outbound teleservices more costly and less profitable."
Concerns about annoying telemarketing calls appear to have been superseded by more pressing worries: like keeping jobs including in teleservices, hence the interest in preventing more them from going offshore and bringing those back that have left.
That does not mean that telemarketing is finally free of hassles, and resulting attention of lawmakers. Because there continues to be other aggravating and costly-to-consumer telemarketing practices which are on their radar screens. Once the big targets of the economy and employment have been knocked off it is a safe bet that they will turn their sights to these issues such as:
1. Random calling and DNC list abuse. Fraudsters and greedy, irresponsible if lawful businesses are or are paying teleservices companies to make random calls even to individuals who put their names on DNC lists. Some have used the DNC lists to make calls
2. Continuing stupid telemarketing/outbound practices. High on the list: not having their names show up and 'Number Unavailables' on called parties' Caller ID
Yes, stupid. Many consumers use Caller ID to screen calls. If they don't know who the caller is they don't answer. And consumers are getting ticked off at the dumb firms who don't let them know who they are. Many would no doubt love to see those practices banned or deploy a ready tech fix that blocks all unidentified calls with the option of programming from phones or computers lists of acceptable numbers.
3. Calling to wireless numbers. Prohibited except for emergencies and or if there is prior express consent, this issue is much more problematic as more people are using, forwarding calls to, and increasingly ripping out their landlines (like the infamous definitely don't-do this-at home T-Mobile ad with the woman chainsawing telephone [actually 3-phase power, no phone lines] poles) for wireless.
The FCC is looking at, in response to a petition filed by Paul D.S. Edwards, whether creditors can place autodialed or prerecorded message calls to a telephone number associated with wireless service that was provided to the creditor initially as a telephone number associated with landlines.
It will be interesting to see how the FCC rules on this issue. Requiring express consent for all wireless calls including ported will accelerate wireless adoption--and be a boon to cell firms.
Yet regulators are usually loath to let rules stand in the way of legitimate activity such as collecting debts, and to let those who have such obligations to hide behind regulatory language to avoid meeting them.
There is also the issue of fairness to businesses who in good faith call landlines only to have the transmissions answered on cellphones.
Does the FCC open the gates to wireless users, who pay for their inbound calls, to receive many more calls on their devices at their expense by providing such 'safe harbors' for creditors and others e.g. telemarketers making lawful calls via autodialers?
Or does it decide to go beyond the Do Not Call list and make all outbound calls opt-in with express consent because such calls, wanted, undesired but lawful and proper i.e. collections, and unwanted cost consumers money?
Steve Brubaker, senior vice president, corporate affairs of InfoCision, a leading teleservices firm, pointed out in a recent blog and had informed the FCC that "it is ludicrous to think that a consumer would want to abolish all existing business relationship pertaining to a phone number just because he or she moved the number from their home phone to their cell phone. Think about it... if the petition goes through, then every consumer that wants to retain its existing business relationships, and allow those companies to call it using that same phone number would have to contact those companies to give them express consent to do so. What a waste of consumers' time!
"And we're not just talking about collection and solicitation calls, but also notifications of credit card fraud, interruptions in telecommunication service, and many other issues of which the consumer typically wants to be notified.
"In addition, the detailed lists that teleservices companies like InfoCision have painstakingly built over time would be rendered useless, unless we contacted each of the consumers on the lists by some other method to reestablish consent to be contacted by their recently ported cell phone number. It would be nearly impossible and terribly expensive to undertake such a task."
There has been a powerful call for industry self-regulation to handle issues such as these. It can and has been argued that had there been an effective self-regulatory regime 10-15 years ago the present DNC and other rules could have been avoided.
The advocates of this viewpoint are correct in one sense: developing best practices standards, educating the industry on them, and backing them with penalties such as expulsion from trade organizations that adopt these standards can and will reduce violations. There has been excellent work in this area by the American Teleservices Association through its SRO (Self-Regulatory Organization) and by the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA).
There is certainly a need to get and keep the legitimate players on their toes. Witness the recent regulatory actions involving certain cable and satellite entertainment firms, whose names need not be repeated here.
The CMA has one of the most stringent set of telemarketing best practices/self-regulation there is. The CMA, unlike its U.S. counterparts, has taken a smarter, more politically astute approach to regulations. Instead of confrontation and foot dragging it took an accurate reading of the situation and chose to work with elected officials and departments. It got what it wanted including the canning of a proposal to include B2B in Canada's DNCL.
Yet not even the CMA was able to forestall regulations or prevent ongoing telemarketing problems. That's because of the biggest weakness of self-regulation in this industry which is the lack of barriers to entry. Anyone can set up a telemarketing business and many do, and they don't have to join a trade organization and many don't. Their clientele could care less, especially those that don't mind them working the gray areas in boosting results.
The CMA has shown one way forward and that is to create or set the basis for doable legislation. Most of the CMA's best practices, including calling hours got adopted into Canada's revamped telemarketing laws.
In doing so the CMA has followed the route of many other organizations in creating consensus rules and standards that have become accepted and enforceable regulations. For example the offices that we work in have been wired in accordance with legally mandated electrical codes and government workplace safety regulations that have their origin in private consensus standards such as ANSI in the U.S. and the CSA in Canada.
To ensure that the next set of regulations that will be coming down the pipeline from legislators are fair and effective the telemarketing industry needs to devise some solutions of their own, use their self-regulatory mechanisms to test them and build consensus and at the same time sit down with lawmakers to go over these issues. That the industry is already taking proactive steps to come up with answers that could offer them guidance acknowledges the pain the lawmakers are getting from their constituents, which gets them onside.
In that fashion, by working together the industry and government will have a fair set of future rules that address needs which everyone can live with.
UPDATE:
The Canadian government has introduced Bill C-27, Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA) designed to deter spam but which also repeals the Canadian Do Not Call List, which has been criticized by privacy advocates for not doing enough to stop unwanted phone calls.
One important difference that could shape telemarketing as the legislation winds itself through Parliament: the ECPA is opt-in wheras DNCL is opt-out, as pointed out in Michael Geist's article in today's Toronto Star. I wouldn't be surprise to see telemarketing made opt-in to get rid of both the DNCL and the issue of reaching cellphones.
]]>To get at the answers let's look at the two key benefits of this program:
1. It opens the door to truly effective e-commerce to residents and businesses, thereby increasing the availability of competitively priced products and services, and enhancing the economy, and to more information and services like distance learning and telemedicine. That means less gas, vehicle wear, and time in the long drives to the nearest urban centers
2. It enables job creation in rural areas such as from telework
Many rural communities have missed out on the recent economic boom. Unemployment and underemployment have been high and is getting worse. A recent story in The Daily Yonder reports double-digit rates in many communities. The recent economic downturn has for example decreased demand for resources such as forestry products. Fewer new homes means less need for local loggers, sawmill workers, and truckers.
Telework--via broadband--enables organizations that have forward-enough management i.e. supervision-by-performance rather than by-pointing-to-heads into this excellent supply of hard working individuals. It can also save them money: $10,000 to $20,000 per agent per year and improve customer satisfaction and retention, and revenues.
Not surprisingly telework through home-based agents is emerging as a viable alternative to offshoring. The cost savings and productivity benefits through home agents have made U.S. and Canada viable competitors to other countries for call handling.
There is a wide range of existing and developing broadband technologies available. TMC Group Publisher Rich Tehrani has in a recent blog pointed to broadband over power line (BPL), along with satellite, 3G, 4G (WiMAX/LTE), and perhaps white space technology. He correctly points out that the 'jury is still out' on these choices, and for good reason.
While with the exception of satellite, whose setup can be problematic (ask a rural resident who has tried to get it going) most of these methods appear to be fine for Internet access and e-mail.
Where the issue lies, however, is with VoIP. VoIP can and has for many firms made teleworking/home-based agents possible by dramatically reducing communications costs. No more LD charges from the switch to remote workers 50+ miles away.
Yet according to conversations with firms such as inContact and MegaPath there are quality of service (QoS) issues with wireless: cellular and satellite transmission. These methods have apparently not delivered consistent high enough QoS that callers, and companies expect. There are also other obstacles to VoIP ranging from old copper and data networks to home networks, depending on who you talk to.
There has been sufficient concern with VoIP to prompt three prominent pure-play telework outsourcers: Alpine Access, Arise, and Working Solutions to prohibit VoIP by their agents. Meanwhile 'blended' teleservices firms like Convergys that permit their home agents to have VoIP can route calls to bricks-and-mortar agents.
Yet in another strike against wireless, for Internet access to work at home applications, Convergys also clearly states that "Wireless or satellite broadband does not work effectively with our desktop configuration, and therefore does not meet our requirements".
Even with the good QoS on the network there can be inconsistency. You can have two VoIP 'lines' at home, one for work and one for personal, being fed from the same source, yet the quality can be different for each.
The alternative to integrated high QoS VoIP+ data: broadband for Internet--assuming that it can support work-at-home hosted solutions--and PSTN for calls would become just as unwieldy for rural residents and businesses as it is becoming for those in more urban areas, many of whom are opting for voice/data through the same pipe.
The future of voice communication according to many experts is VoIP rather than old-fashioned PSTN. If that is the case the VoIP issue, along with the need to support intensive web-based solutions, needs to be explored and resolved before any tax dollars are handed over to companies to install rural broadband.
]]>Companies are very interested in the hosting model because they want to get away from buying licenses and bolting in hardware just as they no longer, with few exceptions, own their buildings: to save capital costs and give them greater flexibility.
Enterprise solutions, like buildings, are infrastructure. They don't define the firms' value propositions. Instead their products, pricing, service, and their people do. Slowly, in contact centers and in other fields such as media and PR, organizations realize that they don't need buildings either, or if so, they need much less space than in the past.
The challenge for hosting i.e. the cloud, a.k.a. SaaS is reliably and seamlessly handling the huge volumes of data and interactions through it. That is why heavy-duty enterprise-scaled contact center-based or using applications such as CRM, performance management speech analytics, speech rec, and workforce management/optimization have been licensed for clients' premises, and why hosted/SaaS has been confined to SMEs.
If any firm can make enterprise-scaled hosting possible, and to make licensed premise software and bolted hardware practices of the past it is Nortel. Only Nortel has both the carrier-and-enterprise-grade engineering and expertise to make this happen. Nortel's strength in carrier landline and wireless products is not matched by any of its enterprise solutions competitors e.g. Avaya, Cisco.
The markets are there: carriers, ASPs, and CRM/ERM/database solutions firms. Nortel can easily support a mashup say between Verizon Business and an Oracle or for the Canadian market, Telus and CDC, makers of Pivotal. Hosted top-drawer solutions may provide cost-reduction/customer retention-seeking enterprises the tools they need to survive the economic climate and prepare for recovery: and likewise for the carriers offering them.
By going to the cloud, both Nortel, the carriers, solutions developers, and their customers can take flight, and grow...if nervous investors allow them.
]]>Thanks to at last the widening 3G and nascent 4G networks, and increasingly user-friendly smartphones that permit easier keying and surfing, prospects and consumers are researching and buying online, anytime, anywhere. They will want the convenience of finding a product on a website, like a must-have gift, then texting or calling the merchant and having it set aside for purchase at the nearest location, then guaranteeing it with a credit card.
The Acquity Group has correctly identified, in a recent white paper, that eCommerce will be the top channel for growth in 2009. It is seeing major department stores, specialty retailers, and manufacturers continue to invest in improving eCommerce. It says the competitiveness of these industries and the increasing demands of consumers will continue to force these organizations to invest despite economic conditions. Cuts will occur, but because of the strategic importance of the online channel it will be the last place people stop investing.
The Acquity Group says "leaders in this space see the downturn as an opportunity to gain greater market share over their competitors and continue to grow sales in their
online channel. The rest are beginning to realize the importance of this
channel as well."
What is also needed is for the smartphone makers to think bigger and come up with a device about the size of a 4x6 pic with a keyboard that can actually be used, with minimal errors, and a screen that can actually be seen (especially for those of us 40+ and who have the disposable income), for some real serious online shopping, e-mailing, and work...
]]>The phrase is appropriate today as there are published stories swirling amidst falling snow throughout Ontario and Quebec that a leveraged buyout (LBO) of Montreal-based Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), the country's largest communications carrier, scheduled to close Dec.11, 2008 may be doomed.
The Globe and Mail reported an announcement by Bell that it had obtained a 'preliminary view' from KPMG that the accounting firm does not expect to deliver opinion by the close whether the deal would meet the solvency tests. It cited 'current market conditions, its analysis to date and the amount of indebtedness involved'.
The newspaper said that '"Unless this changes by that [the closing] date, BCE warned, the transaction is unlikely to proceed.'"
LBOs are excellent tools to make companies lean and efficient because the added debt burden and the need to reduce it forces firms to cut costs and grow revenues.
Unfortunately for BCE, the completion of this LBO could not come at a worse though in fairness unpredictable time as far the markets are concerned. The tightening economy is already pushing Bell to cut costs; it recently laid off staff at its Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton offices.
The added debt may strain Bell's ability to compete with competitors in the wireless 4G or Next-Gen and other hot markets by limiting its resources. Bell, like other ILECs haven't quite figured out what to do with its legacy PSTN/TDM network regarding IP. It is losing residential landline customers to cable firms like Cogeco. Fewer dollars means less money to go all IP over copper wires (VoDSL).
Whether the LBO proceeds or not, Bell, even though it is fairly good shape, will be under pressure to merge, and so will its competitors, to expand markets and cut costs arguably truly only possible by becoming integrated coast-to-coast-to-coast 4G wireless/IP landline carriers. Expect rumors and even delivery of M&As such as Bell+Telus and Rogers+Cogeco+Shaw, but only after Bell bleeds more and becomes much less expensive to acquire.